Alan Kay, Marsascala
Contesting unreasonable bank charges
Having joined other correspondents recently on this subject, and agreeing totally with those published on February 24 as well as previously, may I offer the following to assist:
As we are aware, there is a test case currently before the courts in the UK to establish the legality of the banks' charging structure. Under judgment is whether a bank may only make a charge equivalent to the cost it incurs, for example, not paying a standing order (as in the correspondent's case of February 24) or whether they are entitled to levy what amounts to a "punitive charge" in excess of the actual cost to its business.
During my career as a financial consultant in the UK I was at times called on to prepare a case against a bank by individuals wishing to contest the charging on their accounts.
I am free to cite my wife's account, by which the case for the previous six years of overcharging was argued with one of the major high street banks, and resulted in a refund to her in excess of £3,000 without recourse to law.
It is therefore clear that every time we incur a charge we feel is unrelated to the actual cost to the bank, we should query and enter into correspondence over it until they realise an unreasonable level of charging unrelated to the work carried out, is not acceptable.
Popular Stories
In Discussion
3 Comments
Post comment
Please sign in or create your Account to post comments.
Peter Murray
Feb 27th 2009, 19:23
Aplogies for omitting to mention the High Court Judge's most damming indictment whereby he stated that such action of a bank in charging excessively for services,regardless of whether prior advised or not as per published charges,amounted to "PROFITEERING",if such costs did not correspond to the level of work undertaken to supply the customer with such.With regret ,Alan, it would take a massive sea-change in a either a banks commitment to accepting such as well as much more robust regulation (read any)to support such action by a banks customer.
Peter Murray
Feb 27th 2009, 17:51
Dear Alan, The case you are referring to the UK is actually one of appeal.An appeal brought about by the banks against the High Court judgment already handed down in this case(MAY,2008)in which a High Court Judge(sorry but I can't recall his name)ruled that "BANKS WERE GUILTY OF INFLICTING CUSTOMERS WITH EXCESSIVE AND UNFAIR CHARGES AND TARIFFS".They will undoubtedly attempt to drag this appeal through the courts for many years and in the interim period still inflict it's customers with the exact same iniquitious criteria-even in this toxic financial time.Also why is the UK now the poor relation in Europe,and indeed the rest of the English-speaking world,with regard to the Depositors Compensation Scheme which currently stands at a paltry £50,000 Sterling as opposed to 100,000 Euros (approx.£89.000)minimum in the rest of the EU -and even more in the USA and Australasia?
Kurt Mifsud
Feb 27th 2009, 13:22
When my last life insurance (due to the home loan) payment was to be deducted, I had only 10c missing from the total amount. Instead of informing me, BOV just didn't make the payment at all and charged me Lm5! I later received a notice letter from Global Capital that my payment wasn't received.
At least they should have had the decency of sending me a letter which would have cost them a few cents from the Lm5 charge!