Barclays customer wins freeze on charges

[EXC]

A judge has stopped Barclays bank taking any more penalty charges and interest from a customer who sued for their return.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6960358.stm

[iancognito]

Re: Barclays customer wins freeze on charges

I like that one!!

Seems not everything is going the banks way after all, it's the little things in life that make you smile

[Kafka]

Re: Barclays customer wins freeze on charges

This is the first time I've heard of an injunction on charges being enforced, although they form a part of the stay lift application in case its not granted.

Excellent news

[Kafka]

Re: Barclays customer wins freeze on charges

The subtle point of major interest is that if you look at the copy of the judge's order in the newsreport, he refers to penalty charges not service fees.

It will be very interesting to see what happens now at other courts where judges don't feel they can lift a stay but feel sympathy for the Claimant...

[Tools]

Re: Barclays customer wins freeze on charges

Excellent news , but.....................

This is one of the things that has concerned me for some time .

YES the bank has had to `freeze` any charges but what happens when the test case is concluded :_

• Will the charges be waivered completely?
• Will the charges be reapplied at any figure that the test case decides on?

or and this is the one that worries me

• Will the bank seek to collect the accumulated charges from the period of the `freeze` in one foul swoop?

If the latter is to be the case then I have no doubt that if the test case drags on , possibly with an appeal by the banks , then these charges may have escalated to an amount out of reach for the claimant to pay back all in one go.
As we all know if this is the case then Barclays will no doubt offer some ridiculously high interest loan to the claimant or force them into more debt somewhere else.

The fairest option for both claimant and defendant is , as long as the result of the test case decides that each individual bank puts forward a genuine pre-estimateof their losses and the charges are then reapplied at that rate or the differences reimbursed then the `freezing` of charges is a good thing .
I would advise the claimant , however , to ensure they have enough funds to cover if the bank suddenly wants them all back in one go.

JMHO