Jamz3k

my ****bake of a bank RBS (ulsterbank) have charged me £160 for missed payments on direct debits. This is after me telling the ****ers that if they didn't extend my overdraft i would be in this situation due to changing jobs etc but they refused!

Do i have a leg to stand on to get these charges refunded?

The Zohan

As much as i hate to say it and god knows i hate bank charges it looks to me like;

You asked, they refused, you left the DD's in place, insufficient funds to pay so rejected and they charged you for doing so. You could ask to speak to your bank manager and give it a whirl.

How much is each charge, are they iunfair, why not go after them for all your bank charges.

Oh and open a new account with another bank.

Good luck

yoza

You could phone an Indian robot and plead your case, but after reading the autocue she will always return to the same " sorry we cant help you " line.

Ever so pleasant though, and always interested in our weather.

The Zohan

A little unfair, some call centres are in the Philippines you know!

yoza

Answered by Indians on holiday.

The Zohan

Surely that would be a call centre in Leicester then?

hodgy0_2

if i genuinly think they have been a **** to charge me on insufficient funds etc
I ring and ask for the "dispute resolution team"

i always get them credited back

Snazy

lol "you are speaking to Dave, how may I be helping you today"

As for the OP, sounds like they have you over a barrel mate, but I hope thats not the case.
I know the charges are there for a reason, but they are almost like insult to injury. Just when you dont even have enough for your bills, they take more of you, so there is even less. !

jods

That's outrageous - Banks are getting hauled over the coals for this kind of extortion.
Ask them to refund the charges or you'll refer it to the Banking Ombudsman.

Wnakers!!!

EddScott

Do you have a healthy balance? Banks are more likely to hand back charges if you've got a fair wodge with them. If you pretty much spend what you earn they will royally shaft you any chance they get.

I have a big overdraft with Halifax. I ran out of dosh from one account at midnight, put money in from another account in the a.m. (we are talking a DDM of £20) and they charged me for going over and charged for the DDM (about £60-£80 - WTF!!!)

Because of the OD, the manager basically told me tough sh1te. I told her I hope Lloyds close the branch and they all end up on the dole - as you do when you haven't got a leg to stand on and someone has something over you. I have now saved upto the OD and am looking forward to closing all 3 of our accounts - if the branch loses too many accounts it gets closed.

Rock on biatch!

Jamz3k

Pretty much sucks *** mate as I know this will cause a spirrel effect next month etc. I'm going to give them a call tomorrow and politely ask them to sort it out, if not i'm going to scream blue murder then blame RBS for getting the UK into a recession which in turn made my last job fall to pieces and put me into this situation.

TurboKitty

A polite, reasoned letter is likely to help more than "screaming blue murder".

If I want a problem resolved, I pretty much always write, so I can prove what I said and when, should I want to escalate things. Telephone calls are easy to forget/ignore/have no record of, but it's more difficult to claim no knowledge of a letter sent by recorded delivery.


Incidentally, last time I did this, the letter was ignored. So after a month I queried it. The excuse I was given was that it had "probably been forwarded to Head Office by mistake". I enquired whether Head Office didn't ought to have someone capable of dealing with the matter or, at the very least, sending it back to someone who could? I suggested perhaps I should write directy to Head Office to make these points. Strangely my letter was immediately "found" and the problem resolved within 24 hours. I swear they must think we are all idiots.

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

Bank charges suck, even more so if you have tried to sort something out with them/taken advice.

A while back I was struggling making payments (not going into the details), got in touch with the bank and ended up going on a debt management plan via their advice. While this was being set up, I was told to cancel the direct debit for the payment and he would note it on my account. I laboured the point about would this money be taken and he assured me it wouldn't, I'd just get a standard letter to say I'd missed a payment, that's all. If only...

Nope, they took the payment in full and left me with absolutely nothing. So naturally I rang up to question this, explaining my recent conversation. Nothing was noted, so she didn't have a clue what was going on, so had to explain the full story yet again. She then told me they would refund the payment, but could take about a week. No good, as I wasn't due to be paid for a few days and had no money at all, not even to get to work, let alone live on/pay other bills. Was told to just go into branch and withdraw the full amount to be refunded as it would show up as pending, and she would put a note on explaining what was going on, she even said they would know what this all meant (gave me specific wording to tell them). Asked if I'd be charged for this, she said no.

So went into branch and they looked, no notes. They rang up, and were told to give me the money, so did. However, I was at my overdraft limit as they knew, and shock horror, I was later charged £20 a day for being over my limit, despite being told this wouldn't happen, as their refund was pending etc. and this was what I was told to do.

Now being in a financial mess may well be my own doing and I don't deny that, but I was trying to go down the right route to get back on track, with the advice of the bank, and basically they ****ed me over every step of the way. I don't want sympathy for my personal situation, but being lied to/people not doing what they say bloody annoys me.

Sorry for the long post, and that was the short version.

Good job I haven't gone on to tell the tale of my other halfs' recent issue with them and their incompetance.

Time to change banks, but they're probably all the same.

StickyMicky

^^^^

Lisa the same thing happened to me when i was 17

Bank advisor put me on a plan to reduce my over draft, we worked out how much i could live on and realisticly how much i could afford to have my overdraft reduced each month.

I asked for an extended overdraft and they refused me point blank.

I made a double sure point of asking the bloke "HAS THE DIRECT DEBITS DUE FOR TODAY CAME OUT MY ACCOUNT?" and he assured me they had, so the plan was put in motion.

He lied, the payments did not come out, they were refused, and i then had bounced payments to sort out, this meant that all my wages were going into my account at the time, and due to the reduced over draft each month, i was having about £50 to live on (good job i lived with parents )

It was HORRIBLE, i had to buy all my christmas presents from the local poundshop
Just after christmas the over draft was paid off, and i enquired about having an extended over draft set up, more then the amount that i originally owed them, to my utter surprise they gave me it straight away

I have been right up there in the world of debt before, and i definitely did not want to ever go back, unfortunately when the recession hit i took a massive loss at work, i lost 10k from my feckin wage last year, it was either me take a 10k wage cut, or start laying off staff

I kept the staff, hoping it was going to get better, unfortunately i still had to get rid of one of them a few months back as i had no money left and was getting sucked right back into the world of debt once again. While the banks were getting shouted at by the goverment to help small business`s, they did **** all in my case, "can i have my business over draft increased to help me out?" "NO" so i had to use the personal account over draft instead to help cover bills, back to feckin square one
Bank charges have been quite extreme recently

Banks suck!

I am quite lucky now, in that the missus is payed quite well, so she can afford to carry us both when the **** hits the fan, although our standard of living has been utter ****e for the past 6 months or so

We went from going out for meals a few times per week, to eating ****e from iceland as it was cheaper i work 7 days a week, not had a feckin day off since i layed off the last lad (i`m feckin knackerd) and the real knife twister, is that 2 weeks after i got rid of him, work picked up, and is now doing quite well to be honest!

I probably have another 8 months of 7 days a week though to get myself back to where i was before the recession

As of this morning, i am £500 under my business account over draft, and i am now 2k under my personal account over draft
As soon as the road gritters come out for the winter i will be smack bang in my busy season and will be able to clear any debts with utter ease (hope we have a nice cold one )

At least i don't really consider it my fault this time, its the bladdy goverment

hodgy0_2

always record who you spoke to and the approx time of the call -- then in a dispute they will have to find the recording of the call (i think they HAVE to have one)

I got shoddy service from my bank 3 years ago (after 25 years with it) so I said if they didnt sort it out I would close my account and move - they didn't so I moved

and if my new bank ***** up - i,e, block a payment near the last day of the month -- when they know full well that my Salary goes in, then I go to the "dispute resolution team" and tell them it's not on, they should not just rely on some cheap automated process to make a decision -- refund me or I will simply move (and I will)

urban

iTrader: (1)

Banks are ******.

For example - I did some work for a local N.Ireland bank a few years ago.
I wrote their monthly charges generation code.
I can tell you its heavily loaded in their favour and written to trap you.
It checks for example if you're near the limit and then looks at future transactions to see if it can put you over - et voila wish granted.

Their theory was that "most" people would just pay and not query that the bank might be wrong.

53

iTrader: (41)

Ring them or better still pop in, they will probably refund part or all for a genuine reason.

It's worth noting that it is mainly poorly maintained accounts that get bounced. 9/10 times people are serial offenders ! Accounts are managed by lending control departments who decide whether the account is good for the money based on activity, income, expenditure, hardcore debt etc. If you have financial problems banks will help you, but they won't if you take without permission. The penalties are high, but then so are the numbers of people who do a runner with the banks money everyday.