LETTER 2B

[FOR CHARGES LEVIED WHEN PAYMENT HAS BEEN HONOURED]

 

 

[YOUR ADDRESS]

[DATE]

 

[BANK’S NAME]

[BANK’S HEAD OFFICE ADDRESS]

 

 

 

Dear Sir / Madam,

 

Refund of Penalty & Unfair Bank Charges:

 

[YOUR NAME]

[YOUR SORT CODE]

[YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER]

 

 

From [DATE OF FIRST CHARGE], your bank has levied a total of £[TOTAL AMOUNT] in charges against my account (see above).

 

Specifically, I have been charged as follows:

[INSERT DETAILS of how the charges were applied, how much was charged,  by how much you exceeded your overdraft limit and for how long etc.]

 

You will be aware that, on 5th April 2006, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced that default charges which are set at more than £12 will be presumed to be unfair and unenforceable in terms of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/2083).  Charges above this sum will be subject to legal action by the OFT (press release 68/06).

 

If your organisation does not agree to refund immediately all unfair charges applied to my account, I would respectfully submit that it will not meet the “fit and proper person” test to hold a consumer credit licence under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.  In that eventuality, I will submit a 1974 Act complaint to the OFT.

 

Separately, I am of the view that your charges represent a penalty and are therefore irrecoverable at common law.  In the Scottish case of Castaneda and Others v. Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (1904) 12 SLT 498 the House of Lords held that a contractual party can only recover damages for actual or liquidated losses incurred from a breach of contract.  This is also the position in English law: Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor Co Ltd. [1915] AC 79.

 

Your charges do not reflect any actual loss.  Rather, they appear to represent a lucrative profit-making scheme.  UK banks have recently given evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Committee on how bank charges are calculated: “The costs are going to pay for all the people we have who pursue debt, collect debt, speak to customers and chase payments.  The way these charges are arrived at is by taking these total costs and making some assumptions about the volume that is going to come through to arrive at the individual charges” (2nd report, 25 January 2005, paragraph 50).

 

Accordingly, the charges applied to my account are not a reasonable pre-estimate of the bank’s loss in relation to my account.  Your charges would appear instead to represent a device to recover global losses (for example, loan defaulters, bad debt write off, including commercial lending in, and outwith, the UK).

 

In light of the above, I request that these charges applied to my account be refunded within the next 7 days.  I reserve the right to commence court proceedings without any further notice and to seek an additional award for distress and inconvenience, together with legal expenses.

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

[YOUR SIGNATURE]

 

 

[YOUR NAME]