A member of www.consumercorner.co.uk a site set up to help Consumers has successfully managed to have a claim for the refund of bank charges amounting to nearly £10,000 allocated to a small claims hearing along with being granted standard disclosure by the bank.
As a rule only claims under £5,000 are heard in the Small Claims Court but it was successfully argued that the claim was straight forward enough to not require the lengthy drawn out process of a fast track hearing. The prospect of a fast track hearing can scare many people from claiming as the risks are higher should the banks actually turn up and win.
Standard Disclosure is evidence that must be submitted by both parties relating to the claim even if it will damage their case and is usually only ordered in fast track cases.
This is what the banks fear most as they will have to show what it actually costs them to return for instance a Direct Debit. They are currently charging anything up to £39 for unauthorised borrowing, and under the unfair terms in consumer contracts Act, a bank is not allowed to make a profit from this automated response which would only incur a cost to them in the region of 50p.
A spokesperson for consumer corner says “This breakthrough could well lead to a flood of large claims from customers who previously were deterred from claiming the full amount of their unlawful charges for fear that they could be liable to losses running into tens of thousands of pounds should they lose their case. The banks are constantly relying on scare tactics to put their customers off claiming; it is time something was done to stop this.
The Office of Fair Trading is not going far enough in its attempts to cut these charges, simply stating that charges for credit card companies should be no more than £12 does not make the charge lawful, and the banks and credit card companies are now even using this ruling to get away with scaring customers into accepting the difference between the original charge and £12. The truth is if you stand up to these companies and follow it through to the end you will get a full refund.”
Many members of Consumer Corner are now taking this a stage further by successfully reclaiming Early Redemption Penalties charged by many Mortgage and Loan Companies, when the loan or mortgage is repaid early. Also claims for charges on cancelled contracts are also starting to gain momentum as members who have for instance cancelled a 12month contract on a mobile phone after only 6 months were still charged for the remaining 6 months are successfully reclaiming this back under the unfair terms in consumer contracts. For more information visit www.consumercorner.co.uk
