On the 27th of February, T Mobile charged me for my mobile phone bill. It was £51, and I only had £44 available in my account. However, my bank rejected the direct debit, and charged me £38 for the privilege. So I threw a hissy fit at my bank, but “tough luck” was the general response.
Around the same time, however, the Observer ran an article, “Customers urged to sue over overdraft penalties“. Obviously, these two actions together had to be an omen from the Gods, and I decided to write a letter to my bank:
On the 27th of March 2006, T Mobile attempted to take a £50.31 direct debit payment out of my NatWest account. At the time, there was £16.29 present in my account. As such, NatWest decided to refuse the direct debit payment, and took £38 out of my account as a charge.
If NatWest would have let the direct debit payment go through, I would have been more susceptible to the suggestion of having to pay a £38 fine, as that could have been seen as a service to my benefit.
As it stands, however, the £38 charge to my account made on this date is completely out of proportion with the actual costs incurred by NatWest, and I find the charge unfair and excessive. I believe the charge made is unjustified under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations, for the reasons outlined above, and wish to claim a full or partial refund of no less than £26, to be paid into my bank account.
To my surprise, I receive a letter back from my bank:
I apologise for any dissatisfaction (…) We believe our charges are fair (…) We consider the amounts debited to your account have been applied strictly in accordance with your agreement with us
(…) on this occasion we will arrange to refund your account with £38 as a gesture of good will but any charges that accrue in the future must stand(…)
So basically, the bank is telling me that “we are right in charging this amount of money, but we will refund you this time, since you asked for it. The next time you go overdrawn, we’ll charge you the full whack again”.
I guess it’s a small victory, in that the bank is refunding the money they took out of my account. I wish they would change their policy however. We’ll see. I hope I won’t end up in a situation where the bank is trying to take money that isn’t there, but we’ll see.
click for larger image of the letter from my bank