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The Key Steps To Reclaiming Unfair Bank Charges. Background To Reclaiming Your Bank Fees
The initial step to reclaiming your bank fees is very easy - write to the bank and request your money back! Yes, really!!! The letter, using a standard letter template (your address etc at the top) should give a reference of your bank account and include the date it was written.
Then, tell them that you are asking for a refund of all charges applied to your account in the past 6 years. Remind them that Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 charges must reflect administration costs and cannot be punitive. Then list the charges you have incurred and the amounts involved in each, simply saying that you do not believe the amounts to reflect the true cost to the bank.
Next, state the total amount that you have been charged and request that they refund it to you.
Finally, ask them to repay the money in full within 14 days, else you will place a claim against them for the entire amount, plus interest and costs. If you are at all uncertain, plenty of websites show example letters and include calculators to calculate what you are owed.
You have given the bank 2 weeks to reply, so if it doesn’t send a reminder and phone them. They might try to stall by offering a reply at a future date. In this case, write & phone telling them that you are offering them another 14 days before starting court proceedings.
Another trick the banks use is to tell customers that they are mistaken and cannot reclaim or that the charges are not unlawful. In this case, you are probably still at the position of a second letter and then start court action.
If they reply offering the entire claim then you have won. If they offer a partial refund then you have to take a decision as to whether it’s enough or whether you prefer to to continue. If the amount of fees involved are low or the proportion they are offering to repay is large, then the effort of continuing a claim might make acceptance worth while. But if they are offering a very low offer, there might be good rewards in holding out for the full amount. Only you can decide.
If you haven’t got the result you want through writing, then it’s time to try bluffing your bank with court action. If your claim is for less than £5,000, then you can go through the small claims court, even using the online system! If your larger than £5,000, then see if you can reduce the claim, either by not claiming all charges (for example if the claim is £5,001) or if the charges relate to more than one account, make multiple smaller claims.
At this point you then need to check how much a claim is going to cost you to start (you can claim for costs if you win / the bank does not defend the case). Then you can start the proceedings. But that is beyond the scope of this small writeup!
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