Are you sitting down? Because we’ve got some shocking news – A major bank is scrapping overdraft fees as from October. I Know! The thing is, it’s National Austrailia Bank (NAB) but it’s a move that is thought to help UK-based victims of bank charges.

NAB said that as of October; it’s going to get rid of their £15 charge for going overdrawn without permission. This could possibly see other lenders within the NAB group also abolish fees, those banks include The Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks although early reports indicate they will not be scrapping the charges.

NAB’s spokesperson Lisa Gray said:
“Most of our customers who experience these fees don’t think it is fair. Getting rid of them will improve our relationship with customers”.

Lisa hits the nail on the head and although bank charges claims are still on hold pending the outcome of a test case those experienced financial hardship can have their claim heard.

If you’re interested in getting your money back from the banks, but aren’t sure how much you could receive, you can now use a simple Excel spreadsheet calculator to ‘figure out the figure’. The guys at personal finance news website thisismoney.co.uk have 2 downloadable claim calculators that will help you put an amount on the bank charges you’ve paid out.

They’re easy to use and free, which means you can quickly see exactly how much of your money has been pocketed by the bankers before you start your bank charges refund claim.

No this isn’t a wind-up, Josh Muszynski of Manchester, New Hampshire, went into his local corner shop to buy his usual pack of cigarettes with his credit card. Everything went according to plan until he got his statement at the end of the month which showed he had paid over £14 quadrillion for one pack of cigs.

Now, Josh is an average guy with an average credit limit so it’s no surprise that this hefty price-tag took him a little into the red and as a consequence, he received a $15 credit card fee. But he wasn’t the only Visa customer to be slightly over-charged for a purchase, the system glitch left many across the country with credit card charges for going quadrillians over their limit.

When interviewed by WMUR-TV, Mr Muszynski said  “…I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card.”

Ha, what a joker, considering the current climate – you could probably pick Europe up for the actual price of a packet of cigarettes.

With more and more people delving into their credit to get through these lean times, the use of credit cards to make payments and withdraw cash has seen a dramatic rise, not least when travelling abroad. So it came as good news this week when the Government announced that they’re cracking down on credit card companies charging excessive fees for minor discretions.

But with the banks already in the brown stuff and the Government holding a controlling stake in most of them, will they go far enough to make sure consumers are protected from unfair credit card charges? This article at MyFinances.co.uk thinks the banking consumer is still in for a few ’statement shocks’.

It’s summer and a combination of decent weather and the economic sess pitt we all find ourselves in will probably lead to more Britons holidaying in the UK than we’ve seen for a while. This is great news for the economy and great news if you plan to be using your credit card to pay for holiday stuff as you can be sure of no hidden exchange rate credit card charges.

But for those of you that are venturing abroad this year, be it Europe (very brave), the US or further afield you may not be able to avoid the upheaval of excessive credit card charges. Be it on purchases or cash withdrawals, lenders still have charges in-place for using your card abroad. So to make sure you stay in control of what you’re spending, the Telegraph have put together 10 tips to make sure you don’t spend more than you need to, take a look.

For all of you out there who haven’t started claiming back bank charges yet, take a look at what happened when small-business credit card lender, Advanta Corp got a seriously painful wrap on the knuckles.

Due to alleged “unsafe or unsound” practices involving credit card charges, it has agreed to refund up to £24.5 million back to its customers. Typically for a lender, Advanta did not admit wrongdoing, instead saying it decided to pay back charges “in the interest of expediency and to avoid litigation.”

This means there’s a whole load of customers who are in-line for a windfall, albeit money that was unfairly taken from them in the first-place. Advanta recently shut 1 million of its accounts due to bad debt and te great news is; even those customers can apply for a unfair bank charges refund, so it’s never to late!

Advanta closed all these accounts in May after when a review found that 20% of it’s loans had gone into default. Not surprising when it’s customers are dumped with hefty charges on top of their borrowings and in the midst of a recession.