Bank charge firms to be investigated
May 24, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
On the back of current investigations that are being carried out into the charges applied to customers’ accounts by banks in the UK by regulatory bodies, a further investigation will now be carried out into the various firms that have sprung up claiming to be able to help consumers to recover these charges – for a fee.
Regulators will now be looking into and scrutinizing these firms amidst fears that many consumers may be wasting their money on paying unnecessary fees for a task that they can carry out themselves free of charge, other than paying for copy statements.
UK regulators have been looking into unfair and unlawful charges that have been charged to customers’ accounts by banks for some months, and as a result of this many consumers have managed to claim back charges and fees going back up to six years, which in some cases has amounted to thousands. However, in light of the increasing number of people attempting to claim back fees from their banks a number of companies have sprung up with offers of assistance in exchange for fees.
These companies will now be investigated by the Ministry of Justice, and amongst the practices that will be looked into by the ministry is cold calling, where company representatives phone up consumers to try and talk them into letting them help claim back charges. However, consumers can just as easily do this themselves for the cost of a duplicate statement, and without having to pay any further charges.
In a recent case Lloyds Bank won a case where a man had tried to make a claim for his charges, and this was the first case to be won by a bank in relation to these charges. In other cases banks have failed to justify the charges, and consumers have been able to reclaim them.
Tom Smith
24th May 2007
