When you open your bank statement, the last thing that you will want to see is the bank charges that you have been hit with for being overdrawn. This is indeed a terrible thing. It is often these charges that plunge you statement first, into a chasm of debt that you are unlikely to escape from for a considerably long time. It is bad techniques like this that are employed by the financial institutions, that just mean things keep getting worse for those on the bread-line. A relatively small initial charge can land an individual in thousands of pounds worth of debt.

Something that goes a long way to highlight the illegality of what the banks are doing, is the growth of companies who specifically deal with getting peoples bank charges back for them. The amount that is charged for this service is between 15-20 percent of the amount that is recovered. The amount that is redeemed is dependent on what a bank has been charging someone, and what they should have charged them legally. To elucidate is to use the example of a customer going over their overdraft limit. The cost of this is around £5.00 which covers having the letter drawn up and posted to the company. Financial institutions charge something in the region of £30.00 for this, which means there is £25.00 right there that is rightfully the customers. This is the amount that can be claimed back. A good thing is that the bank is liable to pay back customers for anything up to six years worth of charges.

A report that was carried out recently by the consumer group Which? Showed that 85% of people that made claims to their bank were successful in receiving either part or all of their money back. It is also the case that the Financial Services Ombudsman should be contacted if there is any sort of dispute, and they can usually swing things in the favour of the consumer. The report also claims that lots of people do not claim because they do not want to create animosity between themselves and the company that they bank with. There was a report of someone being told their account was going to be shut down, subsequent to them being awarded £200.00 in charges recompense. It all ended well though, because the bank was made to give the customer an extra £1000.00, and they had to reinstate the person’s account. No bank has, as of yet, asked the high court to judge whether or not the charges are fair, and they are just compensating anyone that comes forth with a request for compensation. They are just hoping that a large percentage of people will not.

If a person has accumulated £20,000 in debt, what with credit card and what not, then the chances are that they would have, over time, accumulated a lot of charges from the bank. Indeed a lot of the £20,000 could well be due to the charges that have been incurred. Perhaps even thousands of it could be because of charges. Even if you are no longer with the bank that charged, you, you should still be able to claim your charges back.

This article is written by Jonathan L Walker, on behalf of Claims Management
UK, specialising in helping people with their Reclaim Bank Charges