The bank charges mean a lot of money for the banks.  They are also a trap for those reckless customers who fail to read the terms and conditions that apply to their current account.  Recent research has suggested that about 41% of people do not know the interest rate that applies to an unauthorized overdraft.  What is more, 19% of people are always overdrawn.  Whether you write a cheque when there is no enough money to cover it or take slightly too much out at the automated teller machine (ATM), banks will charge you and the bank charges will be costly.  A survey suggested that overdraft bank charges of 4.7 billion were paid by 43% of current account holder last year.

A lot of us may be asking if banks have the rights to charge us for going overdrawn.  It really depends on how you see the charges.  The issue here is whether the bank charges are allowed under your contract with the bank or whether they are really penalty charges.  That is what makes the difference between fair and unfair bank charges and it is why many courts have found in favor of the customers.

When you open a bank account, you enter an agreement or contract with the bank.  That agreement includes certain bank charges that they may apply.  Under the law, the bank is allowed to impose bank charges that reflect the amount they will lose in certain situations.

Everyone can try to reclaim bank charges from their banks that have taken money from their account when they had mis-sold mortgages or overdue and bounced cheques. However, they must take some important steps to get credit. They can request assistance of a management claims company stating that they want to help so as to begin their recovery process on their unfair bank charges they have paid in.

First, one should open a bank account. The reason is that many of the banks will fight any charges as much as they could and will include the closure of the bank account if one reclaimed their bank charges successfully. They may also keep records to show that you are a difficult customer which may have an impact on your future relationships that might have with them. Although one may not need the account, it might become a form of insurance so as not to end without one at the end of the day.

Then, it is necessary to collect your transaction history. Before you can reclaim bank charges, you need to know what they have charged you and if it is right or not. If you were able to collect all bank statements, you can have all the necessary evidences. However, if you have gotten rid of the entire statement records, there is still a means of obtaining information of your bank charges. All you need to do is to write to your bank and request the necessary information you need. Under the Data Protection Act, they need to give customers and can’t charge more than 10 pounds for such information.

Finally, after you have all the details of the charges that are unfair contact your bank and tell them you are not satisfied with the way they treat you and the charges they give you. Give specific details of the charges to be recovered and any other relevant information, such as matters of law. You may be able to recover unfair bank charges with 8% interest on what the banks have taken from you.

The bank charges are usually taken from the bank account monthly or quarterly.  A statement detailing a breakdown of all fees is sent to the customer before the fees are taken from their account.  It is useful to check this statement regularly to ensure that no other fees are being imposed.  Ask the bank to explain anything that looks unusual or that you do not understand.

You can find the information you need on understanding and checking business bank charges and interest for small business at the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) website.  However, it is not all down to the bank.  If you do not keep to the terms and conditions of your account, the charges can be astronomical.  Banks will impose bank charges for referral fee if your account goes overdrawn without permission.  This is payable if the manager has to examine your account and write to you about it.

If you are not happy with the service you have received from your bank, in the first instance, complain to your bank right away.  If they still do the same and you are still not happy with it, you can find details about complaining and resolving a bank dispute with your bank at the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) website.  You can also seek the help of a specialist solicitor in dealing bank charges and you will receive all the advice and support that you will need.

The word bank charges cover all charges and fees produced by the banks to their customers.  In a common way of speaking, the term bank charges generally relate to charges in respect of personal current account . These charges may take a lot of forms, including monthly charges for the provision of an account, charges for specific transactions apart from overdraft limit excesses, interest in respect of overdrafts whether authorized or unauthorized by the banks, charges for exceeding authorized overdraft limits or making payments or attempting to make payments where no authorized overdraft exists.
There are several types of bank charges in the United Kingdom.  Banks may charge their customers a fixed monthly charge for the provision of the account.  In the UK, this was not common practice until the 1990s when banks started to introduce this type of bank charges as a means of product differentiation, often offering additional services bundled with the bank account itself like travel insurance, mobile phone insurance, and preferential rates on other products.

There are various bank charges for specific transactions.  Until the 1980s,the majority of banks in the United Kingdom charged for all transactions.A number of more recent entrants to the personal current account market took no fees while in credit approach, leading very quickly to a situation where no bank could complete with others without offering the same deal.
Even if the loss of income was incurred, to some extent, covered by the interest earned on carrying balances in current accounts,the banks profitability on personal current accounts has been significantly impacted by this charge in the charging structure.  In turn, this lead to the banks increased use of bank charges for exceeding overdraft limits as a means of generating their required level of profitabity.
As the vast majority of us know, in the test case made, the judge ruled the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) could decide whether the bank charges imposed were unfair or not.This meant that bank customers were a step closer to
reclaim bank charges against the  financial institutions.  The banks appealed and the Supreme Court ruled against the OFT this time.Which means that any kind of claims to get back the bank charges that might have already submitted are likely to be rejected unless the customers can show that

unfair bank charges have contributed to any financial hardships.
The banks must still deal with any cases of hardship.There is no firm definition of a hardship case, but it is more likely to apply to any customers whose income is inadequate to cover reasonable living expenses or if the bank customers are struggling to pay debts, such as mortgage arrears.  If your bank does not help,you can  take your bank charges complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Services (FOS).

There are different ways in which you may be a mis-sold mortgages victim.  In the last 10 years, a lot of people in the United Kingdom may have been mis-sold mortgages by their lenders.  There may be a chance that they were mis-sold the policy and stand to reclaim thousands of pounds from their lender.

To the typical person, the process of taking out a mortgage can be difficult and sometimes confusing.  With so many things to consider, such as repayment methods, interest rates, bank charges and length of the policy, it is not a surprise that product has been mis-sold so frequently.

If hidden charges on your mortgage were not discussed to you during the sale of the product, then you may have a mis-sold mortgage case.  Some of the mortgage lenders failed to explain to their customers that the fixed rate payments were only applicable to a certain number of years, and after that year, the mortgage loan repayments will increase.  Other mortgage brokers also encouraged their customers to inflate their income declaration to be able to get a higher loan without even thinking that their loan repayments and the interest rate will also increase.  There were also mis-sold mortgages complaints from people whose mortgage run past their retirement age.

These are just a few of the ways in which you may have a mis-sold mortgage and there are chances that you could lose your home if you will not accordingly.  If any of these happened to you when you took out your mortgage, then you can start filing your mis-sold mortgage complaint against your lender.  You may be able to receive compensation for being a victim of the unscrupulous acts of many lenders and you may also be able to save your home from being repossessed.

There are lots of Mortgages on the Market in the UK today, and the chances are you like many thousands of others have been sold a good one. But there are also thousands of other people who have a mis-sold mortgage. The biggest problem with a mis-sold mortgage is you could easily lose your home, because the repayments are not what they are supposed to be. People who were living in a council owned property were given the right to buy under a law passed a few years ago by the government,  that’s, when the trouble of mis-sold mortgages began,  we were bombarded with either TV adverts, newspaper adverts, mail drops and also cold doorstep callers, all offering us mortgages to buy our homes.

Sadly there didn’t seem to any regulation about this type of Mortgage brokering, and without regulation, and shall we say honesty, on both sides, is where the problems started and the term mis-sold mortgages came about. Some people were offered mortgages, with an income that would normally be refused as being to low by most mortgage companies, one such case involved a person being offered a mortgage with repayments of, 431 pounds a month, well not to bad you may think, but the problem was this persons monthly income was just, 517 pounds a month, you may say well, ok, that’s the persons fault for taking out the mortgage, well you would be wrong because this is the typical case of a person having been sold a,  mis-sold mortgage, oh and I forgot to add this persons age 71.I wonder how many years his repayments were over? Do you think this is a case of a mis-sold mortgage?

Banks and bank charges on mortgages are very often another case of mis sold mortgages, bank charges can be extremely harsh on mortgages sold by banks, And the ombudsman has come down very hard with the banking fraternity about there practice of mortgages and the way they are sold. If you think you have unfair bank charges on your mortgage you should act now to save yourself and your family from the possibility of losing your home.

The FSA was blamed by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) for not stepping in the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) dilemma quickly before it got worse and calls the financial services industry’s mis-selling scandals an “addiction.”

Primary Ombudsman Tony Boor complained about the 100,000 complaints the BBA has left under its service, mostly composed of mis sold payment protection insurance.

During the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) complaints handling seminar, Mr. Boor stated that the banking industry looked like it was “addicted to regular mis-selling scandals.”

He sermoned both parties of learning an important lesson in detecting, not ignoring or denying problems in the financial industry, and more importantly, resolving it early on; quoting, “too often we have seen problems that are first ignored, then denied, then minimized, and eventually tackled when it is too late.”

Boorman criticized the city regulator for not exercising decisive measures when the scam first surfaced; saying the city watchdog seemed to have been “unwilling or unable to act – or at least to do so promptly.”

He stated that he didn’t think “any of the involved parties would disagree that earlier regulatory action on PPI would have been in the public interest.” On the other hand, the Ombudsman insisted of the industry’s responsibility, and of ways it can better its services by being “open to accepting critical observations about past practices and more ready to propose ways in which those problems can be resolves fairly, efficiently, and promptly.”

He explained the FOS’ method of handling claims and issuing its results is the “path to greater transparency”, calling for orderly and justified measures that do not “recognize the sensitivity” of the information need to be dealt with.

He hoped extended transparency will “bust some myths” about what they do, and announced a discussion about publicizing ombudsman conclusion later this year.

The Financial Services Authority has granted HSBC an extension to settle its backlog of payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints in order to ensure proper handling of its customers.

The terms run similarly with other high street banks Barclays, Lloyds and RBS involving a stretch of backlog and new complaint handling period.  Under normal ruling by the FSA, grievances have to be answered in the time period of 8 weeks, the agreement gives additional time for banks to clear up complaints that were frozen and were received during the conclusion of the judicial review.

PPI Claims that were put on hold during the court battle will be given priority response and must be resolved by the 31st August 2011, while those that have been collected by firms after the end of the court review on or prior to August 31 will be replied to in 16 weeks.

Those that were submitted on or past the first day of September and the dates previous December 31 2011 will be answered to within the 12 – week period.

Stringent terms have recently been implemented on the temporary period given by the FSA, these include a mandatory regular report on the banks’ observance to the aforementioned rules, and keeping PPI claimants duly informed.

The City regulator will expect all PPI compensation complaints handling to resume its normal 8-week standard by the first day of next year, January 1 2012.

Unlike its contemporary, Barclays, fellow top UK banks Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland will not be giving “automatic reimbursement” to claims received prior to the 20^th of April from their customers whom they have mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) to.

Both banks did not promise to give compensation to just anyone that filed a complaint before April 20, specifying its coverage will only be limited to customers banking with either Lloyds TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands – which is estimated to make up 20% of dismissed cases; Lloyds spokesman also stated the validity of the claim will base its viability on its merit meaning majority will be given redress but not all.

Lloyd’s spokesman promises instead, that it will individually handle complaints “fairly and consistently” regardless of the time they were raised, and that it will guarantee response to each PPI complaint submitted before May 6, by concluding August.

“For customers that have submitted a complaint on or after this date, we will provide a full response within 16 weeks of receiving that complaint.”

RBS and Natwest echoed Lloyds statement by guaranteeing to handle each complaint via compliance to the FSA guidelines.

It was early Monday that Barclays announced its pay out to its customers who complained before April 20, the total amount of all premiums and added interest of 8%.

Barclays played the good guy by reiterating its statement, “We have said before that when we get things wrong, we apologize, and work hard and work fast to put them right as quickly as possible.”

The UK-based bank added it is “cooperating closely with the City regulators FSA and Financial Ombudsman Service in recognition of the delay their customers have experienced while waiting final judicial review, and can confirm they are contacting customers with an offer to settle their complaint in full as a gesture of goodwill.”

In addition, the letters confirming the bank’s intentions will be given out to customers this week. The bank tells their account holders to expect another letter on August 31 that will indicate full specifications of their reimbursement.

It appears that the banks have not learned their lesson from the mis sold PPI claims scandal and are continuing to offer their customer misleading advice.  An expose by the BBC’s documentary series Panorama, has revealed that financial advisers are continuing to give what was called “misleading”, “inaccurate,”  and “pressurized” advice to their customers.

Three of UK’s top banks, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB have all been found guilty of bad practice.

One adviser from HSBC received the harshest criticism, who, according to an undercover investor, did not make any risk questionnaire, only until he insisted.

Like most businesses, HSBC ducked the issue by saying its adviser in question possessed “an excellent track record in providing accurate and suitable financial advice.”

One from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) told the potential customer about a sale and he could not provide information of its end, assuring the investor “At no stage could he lose his money” – which was a clear tactic in order to make a sale and hit their targets.

While others were “too fast and confusing” as well as “inaccurate”, (pertaining to Lloyds) some were ”uncomfortable” discussing the fees.

A senior Investment adviser commented on their difficulty to be “upfront and honest” about charges, referring to one adviser who tells the charges were “from the fund and not their money”.

He says “This is misleading as the money was put into the fund therefore the charges are still coming out of your money. This was not explained.”

Overall, these advisers were only there to do their jobs and were only “under pressure to sell products in a limited time in order to hit their targets.”

Consumers need to remain vigilant, as the banks crank up the pressure on their staff to increase sales and profitability.  The banks have recently been fined for mis selling PPI, mis-selling mortgages, mis-selling investment products and not dealing with complaints properly…. yet this has not dampened their appetite for increased profits.