elisabeth

BTW how did you get down to £-238.19? Was that your account balance, in which case I thought you were only 19p overdrawn? </BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm guessing he had a £200 overdraft and was 19p over it when they applied the first charge.

elisabeth

Shouldn't they be offering you a massive overdraft anyway (although probably not now!), being a student and all. I thought the typical one was 1k? Thats what I got anyway

/non-helpful comments.....

retired_rachelst

BTW how did you get down to £-238.19? Was that your account balance, in which case I thought you were only 19p overdrawn? </BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm guessing he had a £200 overdraft and was 19p over it when they applied the first charge. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah yeah forgot about overdrafts (don't have them here).

retired_sakiskate4694

a few years ago when I was a student, I was getting charged all the time. had wife , kid and a morgage as well. My student account had no overdraught on it. but I kept on going overdrawn and incurring £15 charges. these charges made me more out of line in with by budget, to which a roll on effect hurt me each month. if you tracked back the charges to my balance I was only theoretically over drawn once.

because I had loans, morgage, joint and student accounts with the bank my manager had appointed a banking advisor to me. ( back in the day of friendly local banks , so any problems I had a direct person to contact.

one day I was discussing the bank charges with some fellow student when I found out they all had student accounts with £500 overdraughts, minimuim. one guy used the same bank as me. told me the student account comes with a guaranteed overdraught of £500.

I then made an appointment with my advisor and brought out several bank statements with all charges highlighted, I asked her as an advisor, is it her job to advise me how to best utilise the banks services or to make sure the bank can get the most out of me in charges. she admited it was the former to which I replied. well why am I not getting the use of the banks guaranteed
£500 overdraught facility on student accounts.

Her face was a picture

I was refunded all bank charges, back in the 90's not as common as now.

so was given back a few hundered quid and given a £500 overdraught. walked out of the bank 10 feet tall. it felt good.

done the responsible thing and bought a ps1 (that doesn't sound to spectacular but it was the mid 90's guys)

if you have a valid point, then ask to meet with someone, have a written structure of the chain of events. dont talk to bank tellers or call centres. Book an appointment with someone at your branch. But make sure you have your facts straight,

the story you are telling us reads as (not saying its factually correct),

you were 19p overdrawn, they then knocked back a DD, because you didn't have any money in the account for that. £38 charge putting you £38.19 over the agreed overdraught. if the initial dd was for £29.99 then to put you 19p overdrawn you would have had a balance of -£170.20, but they charged you £38 and knocked it back because the balance was -£200.19

if this was a monthly DD did you add funds to the account, because it doesn't appear you have.

this is assuming the charges breakdown post was correct.

good luck though :thup:

retired_sakiskate4694

lol

its late/early

about 20 times

BarryLFC

Contradicting yourself a bit here. You say in the second part that charges aren't illegal, having already stated that they are a deterrant, which is explicitly illegal. It's not even a question of interpretation. Watch the test case and see.


*hopes he's right to place his faith in the English Justice system*

retired_kris10nicole

Contradicting yourself a bit here. You say in the second part that charges aren't illegal, having already stated that they are a deterrant, which is explicitly illegal. It's not even a question of interpretation. Watch the test case and see.


*hopes he's right to place his faith in the English Justice system* </BLOCKQUOTE>

I think waiting for the Judges decision rather than taking Henry's dads word for it was a good idea whatever.

retired_calli240

Mardy

Your timing was very unlucky, but the best advice is to sit tight and await the test case now.

Overcharging massively for going over limit is unlawful, NOT illegal (yet). It's an important distinction. The OFT court case will hopefully lead to a ruling that they're illegal too.

I reclaimed over £4000 successfully from First Direct and RBS before they froze all claims for others.

See if you can open a new account - try Nationwide's Flex account, and use that while you're waiting. In the meantime write to NatWest and tell them you are disputing all the charges as you believe them to be unfair and unlawful. Don't bother with CAB as they're not going to be able to help you.

One of two things will eventually happen.

The OFT case will be won and you'll get everything refunded.

The OFT case will be lost and NatWest will have to pursue you for the money. Believe me, you're not the only person to end up in these circumstances. I graduated more than £10k overdrawn in 1989, of which some £7.5k was charges applied unlawfully to my account. Granted I wasn't winning any prizes for running my account properly, but the bank's actions only exacerbated the situation

Chin up mate. Don't let the bar stewards grind you down.

retired_margie

thanks for your help people. :thup: