Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Mr Angry
Gareth, with all due respect, I've explained why this excuse is "rubbish" before and I'll do it again. I, personally, over the past sixteen or so months, have been involved in several dozen cases where almost £90,000 has been refunded in penalty charges.
Please explain your "cost efficency" theory. If the banks wanted to put a stop to losing these cases all they have to do is disprove one - just one - case and they're home free. Are you telling me that the bean counters at the banks think it's better to sit back and let many thousands of people successfully claim possibly millions in unfair charges rather than engage a solicitor (at best a barrister) at a cost of say £10,000 to destroy the entire claims process?
|
I must firstly point out that these comments are my own personal opinion and are in no way an interpretation of anything other than my personal views.
With all due respect, Mr Angry, I think that your sums might be slightly optimistic. Not with regards the amount that you've dealt with, I'm sure those figures are correct. However, I think that the cost of one bank employing not only its own legal department but also, as you point out, any required barristers to take on a case to try and disprove a claim, is going to be a helluva lot more that £10,000 .
Bear in mind that this could potentially take many months if not years to come to fruition, and that also, during this period, they would still be receiving more claims where they only have 40 days to respond.
Finally, it's also worth considering that the possible millions that might be repaid is spread amongst all banks, credit card issuers, store card operators, mortgage providers, etc... so although the amount each is repaying is reduced, the legal fees incurred would be atttributable to whichever bank,credit card company, etc... decided to take up the gauntlet.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Mr Angry
|
Yes, sorry, I inadvertantly pasted the URL from the wrong window... I had both open and copied the older release.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Mr Angry
The OFT press release states "Only a court can finally decide whether a charge is unfair or not. The OFT has today set out a statement of its view of the law. This has not generally been accepted by most of the eight credit card issuers".
The "law" to which the OFT refers is the very same law which states that penalty charges are illegal. This has been proven in court on several occasions. We were extremely disappointed that after months of legal discussions the OFT sought to offer their "view" of the law rather than to actually use the law to clamp down on this abusive practice and empower consumers with the knowledge that their entitlement to refunds of penalty charges are a legal right.
|
I would love to see this go to court, simply because everything would then be much more clear-cut and less ambiguous for the consumer than it currently is. IANAL (although I did study law at college many moons ago, before changing career completely) but I can't see it happening sadly, and I think that the opinion of the OFT is the best we'll get... although it has had a visible impact already.
My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that the charges are indeed too high, and have been used in the past as an additional revenue generator by some organisations.