ITN: Hardship Claims

[michael]

Channel 4 - News - Bank charge claims put on hold

(Health Warning: CAG spokesperson)

[natweststaffmember]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Health Warning UTTER GARBAGE which is why I didn't post it on here

[Amethyst]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Legal Beagles

[michael]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Health Warning UTTER GARBAGE which is why I didn't post it on here

See, your blood pressure is already rising

[Amethyst]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Brian Capon made his second appearance of the week on TV – this time Channel Four’s News at Noon – to defend the industry against accusations it was not fulfilling its regulatory obligations to deal with overdraft fee reclaims for people in financial difficulty. The programme focused on case studies of people who said they had been refused help.

Next week
On Tuesday we issue the February 2009 lending statistics for the high street banks. Media attention will again probably focus on mortgage approval numbers. On previous form, it will be inferred from the figures that the supply of mortgages remains tight, rather than demand for houses being low.

.................

[Mochamoo]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Slightly different track (and mostly out of nosyness lol) Does LB send out regular press releases about our sucesses?

[Amethyst]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Possibly working on something now to counter that channel 4 article non sensationlist tho and waiting on an email from FSA...thanks u for the nudge.

[EXC]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

I'm not sure about the ''forcing people to fill out an income & expenditure form''. If someone has to make a judgment call on your financial status you would have thought some numbers might come in handy...

[Amethyst]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

I think because its our money and the banks shouldnt have it is why people feel so aggreived about having to give this info to the banks to reclaim it. It isn't resolved in court tho despite the indications and the charges are, well, innocent till proven guilty. Tools commented earlier that being seen to repay some charges and offer help to hardship cases helps keep the waiver in place for the other cases.

People forget there is no requirement for a bank to repay a bean at the moment and really claiming hardship means you are complaining to the bank about the charges and saying they have helped get you into a position where you are at risk of losing your home. These refunds of charges should have been happening anyway - lawful or unlawful. The banks should have been paying more attention to peoples circumstances before bashing them for charges, and they should have already been offering help, moving people to basic accounts and advising them to cancel DD's when a problem was noticed....this is what the PCA report covers and what Beagles recommended should happen in the future (read Legal Beagles ).

To enable a bank to help you they need to know your full circumstances else its going to be exceedingly hard to assist. Hopefully this will continue after the waiver too. I think a lot of claimants at the beginning of the waiver shouted hardship as a way of getting round the waiver so i am not suprised at the difference between hardship claimed and hardship accepted.

Another bit of it is once the test case is resolved it will eventually include something for conequential losses, and if a bank could have repaid some charges now and stopped bankruptcy or homes being reposessed and didn't, and they are then found to be unlawful, then it is a lot easier to prove the bankruptcy/repo was directly linked to the bank charges ?

(GLO's possibly or sec G of the litigation agreement http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/per...-Banks-FSA.pdf )

I think the discussion on the other thread ( Legal Beagles )covers a lot of this and is very valid at the moment, the FROA work we are doing will also compliment highlighting that banks should do more with people in financial difficulty. But also as RBS stated last week 'being a commercial company we leave ‘tackling poverty’ to the Government'.


Think I lost my thread half way through so sorry if its a random ramble, cooking tea washing up, watching corrie and sorting out kids too pmsl.

[natweststaffmember]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

See, your blood pressure is already rising

Doctor's said it was normal last week much to my surprise. The news which I watched had a line that I think is wrong......"people on benefits must be in hardship". I am on state benefit, JSA but I do not claim to be in hardship just yet. It is simply not always the case that certain people can be grouped together. Someone working and someone on benefits can be in hardship and vice versa. JMHO

[Emerald]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Doctor's said it was normal last week much to my surprise. The news which I watched had a line that I think is wrong......"people on benefits must be in hardship". I am on state benefit, JSA but I do not claim to be in hardship just yet. It is simply not always the case that certain people can be grouped together. Someone working and someone on benefits can be in hardship and vice versa. JMHO

I thjink what Robert meant was that if benefits are your sole source of income which by definition the minimum amount that you need to live on - IF an amount of that income is going on charges regulalry then I&E is not neccasary as by default you are in hardship.

[EXC]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

That may or may not be the case. But ''if benefits are your sole source of income'' then surely the claimant must make some kind of declaration that this is the case and that their outgoings are not being met in order for the bank (and not Santa Claus) to make the determination.

The fact is that there are a significant amount of hardship cases that have been at least partially successful by using the system. It's the only show in town and we should embrace it and promote it.

[Emerald]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

That may or may not be the case. But ''if benefits are your sole source of income'' then surely the claimant must make some kind of declaration that this is the case and that their outgoings are not being met in order for the bank (and not Santa Claus) to make the determination.

The fact is that there are a significant amount of hardship cases that have been at least partially successful by using the system. It's the only show in town and we should embrace it and promote it.

I'm not disputing that some sort of declaration would be needed, but there is nothing worse than having some bank clerk going through your income and expenditure to ascertain if your are eligible to get your own money back! It's humiliating enough when I've had to do it in the past to get a loan and they go throgh your account with a fine toothcomb.

[Tools]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

but there is nothing worse than having some bank clerk going through your income and expenditure to ascertain if your are eligible to get your own money back!

Better that than face a bailiff knocking on your door or the stress of a repossession order dropping through your letterbox?

[Emerald]

Re: ITN: Hardship Claims

Better that than face a bailiff knocking on your door or the stress of a repossession order dropping through your letterbox?

Yes butthe whole point is, it's our money anyhow and having to have someone decide if your expenditure is reasonable to get it back is humilating and uneccasary. I know someone who is disabled and claims attendance allowance and has to pay for some social services input to have the house cleaned etc and the amount he was spending on that was considered a luxury!