Reclaim Bank Charges

Bank charges are those annoying things that take you by surprise when your pay is late or a direct debit is taken early. The first you hear about a bounced cheque or "unauthorised overdraft" is when you get that letter in the post informing you of it and charging you £30 or £40.

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It is so annoying when you get charged £40 for going £0.01 overdrawn and then you get charged interest on the new overdraft amount of £40.01 which you wouldn't even have had if the bank hadn't charged you £40! Very annoying.

If you consider that the average bank charge is £30, it is easy to see how UK banks make billions of pounds from charges including those for:-

-- An unauthorised overdraft
-- A bounced cheque
-- Account misuse
-- Exceeding the agreed overdraft limit
-- Direct Debit or Standing Order return fee
-- Late payment fee
-- Unpaid cheque fee
-- Unpaid standing order fee
-- Unpaid direct debit fee
-- Card misuse fee

These types of charges are obviously big business for UK banks but they can be seen as unjustified. For example, does it really cost a bank £30-40 if you go a penny overdrawn? Can the bank really justify that charge for sending out an automated letter with a franked stamp?

The OFT (Office of Fair Trading) is trying to establish exactly what fees and charges should be charged by banks, so that they are fair to everyone, but one report by a professor of banking estimates that it only costs £2.50-£4.50 for a bank to deal with a situation like an unauthorised overdraft and to send out a letter.

If your bank cannot justify the amount charged then you may have a good chance of reclaiming the bank charge because English law does not allow penalty clauses. There are two laws which protect you as a consumer – the "Unfair (Contracts) Terms Act 1977" and the "Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999". These laws protect consumers by specifying that in order for a bank charge to be deemed "lawful", the charge must represent the actual, real financial loss that has been sustained by the bank, building society, credit card company or other financial institution. If the bank cannot prove this then the charge is not lawful and the charge is deemed an unfair penalty charge which you should be able to recover.

If you have suffered a bank charge which you feel is unfair or unreasonable, you may be able to recover the charge. What's more, current legislation means that you have six years in which to make a claim (5 years in Scotland). Banks will do everything they can to wriggle out of paying back these bank charges so it is worth seeking advice from a specialist bank charge recovery organisation to help you with your claim. A specialist solicitor will have the expertise, know how the system works and know the tactics that banks use to try to get out of refunding these charges, so let them do the hard work for you. The solicitor may even be able to recover your bank charges on a no win no fee basis.

You can help your bank charge recovery case by supplying your solicitor with bank statements and bank charge letters but you don't need to worry if these have gone missing because they can be recovered from the bank in question.

Seek advice today for your unfair bank charge by using the form at the top of this page.

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