Jalexa:[Regarding the imposition of charges without notice, that's a breach of the Banking Codes. Unfortunately it may become one person's word against another, quite difficult (for you) to prove. Will come back to that later.

According to Lloyds's own website it states that they will never charge more than 10 days worth of fees per month, at £10.00 a day:

http://www.lloydstsb.com/rates_and_charges/current_account_charges.asp#overdraftcharges

FeeAmountDescriptionMonthly fee£15You will pay this fee if you have an Unplanned Overdraft at any time during your monthly billing period (even if your next monthly billing period is only a few days away).
We will charge you a maximum of one monthly fee in a monthly billing period.Daily feeUnplanned Overdraft balance is:Less than £25 - £6 a day£25 to £100 - £15 a dayMore than £100 - £20 a day
You will pay a daily fee for using an Unplanned Overdraft. The amount of the fee will be worked out at the end of each day (including weekends and bank holidays) on the balance of your Unplanned Overdraft.
We will charge you a maximum of 10 daily fees in a monthly billing period.

Regarding the charges, the ongoing court case is, amongst other things, indirectly regarding the fairness of the charges in relation to the size of the charges against the cost to the bank. You can still (and should) register a complaint regarding the charges but it will not be considered until the conclusion of all appeal processes.

What you should also do is to go through the account terms and conditions with a fine tooth comb and see if every Lloyds TSB action and subsequent statement complies fully. Also scrutinise the Banking Codes.

If the above stats weren't present when he opened the account a decade ago, can they retro-actively (ipso facto) be enforcable per the request of the customer in regards to their own updated banking T&C?

Perhaps you should also register for telephone or internet banking and keep on top of what is a monthly balance close to the limit. That you didn't makes this quite hard to fight.

There are montly packs available with small fees for notifications and also text and e-mail alerts along with upper and lower limit alerts with Lloyds which might be an idea...and looking into the T&C of the first Unplanned overdraft being fee-waivered seems an idea for Kenny imo.

Back to the missing letter, in these circumstances I always advise people to make a £10 Subject Access Request requireing all your records including 6 years worth of statements, all correspondence and telephone logs including tapes or transcripts. This may or may not prove they did or didn't send the charges notice but regardless costs Lloyds TSB an admin fortune and you only £10.

Haha, i didn't know that, thanks for sharing that, you learn something new every day! :)

kenny_c:

Hi,

I bank with Lloyds TSB and have done for the last 15 years, in August 2 Direct Debits came out on the same day and sent me £30 over my limit, i dont have an overdraft so it put me -£30 in my bank, when my wages went in, Lloyds took out £160 as bank charges for this error, i wasnt happy about that as i didnt go to the bank again that month so i didnt realise i was over drawn and didnt get any letters to say i was.

Firstly, just a quick quesion Kenny, why in all the time you have been banking with Lloyds (15 years) haven't you ever sought a safety net like an overdraft? Wouldn't it make sense?

I wrote them a nice letter apologising for this error and asked them to refund me the money they had charged, they sent another letter saying it was there policy to charge £10 a day for this mistake, and it was 16 days my bank account was like this.

What do i do now? i know about the letters asking for bank charges to be put back in or i will take them to court, should i go down that route?

Many thanks for any advice given.

Don't take them to court, like Jalexa said, that's a no brainer, forget it.

A nicely worded letter probably doesn't help either...maybe a letter saying you regret their decision and wish to close your account and you will now be taking formal steps to do so might help? At worst they'll call your bluff and you can take your business elsewhere...

But other than that, it depends on the account, is it an account with a charge?

They just recently approved new rules with Lloyds packaged accounts (not Silver but Premier, platinum and Gold) that if ever you go into an unautorized overdraft, they will NOT charge you if it is cleared the same month. Only for th first time though, so is this the first time it has happened?

Other than that, like Jalexa said, go through your T&C with a fine tooth comb, but more than likely, they would have done what their policy states by default, and unless you can argue semantics per case of possible failures of notifaction or something like that, threatenning to leave may be your best bet...

If you have a packaged account which will mean you have an account manager, he or she may be sympathetic to your cause/case and refund it for you which may be an option...

kenny_c:

so i didnt realise i was over drawn and didnt get any letters to say i was.

There is more than one issue going on here so it's difficult to know what is the best advice. However if you are asking advice on weighing up taking the hit or taking Lloyds TSB to court, that's a no brainer, there is hardly any return for a big downside risk of costs.

Regarding the imposition of charges without notice, that's a breach of the Banking Codes. Unfortunately it may become one person's word against another, quite difficult (for you) to prove. Will come back to that later.

Regarding the charges, the ongoing court case is, amongst other things, indirectly regarding the fairness of the charges in relation to the size of the charges against the cost to the bank. You can still (and should) register a complaint regarding the charges but it will not be considered until the conclusion of all appeal processes.

What you should also do is to go through the account terms and conditions with a fine tooth comb and see if every Lloyds TSB action and subsequent statement complies fully. Also scrutinise the Banking Codes.

Perhaps you should also register for telephone or internet banking and keep on top of what is a monthly balance close to the limit. That you didn't makes this quite hard to fight.

Back to the missing letter, in these circumstances I always advise people to make a £10 Subject Access Request requireing all your records including 6 years worth of statements, all correspondence and telephone logs including tapes or transcripts. This may or may not prove they did or didn't send the charges notice but regardless costs Lloyds TSB an admin fortune and you only £10.

Hi,

I bank with Lloyds TSB and have done for the last 15 years, in August 2 Direct Debits came out on the same day and sent me £30 over my limit, i dont have an overdraft so it put me -£30 in my bank, when my wages went in, Lloyds took out £160 as bank charges for this error, i wasnt happy about that as i didnt go to the bank again that month so i didnt realise i was over drawn and didnt get any letters to say i was.

I wrote them a nice letter apologising for this error and asked them to refund me the money they had charged, they sent another letter saying it was there policy to charge £10 a day for this mistake, and it was 16 days my bank account was like this.

What do i do now? i know about the letters asking for bank charges to be put back in or i will take them to court, should i go down that route?

Many thanks for any advice given.