LegalBeagles
The Office of Fair Trading's report, following nearly three years of investigation into the Personal Current Account Market in the UK, is extremely weak and does nothing to improve confidence in the regulator or the banks.
Despite the OFT voicing ''significant concerns about the operation of the market for personal current accounts'' and promising that they are ''committed to securing significant changes to unarranged overdraft charges going forward'' the OFT have left it to the banks to decide the fate of some of the most vulnerable people in society.
The OFT walked away from the test case, walked away from their investigation and are now walking away from consumers.
The Government continues to push consumers into the banking system but has systematically failed to protect them, the banks have been allowed to get away with far too much for too long, and it appears now will be allowed to continue to do so.
LegalBeagles will continue fighting for a fairer future for consumers and remains strongly committed to assisting consumers in gaining redress from the Banks for unfair charges imposed historically. To that end we have engaged Anthony Scrivener QC (see biography) through our legal advisers Hausfelds LLP (see legal team) to establish the legal arguments for consumers wanting to reclaim via the courts and the Financial Ombudsman.
The opinion will be made publicly available as soon as it is completed - within the next month. We also continue to look at the feasibility of a Representative Action on behalf of consumers.
To date banks are failing in their attempts to have consumers' County Court claims for the return of charges struck out on the basis of the narrow decision in the test case handed down by the Supreme Court. Legal Beagles' members have so far successfully defended applications from Lloyds, HBOS, Alliance & Leicester, Abbey, HSBC, Clydesdale Bank and Nationwide and have submitted amended claims based on their individual experiences of unfair relationships with the bank, based loosely on an initial opinion from Raymond Cox QC, instructed on behalf of MSE and consumer groups through the Govan Law Centre, Glasgow (see news story)
Sharon Coleman, co-founder of Legal Beagles believes a second opinion is necessary to clarify the arguments with a view to allowing the final opinion to be published publicly so that the arguments can be taken forward by individual claimants, consumer groups and other interested parties. ''We are working extremely hard on individual cases that were already in the court system from before the Supreme Court overruled the High Court and Court of Appeal judgments.
We strongly believe the structure of personal account contracts which allows the imposition of these excessive charges, especially on low income and vulnerable consumers, to be unfair both morally and legally and we are delighted to have the team at Hausfelds LLP and Anthony Scrivener QC looking at the issues on behalf of consumers everywhere."
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NOTES 1. Consumer Group Legal Beagles offer a free forum based site offering support, discussion and advice in many areas. The team is made up of dedicated and enthusiastic individuals who are experienced in consumer issues. All members are volunteers who provide support in their own time. The forum is funded by private donations.
2. The website can be found at www.legalbeagles.info
3. LegalBeagles has over 7500 registered members and has been operating since May 2007.
4. LegalBeagles have been in consultation with the OFT throughout the Personal Current Account Market Study and Overdraft Charges Investigation.
5. LegalBeagles formal responses to the PCA Market Study consultation can be found; November 2008 http://www.legalbeagles.info/
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