Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:52 am
Bank retreats on overdraft fees
CAG members claim to have won refunds worth more than £10 million
The Alliance & Leicester appears to have acknowledged that a fee of only £4.50 might be a fair charge for bouncing cheques.
The bank has put this charge forward to settle a customer's claim for the refund of £2,035 in overdraft fees.
The letter to the customer, who wishes to remain anonymous, quotes research for a recent BBC Money Programme as the basis of its offer.
The bank's standard charge for bouncing a cheque is currently £25.
The Alliance & Leicester's letter was sent from its customer service centre in Bootle in January.
It argues that the charges levied on the customer's account for going overdrawn without permission were "raised correctly in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account."
But it then goes on to say: "A recent report commissioned by the BBC claimed the cost would be no more than £4.50.
"Therefore, I propose to offer you the difference from £4.50 up to the amount of charges that were raised, which totals £1,558."
The offer to calculate the charges at just £4.50 each appears to be a one-off offer, as the letter goes on to stress that any future charges for bouncing cheques would be charged at the published, higher, rate.
A spokesman for the bank said: "Each case is considered on its own merits. There is no blanket policy to offer to cut charges to just £4.50."
Even so, the proposal seems to be a break with the current practice of all the high street banks who argue vigorously in defence of their overdraft fees, claiming that they are fair and not unlawful.
However, Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group, which has been leading the campaign against bank overdraft charges, said: "This is a wholly unusual letter. They always say their charges are transparent and reasonable."
The idea that it actually costs banks far less than they charge to bounce customers' cheques was highlighted by the BBC's Money Programme in December 2006.
Two business academics and a former senior executive of NatWest Bank were asked to calculate just how much they thought it actually cost a bank to deal with customers who went overdrawn without permission.
They estimated that it would be £4.50 to bounce a cheque and just £2.50 to stop a direct debit.
More recently, the BBC News website revealed evidence from a time and motion study at the Yorkshire bank, which showed that the labour costs of bouncing a cheque were probably no more than £2.00.
In the past year hundreds of thousands of people have written to their banks, claiming that their overdraft charges have been unlawfully high, and demanding refunds on charges going back up to six years.
Many have been successful, with the banks consistently refusing to admit any fault, but equally refusing to let the arguments be heard in court - and often settling our of court at the last moment when threatened with legal action.
Earlier this month a businessman from Norfolk won a record refund, so far, of almost £36,000 for overdraft charges levied on his business account by NatWest.
Source: bbc.co.uk
Please post any news stories about IVAs here:
http://www.iva.co.uk/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=5
See my Blog:
http://ivanews.blogs.iva.co.uk
CAG members claim to have won refunds worth more than £10 million
The Alliance & Leicester appears to have acknowledged that a fee of only £4.50 might be a fair charge for bouncing cheques.
The bank has put this charge forward to settle a customer's claim for the refund of £2,035 in overdraft fees.
The letter to the customer, who wishes to remain anonymous, quotes research for a recent BBC Money Programme as the basis of its offer.
The bank's standard charge for bouncing a cheque is currently £25.
The Alliance & Leicester's letter was sent from its customer service centre in Bootle in January.
It argues that the charges levied on the customer's account for going overdrawn without permission were "raised correctly in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account."
But it then goes on to say: "A recent report commissioned by the BBC claimed the cost would be no more than £4.50.
"Therefore, I propose to offer you the difference from £4.50 up to the amount of charges that were raised, which totals £1,558."
The offer to calculate the charges at just £4.50 each appears to be a one-off offer, as the letter goes on to stress that any future charges for bouncing cheques would be charged at the published, higher, rate.
A spokesman for the bank said: "Each case is considered on its own merits. There is no blanket policy to offer to cut charges to just £4.50."
Even so, the proposal seems to be a break with the current practice of all the high street banks who argue vigorously in defence of their overdraft fees, claiming that they are fair and not unlawful.
However, Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group, which has been leading the campaign against bank overdraft charges, said: "This is a wholly unusual letter. They always say their charges are transparent and reasonable."
The idea that it actually costs banks far less than they charge to bounce customers' cheques was highlighted by the BBC's Money Programme in December 2006.
Two business academics and a former senior executive of NatWest Bank were asked to calculate just how much they thought it actually cost a bank to deal with customers who went overdrawn without permission.
They estimated that it would be £4.50 to bounce a cheque and just £2.50 to stop a direct debit.
More recently, the BBC News website revealed evidence from a time and motion study at the Yorkshire bank, which showed that the labour costs of bouncing a cheque were probably no more than £2.00.
In the past year hundreds of thousands of people have written to their banks, claiming that their overdraft charges have been unlawfully high, and demanding refunds on charges going back up to six years.
Many have been successful, with the banks consistently refusing to admit any fault, but equally refusing to let the arguments be heard in court - and often settling our of court at the last moment when threatened with legal action.
Earlier this month a businessman from Norfolk won a record refund, so far, of almost £36,000 for overdraft charges levied on his business account by NatWest.
Source: bbc.co.uk
Please post any news stories about IVAs here:
http://www.iva.co.uk/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=5
See my Blog:
http://ivanews.blogs.iva.co.uk