someone tickling your **** with a feather young man, or just happy to answer my question? :wink:

But just because the bank includes these charges on T&C, doesn't make them any more legal.

I wonder why the OFT said £12. I still think that a claimant would have evidential difficulties.

I went to trial on mortgage early redemption fees 3 or 4 times. Most times, claimants didn't have a clue what they were doing or what they wanted back and so incurred the wrath of the judge for not having prepared properly.

If you do have a pop - make sure you have your ducks in order. Don't expect to win simply by turning up and saying 'they charged me £20 for a letter and that's not fair' cos you won't get very far. To win you need evidence, like when, how many times, how much, do you have the letters in question, did they tell you about the fees etc. The killer blow would be to be able to say how much the bank makes on the letters, but this info would be very difficult to get hold of. The bank would have to say why their charges aren't unreasonable. Remember the burden of proof is on the claimant.

Whilst there may be a flurry of claims in correspondence, somehow I don't see the courts getting too busy on this.

The reason I don't is because they won't give me an overdraft. I don't live beyond my means, but my monthly spending is on average just below my monthly income. The problem comes when I get big bills, and I'm not talking about unnecessary things, I'm talking about rent, which was quarterly at my last place.
Once a big bill came in, I would then find myself struggling to get back into the black because the bank wasn't willing to give me that very small overdraft. With the overdraft I know that I would have incurred minimal charges over the past year.

I don't disagree with the basic idea of bank charges. I object to them when they become the punishment rather than covering the "costs" of my actions.

It's very easy for a lot of people to say that all we need to do to avoid bank charges is to keep our accounts in order, but I can only assume you don't have any recent experience of living/eating on virtually no money once things like rent/insurance have been paid.

akbarhussain wrote:-

:? :? :?

I was happy to answer the question - why the sarcy comment?

Good advice Ed.

banks are scum !

I could tell you were happy, the 'laughing' emoticon showed this. My comment wasn't intended to be sarcastic - hence the 'wink' emoticon. :wink:

Carsick, try to ignore those coments. Some people seem to get a smug satisfaction from telling others 'what they should've done'. Everybody stumbles across tough times in their life from time to time - good luck with the bank. :)

akbarhussain wrote:-

Hokey dokey no problemo - just checking that you weren't trolling :wink: :lol:

Right - lets get this thread back on topic before I get another bollocking from chief :wink:

U rated Mattsv - 3 strikes and you're out.