Reclaiming bank charges made easy

By Jeremy Hand


Refunding bank charges from current or closed current accounts which were often charged at an excessive rate by nearly all the UK high street banks, the charges occurred when you had gone over your agreed overdraft limit.

Bounced cheques and missed direct debits used to incur a penalty fee of over 35, which in most cases was just an automated letter from the bank.

This of course made the customers problem worse as the charges made them more overdrawn so they were getting charged more fees for the fees that made them overdrawn, the awful catch 22 situation kicked in, that compounded customers misery very quickly.

Appealing to your high street bank is a lot harder than it was, they have lowered the cost in all cases to a set fee, but it is still possible to argue the point on the old bank charges and claim back the bank charges that you incurred ,they were too much, in a lot of the cases the banks have refunded thousands of pounds in fees instead of the case going to the Banking Ombudsman.



If your bank believes your complaint or case may be looked at by the Banking Ombudsman it may offer a full settlement or partial settlement, if you go through the process of steps between you and your high street bank.

Of course there are no guarantees that the banks will pay out on your unfair high street bank charges but the banking companies are not very keen to go against the Banking Ombudsman, and in some deals now the banks are in fact owned by the state, and the bank charge refunds have still been happening, but the banks have toughened up.



What was an unfair bank charge



Excessive bank overdraft fees or banking fees are really now classed as unfair bank charges, the banks sent out automated documents explaining the charges and the whole process would cost you 35, it was argued that the cost was not equal to the work generating the letter.




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