Reclaiming bank charges?

When you request your bank statement who do you send the letter to your local branch or thier head office and is this with all the letters you send...

Sorry bit thick on this subject lol

Have a look at my site below which lists all the addresses that you need for all the major banks.

Everything is dealt with at Head Office level, don't send anything to your local branch or talk to anyone there. Make sure you put everything in writing and don't phone or speak to them (as you have no evidence of whats been said in the conversation).

Use the steps below, and the template letters on my site and you should have a good chance of getting a full refund of your charges. My site tells you everything you need to know, and sets you up to be in the best possible position with your claim.

The full process and timescales for claiming back your charges is:

1) Write to the bank and ask them for a copy of your charges for the last 6 years, or alternatively a set of statements for the same period. You do this by making a "Subject Access Request" under the Data Protection Act, enclosing a cheque for 拢10 made out to the bank. This by passes the banks normal charges for statements which is normal a large amount for 6 years worth. The bank have 40 days to send you the data.

2) Write to the bank asking them to refund your charges, giving them 14 days to reply, attaching a "Schedule of Charges" (a list of the charges you are claiming for).

3) Send the bank a "Letter before Action" giving the bank one last chance to refund your charges before you take court action. They have 14 days to reply.

4) File a claim online using the Money Claim Online web site run by the UK Court Service. The claim is served on the bank 5 days after its submitted. The bank has 14 days to acknowledge the claim. If they don't you can request a "Judgement by Default" and you win the case, and get your charges, statutory interest at 8%, and your court fees.

If they do acknowledge the claim, they then have 14 days to submit a defence (making 28 days in total from the date the claim was served). If they don't then you can again request a "Judgement by Default", and get back your charges, interest and court fees as above.

If they file a defence, then you and the bank get an "Allocation Questionnaire" to fill in. Some judges dismiss the case at this stage, as the bank can't win, so again you win. If this doesn't happen, a hearing date is allocated. The bank will most likely either back out before the hearing, or won't turn up in court. Again you win the case and get your charges, interest and fees.

Follow the correct procedures and you stand a good chance of getting your charges back! Its important to send all letters to the bank and courts by recorded delivery, so you can prove they were received, and more importantly when they were received (which you can find from the tracking section of the Royal Mail web site).

Also make sure that you send all letters to the banks head office, and not your local branch. Don't phone the bank either, as this can delay things and you have no proof of whats been said.

Have a look at my site below which has detailed step by step guides to the whole process of claiming your charges back. It also has template letters you can put your details into and send to the bank, and forums for one to one advice. We also have a guide to filing your claim in court online, which is unique to the site.

The site is free to use!

Really depends on your bank. You should just be able to call their customer service area and request it verbally.

Every bank has a customer service number - call the local office and they'll point you in the right direction

You should be able to call your local branch to get the info.

I would go to the head office as iff you send it to your branch, they are only going to forward to it them anyway. Send everything recorded delivery so that you have proof of postage and receipt. And as a final note, please visit the consumer action group website and follow their step by step instructions on reclaiming your charges. If you dont follow a certain proceedure and its get to court, you wont have a chance of winning if you havent followed protocol. I did it, and it t ook me appx 3mths but i got every single penny of it back. There is also a forum on that website whereby you can ask and questions you need to - and the people on there are extremely knowledgeable.

I am a teller at a bank in Mississippi. We automatically send bank statements out to your mailing address each month. If you need a copy of it during the middle of the month, you can simply come into our bank and get a printout. Some banks charge per page but we don't. I'm not for sure how your bank works but maybe this info helped

If you send it to your local branch they will forward it on to their head office. Then all future correspondence will come from the head office.

Save time - write to the head office.

Good luck!

you should send it to head office to the customer services department as they are the ones who deal with all of that not local branches.xx

My first letter got ignored (I sent it to the head office), so I reposted to my local branch, head office and I dug around and found a random address in Coventry. I sent three copies of the letters, all recorded; one to each address. For the small extra cost, it was worth it.