The Consumer Action Group

[livelylad/CAG]

Hi, hopefully the forum team will make this post a stickie


Firstly let me introduce myself, I am a serving soldier (18 years service) I am also a member of the Consumeractiongroup. My user name user name on CAG Livelylad.

The first and most important thing is that www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk is FREE to use there are no charges whatsoever registration and access to all the template letters and information is FREE.
The major issue we are dealing with at the moment is unlawful penalty charges that banks levy against customers.

I am fully aware of how soldiers deal with their finances and how difficult it can be for Pads to make ends meet. To much month at the end of the money. I myself have reclaimed over £3000 in unlawful bank charges.
I wont go into great details except to say that you can reclaim these charges. The site provides all the templates for every stage of you claim.

I urge anyone with any consumer issues to visit WWW.CONSUMERACTIONGROUP.CO.UK

You may have heard about our recent victory in Hull, this shows our commitment to our members.

Please check out the site, you will be surprised at knowing exactly what your consumer rights are.

 

[ViroBono]

CAG is excellent!

I am currently using the template letters to tackle my own bank charges, and am confident of success.

It's also a very good resource for anyone involved, through their job, in helping individuals who are in debt.

 

[livelylad/CAG]

BUMP

 

[DesktopCommando]

Ive metioned this site many times, still getting shafted by my bank waiting for my LBA to finish its term

 

[lemonsuckas]

have followed the story in hull through money saving expert and am glad that you have won. i have also successfully taken money from my bank and didnt expect it to be so easy to do..thanks to all concerned and if you havent done it yet,,what are you waiting for?????

 

[livelylad/CAG]

Hull was a joint effort by CAG,MSE and Govan Law Centre. I was there in court last week. It was quite an experiance.
Basically I am trying to spread the word to as many people as possible to reclaim their charges and take hold of their consumer rights.
I am available to help on the site just ask for me by name. Livelylad.

 

[The_Goon]

Stop bandying about the term "unlawful charges".

Not actually unlawful until the law says that they are. Once they do that, then you will have a better basis.

 

[bluearmy]

Hi, hopefully the forum team will make this post a stickie


Firstly let me introduce myself, I am a serving soldier (18 years service) I am also a member of the Consumeractiongroup. My user name user name on CAG Livelylad.

The first and most important thing is that www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk is FREE to use there are no charges whatsoever registration and access to all the template letters and information is FREE.
The major issue we are dealing with at the moment is unlawful penalty charges that banks levy against customers.

I am fully aware of how soldiers deal with their finances and how difficult it can be for Pads to make ends meet. To much month at the end of the money. I myself have reclaimed over £3000 in unlawful bank charges.
I wont go into great details except to say that you can reclaim these charges. The site provides all the templates for every stage of you claim.

I urge anyone with any consumer issues to visit WWW.CONSUMERACTIONGROUP.CO.UK

You may have heard about our recent victory in Hull, this shows our commitment to our members.

Please check out the site, you will be surprised at knowing exactly what your consumer rights are.

Well i'm in the procces of claiming back bank charges and i just recieved a letter off the bank saying they are busy and wont be able to deal with me for 6-7 weeks, i was just about to go to small claims court and thats gonna cost about 100 quid. is it still worth me going for it as i have heard that the banks are starting to win!!!

 

[Iolis]

Well i'm in the procces of claiming back bank charges and i just recieved a letter off the bank saying they are busy and wont be able to deal with me for 6-7 weeks, i was just about to go to small claims court and thats gonna cost about 100 quid. is it still worth me going for it as i have heard that the banks are starting to win!!!

You are advised to immediately respond to the bank stating that unless a response to your application is received by Moday 16 July 2007, the letter will be adduced in evidence in support of the contention that the effect of their correspondence is an attempt by the bank to reduce it's liability under section 5 Limitation Act 1980 at the expense of the claimant and that you will invite the court to draw such inferences as appear proper from their conduct.

Judges do not like parties in litigation who behave unreasonably and tend to penalise them in costs at arriving at their awards in favour of the party affected by it.

Moreover, you are further advised that the expenses incurred by you in bringing a successful claim against the Bank will include the costs and legal expenses in doing so. You are entitled to add these costs to the amount of the claim in question and take these into account in any offer by the Bank to settle on the steps of the court.

The letter from the bank is relevant and admissible evidence as to reprehensible conduct in pursuit of a legitimate claim and should on no circumstances be thrown away.

Regards and best wishes
Iolis

 

[loubella]

You can get all these templates from Martin Lewis' moneysaving expert website as well as loads of other financial advice, tips, freebies and forums

 

[Iolis]

Further to Bluearmy's post, it should be pointed out that many commercial practices engaged in by the banks and other commercial organisations dealing with consumers have been brought to the attention of the European Commission.

For those who like to engage in 'Euro-bashing' it would be well to remember that most of our consumer rights (including that which allows one to reclaim unlawful bank penalty charges ) come from the EU and are transposed into our own domestic legislation and in this case the EU have published the Directive on Unfair Business to Consumer Commercial Practices 2005/29/EC (The UCP Directive).

It applies to pre-contract and post-contract dealings that a business has with a consumer. It sets out four categories of commercial practices in relation to them that are unfair. (1), practices that are always unfair, (2), misleading practices, (3), aggressive practices and (4), other unfair practices.

Practices that are always unfair are set out at Annex I to the directive, which contains of a list of 31 such practices. These are as diverse as 'Claiming that the trader is about to cease trading or move premises when he is not' and 'Explicitly informing a consumer that if he does not buy the product or service, the traders' job or livelihood will be in jeopardy'.

In Bluearmy's case, the bank's conduct may well fall within paragraph 27 of Annex I!

"...failing systematically to respond to pertinent correspondence,
in order to dissuade a consumer from exercising his contractual rights"

Article 19 of the Directive required the member states to publish the details of implementation by 12 June this year and the deadline for it's implementation into UK domestic law is 12 December.

Thus, companies who engage in such practices, ignoring, losing or failing to respond to correspondence on the part of consumers, as well as a host of other ploys they commonly use, will no longer be able to be prayed in aid of.

Regards and best wishes:

Iolis

 

[drain_sniffer]

Iolis, you must be a mind reader as I am currently looking for something to bash BT with - looks like UCP is just the thing I was looking for

 

[Stephanie]

I sent my letter off to reclaim bank charges last week so watch this space.

Can anyone who has claimed and won using these templates (or the one I used off the beeb) tell me how easy it was, did you have to back up your claims with dates etc?

 

[The_Goon]

Iolis, if you knew how much effort the banks were actually putting into the teams tasked with dealing with these letters, you might not be so quick to suggest they are purposefully making life difficult.

I know for a fact that Lloyds TSB has been massively inundated with letters of this sort, it's mind numbing work (think of the templates you keep talking about, being seen all day for weeks and weeks and weeks, with no variation), often numpty customers don't even fill out the templates (still plenty of blank spaces!) and then claim that the bank had binned it on purpose...

Lloyds TSB, and the others, have all massively expanded the teams dealing with these letters, but some of the claims are simply ridiculous. One bloke attempted to claim back to the seventies. According to the current law, I believe you can only claim 3 years worth.

 

[Iolis]

I have absolutely no sympathy for the banks who have knowlingly and deliberately acted unlawfully, profited on the backs of the poor and have, despite their legal teams being aware of the law for some time, inflicted this outcome upon theirselves.

Tough!

They are large multi-Billion pound businesses and are well able to cope!

 

[The_Goon]

Unlawfully? The law doesn't say the charges are unlawful as yet. If the law itself changes, then yes, but right now, it's not unlawful.

 

[spunkymonkey]

Goon, the law (probably) does say that these chrges are unlawful already. Unfortunately, the banks have been pulling every trick possible to avoid a test case going through to establish that. They know full well that, by stalling till court proceedings are started, then either settling at the 12th hour or failing to submit a defence effectively block a ruling against the practice.

If they are so certain that they were "in the right", surely they have a duty to their shareholders to turn up, properly defend just one case, and lay the matter to rest? So why do they continually incur the costs of out-of-court settlements rather than the one-off cost (probably with costs against the claimant anyway) of setting the required precident? If I was a shareholder I'd be livid at all of my money that, according to their stated position, they're giving away needlessly to these whinging scroungers!

 

[The_Goon]

Lloyds TSB has actually already done that, spunkymonkey.

The law is on the side of the banks in so far as they are allowed charge customers fees - the issue is HOW MUCH a customer gets charged. The fees are meant to be representative of cost to the bank, not meant to be used as a penalty.

That's the issue behind this right now.

 

[Iolis]

Iolis, if you knew how much effort the banks were actually putting into the teams tasked with dealing with these letters, you might not be so quick to suggest they are purposefully making life difficult.

I know for a fact that Lloyds TSB has been massively inundated with letters of this sort, it's mind numbing work (think of the templates you keep talking about, being seen all day for weeks and weeks and weeks, with no variation), often numpty customers don't even fill out the templates (still plenty of blank spaces!) and then claim that the bank had binned it on purpose...

Lloyds TSB, and the others, have all massively expanded the teams dealing with these letters, but some of the claims are simply ridiculous. One bloke attempted to claim back to the seventies. According to the current law, I believe you can only claim 3 years worth.

Now I understand why the bank to which you refer is as busy as you claim!

I think I have already hyperlinked in a post on this thread, section 5 Limitation Act 1980 which allows a right in action going back for six years and not three!

This means that if a customer has a valid claim going back to the 1970s, he has a claim to recover it at common law. However, the Limitation Act operates to prevent the claim proceeding beyond 6 years. The bank still owe the money from the 1970s but the Act disables the claimant going that far back in time, hence the desire on the part of the bank to assert it is 'too busy' to deal with a claim for anything up to 8 months in order to attenuate the limitation period and erode the size of the claim!

The reason for the limitation Act is to set a date by which litigation must end and prevents stale and unreliable evidence being placed before the court.

The bank has the resources to engage extra staff if it needs to.

I am afraid the claim by the bank that it is swamped with claims simply will not wash with the court!

 

[bluearmy]

Well i'm in the procces of claiming back bank charges and i just recieved a letter off the bank saying they are busy and wont be able to deal with me for 6-7 weeks, i was just about to go to small claims court and thats gonna cost about 100 quid. is it still worth me going for it as i have heard that the banks are starting to win!!!

You are advised to immediately respond to the bank stating that unless a response to your application is received by Moday 16 July 2007, the letter will be adduced in evidence in support of the contention that the effect of their correspondence is an attempt by the bank to reduce it's liability under section 5 Limitation Act 1980 at the expense of the claimant and that you will invite the court to draw such inferences as appear proper from their conduct.

Judges do not like parties in litigation who behave unreasonably and tend to penalise them in costs at arriving at their awards in favour of the party affected by it.

Moreover, you are further advised that the expenses incurred by you in bringing a successful claim against the Bank will include the costs and legal expenses in doing so. You are entitled to add these costs to the amount of the claim in question and take these into account in any offer by the Bank to settle on the steps of the court.

The letter from the bank is relevant and admissible evidence as to reprehensible conduct in pursuit of a legitimate claim and should on no circumstances be thrown away.

Regards and best wishes

Iolis

Ok but i got this letter off the bank about 2 weeks ago, i was going to wait the 6 weeks, have i left it to late?