Nat West Business Account

[jax007]

This is a Business Account so not sure if it's the right place for this thread??

This is for SiL (son-in-law)

I have attached response from NW for request of refund of charges and also the spreadsheet courtesy of Budgie!!

I might have claimed for more charges than I am able, so if someone could scour through the spreadsheet I'd be grateful.

Also want to do an LBA and not sure of the wording as it's a business account. Again could someone help here please? I know the UTCCR doesn't apply.

Just to put you in the picture he is a sole trader, ie Mr MR ... T/A xxxxxxxxx

Many thanx
jax

[Amethyst]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Only the OD arrangement fee £100 which i believe is a standard account charge as opposed to a penalty.

Not a bad offer, what are you going to do accept as partial and use the Lba to continue the claim for the remainder ?

Accounts with T/A do tend to be personal accounts with the same UTCCR regs but you need to emphasise the penalty arguments foremost especially for the historical charges. Current charges have been deemed not penaltys and there was a crossover to business accounts mentioned in that - so you do need to use both the UTCCR and common law arguments.

i would just adapt the standard prelim to an LBA and not worry too much about the intracacies. A £1k plus offer after one letters pretty nifty.

[rosymaria]

Re: Nat West Business Account

In todays climate I'd call it a result!!

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Thanks Ame

Not a bad offer, what are you going to do accept as partial and use the Lba to continue the claim for the remainder ?

Hmmm?? Not sure. If we took the offer (and they want it signed off as F&F!) then would we not be batting on a sticky wicket in terms of trying to claim the interest separately??

Accounts with T/A do tend to be personal accounts with the same UTCCR regs but you need to emphasise the penalty arguments foremost especially for the historical charges. Current charges have been deemed not penaltys and there was a crossover to business accounts mentioned in that - so you do need to use both the UTCCR and common law arguments.

The charges only go up to 6 May 2008 on this so would they not all be historical - does that predate the changeover?

i would just adapt the standard prelim to an LBA and not worry too much about the intracacies. A £1k plus offer after one letters pretty nifty.

Please could you post me a link to the LBA - is this where we reject the offer and say "pay more or else"? The ones I managed to find on the system seem to have great big red letters saying it's being updated.

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

The charges only go up to 6 May 2008 on this so would they not all be historical - does that predate the changeover?

From what date do the charges come under the 'current' rules rather than 'historical'?? Is it 7 July 2008? If so that would make ALL the charges HISTORICAL.


Quote:
i would just adapt the standard prelim to an LBA and not worry too much about the intracacies. A £1k plus offer after one letters pretty nifty.
I am a little worried about accepting the £1K+ as part payment and going for the rest later as the rest would be mainly CI and I believe that's where you fall out of bed by trying to claim CI only. Also the offer (even without the £110 O/D Arrangement Fee) is still NOT ALL the charges ... still comes to almost £500 in charges alone.

Any advice on this one and ... please could you post me a link to the LBA (or is it the one with big red letters saying it is being updated)?

Ta muchly
jax

[Amethyst]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Good re charges being historical - means thus far you are okay to use penalty charge arguments.

Don't accept the £1k offer tell them you want the whole amount back plus interest or hello court.

I'll have a look into the LBA situation.

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

... still comes to almost £500 in charges alone.

Oops! Meant to say here that 'it still comes to almost £500 LESS than charges alone'

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account


OK Ames ................. here we go...........

Here is my attempt at a Refusal of Offer Letter. Please cast your eye over it and let me have your opinion. Also not sure whether I have overcooked it somewhat??

The bits in RED I am unsure about and the bit in BLUE re Sempra I need tidying up or removing as appropriate.

Maybe Budgie can help on this point.

Dear Sir

Sort Code : 56-00-60
Request for Payment of Default Charges on Business Account Number : xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx T/A xxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your letter of 10 September 2008 in reply to my letter of 21 July 2008. With reference to my letter, I would like to point out that I was not making a complaint, but writing to ask you to refund to me the unlawful penalty charges which you have levied on my account over the last six years. I requested the repayment of unlawful penalty charges from 2 July 2002 to 6 May 2008 amounting to £1,888, plus interest at the contractual rate for unauthorised borrowing of 29.5% apr of £2,723.37, amounting to a total of £4,611.37.

You are offering me an amount of £1,332 in settlement as a gesture of goodwill and without admission of liability or error on your part.

I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law. Therefore I feel that I must decline your offer as I find it unacceptable in the circumstances and request that you reconsider and pay me the full amount of £4,611.37.

You state that you “believe that the charges you levy are for providing services and that they are not penalties or charges for default. Furthermore, you believe that these charges are fair, reasonable and transparent”. If this is the case, then will you please demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs?

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened this account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law. I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I consider that your repeated representations that your charges are fair and reasonable are deceptive and that they have deceived me into agreeing to pay them. Your concealment of the true nature of your charges has prevented me from asserting my right until now.

Additionally, it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT who reported on 5 April 2006 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.

I am aware that terms & conditions of your account contract are unfair, as the charges applied are penalty charges, which are 'to the detriment of the consumer'. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 highlights these in Section 5 Clause 1.5-(1). A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

I find the charges listed on your statement are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as they are contrary to common law. Regardless of the wording of automated letters sent to me, these charges constitute a penalty charge as the amounts bear no relation to the actual charges incurred by you. I have been advised to remind you that such penalty charges are legally unenforceable, even if a clause exists in the Terms and Conditions that authorizes such a charge. Further, as disproportionate penalties, they are invalid under the Unfair (Contracts) Terms Act 1977 S.4 and under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 Para.8 and Sch.2(1)(e).


You state that you will not consider payments in respect of interest, arrangement fees and transmission fees. I assume from this statement you are referring to £100 overdraft arrangement fee applied to my account. I therefore concede that this charge is irrecoverable and therefore have removed it from my claim. I now calculate that the unlawful penalty charges levied on my account amount to £1,778 and have brought it up to date to 25 September 2008 plus £2,767.15 which you have charged me in contractual / overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken, amounting to a total of £4,545.15. I enclose an amended schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter.

As far as the interest is concerned, you have had the benefit of being able to relend money that did not lawfully belong to you at commercial rates and as such have been unjustly enriched (Sempra Metals Limited (formerly Metallgesellschaft Limited) (Respondents) v. Her Majesty's Commissioners of Inland Revenue and another (Appellants) 18 July 2007).

I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter, and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting, unconditionally, my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment. If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments. After that, there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline. Please do not waste my time by offering a part payment as such offers will be ignored.

I trust that we can reach agreement on this and I look forward to receiving a full and unconditional refund.

Yours faithfully

Please delete/amend/add/edit as appropriate

Many thanx
jax

[Budgie]

Re: Nat West Business Account

I am going to be a bit controversial here Jax.

But as you and I know each other quite well I am going to suggest something.

What you seem to have done is copied and pasted bits and pieces together from various sources to compile your letter. As a result there is a lot of duplication of arguments and the overall letter comes across as a jumbled and rambling and yes a bit overcooked.

I know that you do actually know the arguments quite well and you have certainly got everything in the letter that you need to include with regards to the arguments. However, you probably already mentioned most of these arguments in your preliminary letter. You do not need to include them all over again in this one.

Just remember what the aims of this letter are :-

Refer them to your preliminary letter, thank them for their reply and their offer and refuse it and tell them why you are refusing it.

Remind them about what you are claiming for and why.

Tell them how much more time you will allow them to meet your demands and what you will do if they do not.

Please have a think about what you are actually trying to achieve with this letter and redraft accordingly.

I know for a fact that you are quite capable of doing this yourself and that you will gain tremendously by actually doing this for yourself rather than by just having someone else do it for you.

Please post up your revised draft if you would like us to double check it for you.

Regards Budgie

[WendyB]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Just a point here Jax. In the first part of the letter you decline the offer and ask for the full amount of 4611.37. Then a bit further down, when you've knocked of the 100 for the overdraft arrangement, you ask them for 4545.15. As you don't want them to have anything to wriggle out of/cloud the issue etc, I think that this would be enough for them to feign confusion, so it needs to be reworded somehow so there's undisputably ONE figure which you want them to pay.

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Just a point here Jax. In the first part of the letter you decline the offer and ask for the full amount of 4611.37. Then a bit further down, when you've knocked of the 100 for the overdraft arrangement, you ask them for 4545.15. As you don't want them to have anything to wriggle out of/cloud the issue etc, I think that this would be enough for them to feign confusion, so it needs to be reworded somehow so there's undisputably ONE figure which you want them to pay.

Thanx Wendy - take your point - think I will just stick to original claim figure and argue it out later

I know for a fact that you are quite capable of doing this yourself and that you will gain tremendously by actually doing this for yourself rather than by just having someone else do it for you.

Thanx Bud ... yes I do really want to do this for myself and I know just how busy you guys are and I agree it's much more beneficial for me too. I really hate having to bother people but I just don't want to make any cock-ups!

I would just remind you that this is a BUSINESS account and I have not done one before so am not au fait with the arguments although Amethyst pointed out that as it is a T/A account it follows the arguments for a personal account (I think)

I was doing this at an unGodly hour as you will see and, yes, I have taken bits from various templates I have on my system, but thought it was a good starting point.

Will redraft later and repost.

Will NEED you to double-check though and be grateful for opinions and editing as appropriate.

Ta
jax

[WendyB]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Thanx Wendy - take your point - think I will just stick to original claim figure and argue it out later

Tbh Jax, I'd use the revised figure now, cos that will stop on them using it as an excuse to procrastinate later. (blimey, where did I drag that word up from at this time of day lol)

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Okikoki

Have redrafted my Refusal of Offer letter here. The bits in RED are what I am not sure about, especially the whole paragraph in red relating to Sempra and interest.

I know Bud's not on tonight but hopefully he'll pick this up tomorrow (or, rather, later today). Hopefully I've got everything in there and I've not left anything out..................

Dear Sir

Sort Code : 56-00-60
Request for Payment of Default Charges on Business Account Number : xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx T/A xxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your letter of 10 September 2008. I refer you to my letter of 21 July 2008 and would point out that I was not making a complaint but making a request for a refund of unlawful penalty charges levied on my account.

You are offering me an amount of £1,332 in settlement as a gesture of goodwill and without admission of liability or error on your part. However, this does not satisfy my requirements for compensation, and therefore I must decline your offer.

You state that you “believe that the charges you levy are for providing services and that they are not penalties or charges for default. Furthermore, you believe that these charges are fair, reasonable and transparent”. I am aware that terms & conditions of your account contract are unfair as the charges applied are penalty charges, which are 'to the detriment of the consumer'. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 highlights these in Section 5 Clause 1.5-(1). A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

I find the charges listed on your statement are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as they are contrary to Common Law. Regardless of the wording of automated letters sent to me, these charges constitute a penalty charge as the amounts bear no relation to the actual charges incurred by you. I have been advised to remind you that such penalty charges are legally unenforceable, even if a clause exists in the Terms and Conditions that authorizes such a charge.

You state that you will not consider payments in respect of interest, arrangement fees and transmission fees. By levying unlawful penalty charges, you have been unjustly enriched by having the benefit of what is tantamount to an interest free loan, and you should not be able to profit or make any gains. You have been further unjustly enriched and profited from being able to relend and reinvest money that does not belong to you at commercial rates. My justification for compound interest follows the recent development in Common Law (Sempra Metals Limited (formerly Metallgesellschaft Limited) (Respondents) v. Her Majesty's Commissioners of Inland Revenue and another (Appellants) 18 July 2007).

I have recalculated my claim and brought it up to date. I now calculate that the unlawful penalty charges levied on my account amount to £1,848 and plus £2,790.43 which you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken, amounting to a total of £4,638.43. I enclose an amended schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter.

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting, unconditionally, my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment. If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments. After that, there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline. Please do not waste my time by offering further part payments as such offers will be ignored.

I trust that we can reach agreement on this and I look forward to receiving a full and unconditional refund.

Yours faithfully

Thanks everyone
jax

[jax007]

Re: Nat West Business Account

Bump

Can someone check out my redrafted Refusal of Offer letter please.

Ta muchly
jax

[Paule]

Re: Nat West Business Account

A couple of things I notice

You are quoting Compound Interest references, but you haven't actually asked for any repayment of this in your letter.
It only appears you are asking for the charges, plus the interest you have been charged on your overdraft.

I think what you should have is

1. Repayment of Charges
2. Repayment of Overdraft Interest caused by the charges
3. Compensatory payment at contractural rate (I take it you are going down the CI route)

If you arent going for CI, then remove these references.

Thats my two penneth

PKea