Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

I simply detest Barclays.

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

You pray for the destruction of MBNA. I pray for the death of Barclays.

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

And I prey for the destruction of both

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

You are truly on the path to the Dark Side, Lord Pompey!

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

Indeed, and may the force be with you TDS

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

I aim to destroy Sir Luke Skywanker OBE and all the other Executives at Barclays

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

he must be a then!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

However the question has to be asked is he a 1 star or a 5 star

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

No, that's Sir Bob.

[CleverClogs (RIP)]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

Did you go to the FOS Service Review Team? Apparently they review cases as well as adjudicator conduct. appears to be a lower tier than the independent assessor at the FOS.

What is really needed is an ombudperson to whom one can refer complaints about the Fobbing Off Service.

[CleverClogs (RIP)]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

And I prey for the destruction of both

With specially sharpened claws?

[garlok]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

[nattie]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

A de facto limit of £1,000 if you go overdrawn without authorisation. £22 every 5 days plus £8 charge for each item returned over that limit.
Can't fund my usual red ink when I quote people but the reserve can be removed and therefore the £22 avoided(just the £8 plus interest).

I wrote a hardship letter to Barcrap Bank as they wouldn't let me have an overdraft. They wrote back saying "go into a branch and get them to manually override the computer."

Not having an overdraft is not Financial Hardship. Missing payments on essential utilities, mortgage/rent, etc. would constitute it.

I go to branch and woman taps a few keys and says "computer says no." I ask about the manual override and she says "no. computer says no."

I send a second letter to bank saying that reserve usage has cost me £2000 in 24 months and bank charges £1000 over same period. When I went into branch I was told no manuakl intervention possible.

Bank replies partially upholding my complaint and avising I return to branch. Same thing happens again.

This bit is interesting. What part of the complaint did they uphold? What resolution did they suggest?

Now, over 2 year period Barcklays screw me for £3000 when, had I had an overdraft, that wouldn't have happened. They sent me 40 letters saying I was using my reserve and in those letters say *(sic) "regular use of your reserve is not the point of it and it will get withdrawn if you becomne reliant on it." Well it was obvious i was reliant on it as de facto overdraft and their 40 letters prove it.

You don't have to have the reserve btw.

Bank never sent me an i/e sheet or offered a plan to get me out of reserve usage reliance.

Did you state you were in financial hardship? Were the items being returned, mortgage/rent, utilities, HP on car you use for work?

So I complained and they said no to refund of charges and as far as reserve was concerned "tough" as I had the option to leave it any point. Well, no, not really cos I needed it to survive.

Surviving rather than struggling may be seen as not being in financial hardship. Under FH there is no onus on the bank to refund bank charges or reserve useage fees(as they call it). The initial uphold of your complaint at the moment might be more important than anything else.

Eventually goes to the FOS who have said bank were fully compliant with hardship handling.

from the brief details given at the moment, I currently understand their viewpoint. Were there mortgage/rent arrears, utility arrears?

I have responded to FOS saying how can this be, since bank did not offer any assistance when I initially asked for assistance.

Any views?

Assistance is not the same as screaming "the shit has hit the fans and I can't pay any money to anyone". There are two issue I see, the fact that you have said the "reserve was what I needed to survive!" rather than the reserve fees was why I could not survive.
How did you approach the ombudsman? Did you send them all correspondence plus an up to date income and expenditure form?(as I may or may not have read the issue before, I don't recall or remember if you have).

[The Debt Star]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

Hi Nattie. Yeah I have raised this before, OTR, but b4 the FOS adjudication. I hadn't complained to the FOS at that point. You felt then that I didn't have enough grounds for a hardship complaint and couldn't do 'owt about the reserve charges and have been thoroughly vindicated by the FOS response, it must be said.

I didn't send the FOS an i/e sheet no. They did get all the correspondence but the distinct vibe is that the adjudicator hasn't bothered with it.

The line I took was that because I had written (twice) to Sharkleys and had been told in writing (twice) that the bank 'should' have at least manually run an o/d application to override the computer programme, that there was something in this. That, and the fact that despite telling the bank I was in deep shit financially and the £88+ each month in their reserve costs were spiralling my problems (ie adding debt onto an already deteriorating situation) would mean that the bank should have responded constructively. I take this to mean that the bank should have removed the reserve then and offered a payment plan over, for example, 6 months, to help me claw my way out of reserve usage dependancy. I also thought the bank should have sent the i/e not wait for me to request and send one. The bank also promised fone calls which never came from a so-called specialist department. Instead theyu referred to attempts to call me but defo no calls were made or messages left at any point at all.

from the sounds of it I'm not alone as Oscar has suffered similar.

what frustrates me about this whole personal reserve mullarcky is that the bank have cleerly made a lot of money out of people like me who they won't provide an overdraft to, and it reeks of systematic profiteering.

[nattie]

Re: Barclays Reserve Usage Fees

......I re read the thread on Legal Beagles(is that now referred to here as OTR....cos I thought that was CAG?).

Having re read that thread then what evidence has been provided to you of phone calls made? I did say months ago that the reserve is not compulsory and can be got rid of. I've said this a lot on forums and I think I've mentioned to Oscar on LB that I didn't think he had a case on financial hardship either but for different reasons.

Failure to send an I&E to the FOS is not exactly screaming FH. If you take the approach that the Bank never helped you then you need to show FH and show that even though you made the bank aware of hardship and provided evidence of that, they they did not offer any form of help. Now, if you had exceeded the reserve or had cancelled the reserve because the £22 a week was making your hardship worse then that's a different matter.

I do understand others stating go to an adjudicator over this but in the rush to run with the advice already stated, think carefully about how much the fees levied at the time caused you to miss payments for house, utilities, etc, etc.
Think about money left over to be able to feed yourself, get yourself to work, etc, etc,.