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.