Big Blow For Bank Charges Victims

A terrible decision from a body that is supposed to help consumers has left many people with a long wait for their money back, some of whom must make a difficult decision.

The Financial Services Authority has granted waiver to the banks, so that they are no longer obliged to handle complaints about unlawful bank charges.

No, this is not because it's ruled that charges are lawful. In fact, it's because the Office of Fair Trading thinks they aren't lawful, and is taking a super-claim to court to get the matter settled once and for all.

The banks being taken to court are: Abbey National, Barclays, Clydesdale, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland.

And that's all fine. It'd be nice and neat to get one decision that settles the matter once and for all. However, it makes no sense that banks don't have to deal with claims in the meantime. It's ill-thought out, crazy even.

Thanks to the FSA, the situation now is that the banks don't have to deal with these claims at all. The FSA says also that the Financial Ombudsman will stop dealing with the claims, and so will the county courts, probably. This plays into the banks' hands.

Why on Earth should people halt their claims? There are lots of people with serious debt trouble largely, and in many cases solely, due to unlawful penalty charges, and now their claims will be suspended, perhaps for a year or several years, whilst we wait for the super-claim to be settled.

Their options for getting their money back in the meantime will be limited or non-existent, as their rights and protections are suspended. All the while, their debt will continue to grow, and their worry and anxieties along with it.

Furthermore, the FSA has, amazingly, agreed that claimants who have had offers from the bank already must either accept that offer in full and final settlement, or they'll almost certainly be forced to wait a long time, i.e. until this super-claim is finally resolved.

This puts those claimants with financial problems in a difficult and stressful position. It's a choice they shouldn't have to make, but the FSA wants to take away their right to get a proper response from the bank, and to take away their right to an ombudsman and to claim in the small claims court.

Sadly, it's almost certainly too late to salvage anything from this for existing claimants. The decision has been made apparently without anyone injecting the claimants' perspectives into it.

Consumers need a strong voice for the FSA to listen to, because clearly the Authority has been won over by the banks' self-serving arguments, which have been offered under the guise of 'fairness'.

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