A colleague of mine at Myvesta successfully claimed back £485 in bank charges on behalf of his daughter today. Evidently his daughter had incurred a number of ufair ban charges with her bank Abbey so father and daughter decided to take a stand.

 

Initially, my colleague had written to the bank asking for Abbey to justify their charges accordingly. Abbey refused to disclose this information.

 

The crux of the issue with the legality of bank charges is that banks are not allowed to profit from penalty fees under English law. This begs the question ‘does it really cost a bank or credit card company up to £39 to send a letter or bounce an electronic direct debit?’ Most people, my colleague and the Office of fair Trading included, think not.

 

Hence if it does not cost banks this much to cover their commercial costs then these fees are essentially unfair and more importantly illegal.

 

Certainly my colleague felt that it was worth fighting for and so after Abbey refused to provide him with a breakdown of their commercial costs he decided to ask for the full amount of the bank charges to be refunded forthwith.

 

Abbey initially refused but when my colleague threatened to take the to court they made a settlement offer to repay part of what was being claimed. After considering this my colleague decided to arrange a small claims court hearing instead.

 

Today, (October 25th, 2006) was the day of the hearing at Chester County Court. Abbey did not actually turn up for the hearing instead a fax had been sent the day before to the court instead. The fax informed the court hat the claim had been settled in full. The judge commented that Abbey had been ‘impertinent’ and agreed to also cover my colleague’s daughters parking costs and ‘loss of earnings’ costs. Another similar case on the same day had resulted in a ‘no show’ from another bank also. The judge awarded for the claimant in a similar way too.

 

If you would like to claim back your unfair bank charges – click here