Claim Bank Charges Back - Helping you to reclaim Unfair Bank Charges!

Bank customers may be forced to wait years to reclaim "rip-off" overdraft fees after lenders confirmed today they will appeal against a High Court test case on penalty charges.

In total, eight high street banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, have sought permission to appeal against last month's ruling, which gave the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) legal jurisdiction to determine whether bank charges are unfair.

However, at a case management hearing today, Mr Justice Andrew Smith said he was minded to give the banks leave to appeal.

Consumer groups have accused banks of trying to draw out the court process for as long as possible because the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City watchdog, has granted lenders permission to put customer claims on hold until the judicial process is completed.

Martin Lewis of Moneysavingexpert.com, a consumer website, said: "Now they have shown intent to appeal, the worry is this will go all the way to the House of Lords and possibly beyond and could take three years.

"We are now in the outrageous situation that banks are still charging the fees. Yet even though we have a binding court ruling, the FSA is still stopping people from trying to reclaim them."

Phil Jones of Which?, the consumer organisation, said: "The banks should stop stringing this out. The charges are seen as unfair by consumers so they should do the decent thing and pay compensation to those who have made a claim and reduce the fees to a fair level."

The test case followed a revolt which saw hundreds of thousands of customers reclaiming millions of pounds from lenders.

Banks are concerned that if the OFT is allowed to proceed, it could cap the fee for bouncing cheques or exceeding overdraft limits at a much lower rate than the £30 typically charged.

It could even force the banks to refund the difference between the charges they imposed and a new acceptable rate of penalties set by the regulator.

Analysts estimate that a cap on overdraft charges could cost the banks £10 billion in lost revenue and force the end of free banking

Read Full Article...