How do I get a copy of my Bank Charges for the last 6 years?
In order to claim back your charges, you obviously first need to know how much you’ve been charged, so you’ll need a copy of all of your charges for the last 6 years. The easiest way to do this is to find them from your bank statements. However, many people don't keep copies of their statements for that long, so you`ll need to get a full set of charges or statements, and there are a couple of ways of doing this.
Online Banking
The easiest way to get these is if you have Online Banking, and you can print off the statements yourself. However, some banks only allow you to go back and view statements for a shorter amount of time, and if your account has been closed you usually can’t access the details using online banking.
HSBC allow you to view your last 6 years of statements, and this is the easiest way to get hold of them. If you are not setup for online banking, ask at your local branch and they should be able to do it for you free of charge.
Don’t ask your Branch – They will try to charge you!
You would think you could ask at your local branch for copies of your statements for the last 6 years, and indeed you can, but they will usually try to charge you. HSBC tried to charge me £1 for each statement, so for statements for 6 years this would have cost:
£1 per statement * 12 statements a year * 6 years = £72!!!
Other banks have asked more for each statement, justifying it as the cost of producing the statement.
Getting your Charges Data using The Data Protection Act
Thankfully, the Data Protection Act comes to your rescue! Under the Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998, you are entitled to make a "right of subject access", which means that organisations have to show you what personal information they hold about you, in this case it applies to your transactions with the bank, more specifically the charges.
To get copies of your charges for the last 6 years under the Data Protection Act, see the next section: Step 1 - Requesting your Charges - Data Protection Act
