Unauthorised Overdraft Charges

Yes, but the point of the previous poster is that it can reasonably be inferred that the Bank's believe it is (illegal) by their actions.

Giving into 2 or 3 people to save legal fees is reasonable, giving in to 1 million is not.

You've already had it explained to you that he did ask.

tim

A luxury? Try standing in your local high street and look for your nearest mobile phone.

Ok, we don't need to constantly chatter on the phone and probably shouldn't.

Furthermore, as this one would not fall under the small claims limit, the bank has a chance of recovering its costs if it were to win. (According to the BBC page the business turns over >1m/year and employs

I can well believe that it might be cheaper for the bank to settle a claim for 1k rather than fight it even if the bank thinks it will win if the bank thinks it is going to have to provide a detailed defence rather than just have a meritless claim struck out but a 36k claim must be at the high end of possible claims. If the bank doesn't think this is worth defending then it would seem to imply that they're not going to defend any claim for refund of fees.

Tim.

I have a feeling that our statement of facts are falling on deaf ears, possibly bank staff charged with having to constantly defend the indefensible. Its a pity that its taking a determined customer to try and get a court decision rather than industry regulators. Whoever set up the regulations about banks not being permitted to profit from penalty charges should be leading the way by iether telling the banks to work the regulations or to scrap the regulation itself. I still maintain that if the banks hadnt been so greedy and charged say a tenner per penatly there wouldnt have been such and outcry and they would have continued to have a licence to print money for years to come.

That businessman by the way had an overdraft refused but the bank were more than happy to slap the penalties on him to the tune of 2k-3k per month. So much for the banks argument that its easy for customers to call and get an overdraft. Fat chance in many cases.

No it hasn't and nowhere in the BBC's article does it say that he asked. The article intimates that he was "drawing against uncleared effects" which basically means that he was taking money out of the account before it had been paid in to it.

And I bet also the bank 'asked' him to agree to pay these charges when he signed the T&C, to which he presumably agreed.

There's legilation about unfair terms in contracts.

As I have posted many times before. The law allows a party to the contract to ignore clauses that are unfair as if they aren't there.

He has no requirement to tell the other party that he does this, nor to try to negotiate them out and will not be deemed by this action to have acceted them.

tim

Who are you to say what is "fair" or otherwise? People who take other peoples' money without permission aren't playing "fair", so why should their victim? Far too much time and money is spent in the UK looking after those who commit crimes, rather than the victims.

That is the point.

You make your own decision. You may be right or wrong and if you are wrong, and the matter gets to court, you suffer ths consequences. This is exactly the same as for the Bank, they make the decision to include the clause not knowing whether it is valid or not and suffer the consequences if they get it wrong.

But neither party is punished just because they took the chance.

Banks are in the business of lending. This is their product. They ARE entitled to charge a fair price for this product.

They do not lose anything because someone borrows from them without asking first.

The bank are not victims here.

tim

In France, as I've said before, it REMAINS a criminal offence to take money out of an empty bank account!

and the relevence of this comment is?

tim

We are not in france. Ifs wrong to take money from an empty account why do banks take thier charges, thier direct debits etc from an empty account? Answer:Because they can then charge thier unfair and profit making penalties which as many have said is against regulations.

Please dont even try to say the banks dont do this because they do and will always take thier own charges first before anything else.

The point was made that the customer did not 'ask' but simply took the banks money. The reply was that (technically) the customer did ask by writing the cheque... to which the answer was "technically" the customer agreed to the charges when s/he signed the T&C, and "technically" the customer should have arranged the facility before taking the money.

You say the law does not allow for these charges, which you say are 'penalty' charges rather than charges for a special service. But "technically" that is not yet established.

"Morally" if you can rack up such high charges as some customers appear to you are a complete idiot and deserve all you get.

Did you read my post?

Technically, the customer ignored the clause with the charge as he consider it to be void.

This is his legal right, no inference that he agreed to the clause can thus be made.

I have made no claim here that I think they are penalty charges. I have suggested that the customer can do this and thus you cannot infer that he acceped the charges as enforcable.

I agree, but there is enough reasonable evidence to suggest that this is a possibility, so it is reasonable for a customer to act as if he believes that they are.

I agree, but the discussion is about a the legal status of the charges, not the fecklessness of the customers.

tim

In message , tim..... writes

Hmm somewhat naive. the 'unauthorised borrowing' is often not repaid.

Eh?not seen the bad debt charge then? and no experience of personal debt default either I wager.

In message , tim..... writes

But if he was wrong to ignore that clause?

Yes. What about this as a view.

You do A and we will waive all our transaction and service charges for your account. But if you do B then you will have to pay for these services which will be collected in proportion of the amount of B that you do by charging you £XX for every act of B.

That seems like a penalty diguised as a service.

"Peter Saxton" wrote

When a new client comes to you, do you give them half-an-hour to an hour's consultancy for free first? "A" = First hour's consultancy; "B" = Subsequent hour's consultancy.

Is the charge for B a "penalty diguised as a service"?