Overdraft fees

[emmagleb]

Hi, I've recently hit a rough time on income, and been heavily charged by my bank. The fees have ammounted to over �250 so far, which is a lot of money by anyones standards, especially to a third year uni student. I managed to get meself out of the rut for the time being, but previously I've been paying fees on the fees ebing taken from the account, as the action of the bank taking their fee out has resulted in me going over my limit again, and being charged again. I've triedf everything with the bank - pleading, asking for time, increasing my overdraft limit, asking for fees to be delayed by a few months, all to no sympathy and no help. I've already told them that I'm moving banks as soon as I can, and this didn't seem to bother them.
Does anyone know anything else I can do to try and get some of my money back? Credit card fees have been slashed recently, and the same is happening to current accounts soon as well. Is threatening them with court an option, as advised in this website: ?
http://www.everyinvestor.co.uk/timArticles/tim _659_105_.asp?no_pop_t=1&email=emma_gleb@yahoo .co.uk&enpass=j{jw~ns{jxytwSRQ~5
Thanks in advance :-)

[koster]

Have a look at 'Which?':
http://www.which.net/campaigns/personalfinance /bankingcharges/index.html

They tell you, step by step, how to proceed, and even provide letter templates for you. Under the data protection act banks are obliged to provide details of charges going back 6 years.

So, if you don't have statements for the period in question, the first step is to request them.

So far I have done this first step; HSBC have posted me (for free) copies of 6 years of bank statements, in lots of different envelopes. My next job is to open all those envelopes and go through with a highlighter pen to add up all the automatic charges over �12, to see how much has been charged unfairly.

[pickle]

I hope you get this message,
Bank charges are not legally enforceable. The bank can't charge you more than the amount you overdrew. For example, if you overdraw by �6 you can't get charged �25. If this is your case then follow this link where they tell you what to do about it.
Any that they've done in the last 6 years you can claim back. There was quite recently a case on the news where this happened too.
Good Luck.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewn ews.cgi?newsid1141050760,24632,