Egg Money Overlmit Charges

[lhmcr1]

Hi,
I have written to Egg asking for a full refund of charges of £284.71.
I mistakenly went to the Ombudsman to try and get them back but they ruled in Egg's favour saying that Egg had demonstrated the the charges were a true cost to them.
I would like to take it further now and go to court but I have read on this forum that Citi, Egg's former owners, successfully proved in court that their fees were over £13.
I am hoping that some forum members may be able to help.
I look forward to some responses.

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Caspar]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

If you could post links to the judgments so we can see how they proved this it would be helpful.

Also a list of the charges, what they were for, how much etc.... would help.

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

It is from this site, by a member called kafka if I remeber correctly, Citi apparently proved their charges came to over £13.
My charges were for £16 each for going overlimit.
I will try to post a link to the thread in question.

[EXC]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

I'd think very carefully before attempting to challenge Egg's charges in court.

Unlike all other credit card providers the OFT allowed Egg to charge £16 when all the others had to reduce their charges to £12. This was as a result of the OFT investigating the cost of the defaults for each provider.

The problem with challenging any credit card default charge in this day & age is that the OFT threshold has remained the same since 2006 and with inflation over a period of 5 years credit card companies could well be able to justify the charges as being a true pre-estimate of the cost.

[Caspar]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Please don't take it to court. You'll be throwing away money as the chances of you winning would, in my opinion, be virtually zero. If I were you I'd put it down to experience and move on.

Sorry if that isn't what you wanted to hear!

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

They may well be a pre-estimate but are they post audit? Egg have provided pre-estimates the OFT. Post audit seems to be a road the OFT or anyone else for that matter don't seem to want to go down, which in my opinion rather suspicious, basically you can pre estimate any costs you like, you won't know the actual costs until you have audited them all, an example being I can pre-estimate that a new roof for my house at £2500. When I have receipts for all materials and a receipt from the roofer that comes to £3500 in total that would be my post audit costs.
From other court cases and even if a letter is sent as an LBA, I see that when post audit is mentioned an offer seems to be made instantly.
Just to note I have successfully reclaimed after only two letters from Natwest, RBS and Barclays for the full amount owing plus 8%.

[Caspar]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

So basically what you're saying is you'd go to court and make them prove their real costs again based on audited accounts?

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Yes, as previous mentions of post audit costs sent with determination of going to court makes Egg pay up.
I have also noticed that Barclays are reducing the £16 fee to twelve, hmmm.
Another thing to think about is that Egg Money was an online only product, no branches etc, so where do the extra costs actually come from?
They say it's because they require cardholders to have a direct debit set up, but with utility companies you get a discount for paying by DD because of it's automated nature.

[Caspar]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

I have to bow to your better judgment on this one as I don't know of any cases being challenged on the basis of post audit costs.

If, as you say, this works so convincingly, I assume the reason more people don't use it is ignorance. I'd certainly never heard the argument.

The problem for me here would be the potential cost of a court case against the potential gain.

[Gorang]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Mmmmm This is an interesting theory



How about this for another out of the box moment

If it is a limited company can you not go to Companies house and (if I remember right) pay for a COPY of their last financial years accounts

Maybe this could be audited or show sumit up

Could be way off with this one as I don't know how much detail there would be in a COPY of the accounts assuming you can get them

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Hopefully the cost will just be a £60 mcol fee.

[Gorang]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

Hopefully the cost will just be a £60 mcol fee.

I seriously DOUBT that because

A judge will never order them to submit their own accounts for you to use as proof against them

When you start a claim the onus is on you to PROVE and you to provide the proof that what you are saying is right, so you would need the accounts BEFORE you submitted the claim

Even during the process of the claim you would need a very very strong case before a Judge would order them to supply their accouts to you, and if you had a case that strong then I doubt you would need the accounts anyway

BUT this is only my opinion and others may have a different view

But I really really hope that I am proved wrong as it would open a whole new can of worms that would eat banks for breakfast

[lhmcr1]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

I will be submitting details when I enter my claim, am I right in thinking there is not much room on the online POC form and I would need to go to my local court to submit an N1?
I will be sendinding a letter to Egg along the lines of:
I have great respect for Egg's Genuine Pre-estimate of £16 and great respect for all future Genuine Pre-estimates that Egg provide.

As a customer I cannot help wondering, if after many years in business Egg has ever tried to reconcile Pre-estimates against Post-event audits. I am confident that a company devoted to justice and truth like Egg will not withhold evidence from the customer, that Egg will present evidence in court to show after-the-event costs, as well as before-the-event Genuine Pre-estimates.
I will also be writing abou the UTCCR.

[EXC]

Re: Egg Money Overlmit Charges

As far as I know they only need to provide a per-estimate.

FYI this was the OFT's view on Egg's charges in 2006:


Egg reduced its charge to £16 after the OFT action in April 06. As you will see from the OFT press release issued on 5 April 06 where credit card default charges are set at more than £12, the OFT will presume that they are unfair, and is likely to challenge the charge unless there are limited, exceptional business factors in play. Exceptional business factors which may affect the level of a fair charge may include policies to prevent casual defaults as operated by issuers such as Egg.


The press release goes on to say where there are exceptional business factors, so that the presumption that a default charge over £12 is unfair is not applicable, this does not necessarily mean that the current level of the default charge is consistent with the OFT's interpretation of the requirements of unfair contract terms legislation. But for example, where a card issuer has a policy of requiring customers to pay minimum monthly repayments by direct debits, such as that operated by Egg, and offers credit cards only to customers that satisfy a relatively high scoring requirement it may be able to set a fair default fee at a level above the threshold.