Posted on 01/20/2007 7:02:31 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s
A man who was fed up with paying massive bank charges decided to give one of the high street giants a taste of its own medicine.
When Royal Bank of Scotland refused to refund £3,400 charges that Declan Purcell believed he was owed, he sent in the bailiffs.
Stunned customers at his branch of RBS watched as debt collectors seized four computers, two fax machines and a till filled with cash.
The branch manager was told that the items would be sold unless RBS came up with the money owed to Mr Purcell.
Only when the manager gave an undertaking that the debt would be paid did the bailiffs leave.
Mr Purcell said: "I think the bank was pretty shocked when the bailiffs went in. But my view is that this is exactly what they would have done to me."
The move, which will raise a cheer from millions of other bank customers, is part of a consumer fightback against bank charges, which net an estimated £4.5 billion every year.
Every time a current account customer goes overdrawn by as little as £1 most banks will charge around £28, even though the administration cost is only about £4.50.
Then every cheque, direct debit, or card transaction that goes through or is bounced incurs another charge of up to £38.
The Office of Fair Trading is investigating whether banks have implemented these charges unlawfully.
The Daily Mail's Fair Play on Charges campaign and that run by the Consumer Action Group have helped thousands reclaim charges in the past year.
Like other customers Mr Purcell, 48, from East London, had warned his bank that he was prepared to go to court to claim back charges he believes were imposed unlawfully.
In June last year he demanded the refund of £3,400 charges he accrued during the previous six years while running a motorcycle dealership.
RBS ignored the claim so in October Mr Purcell filed an online application to get the money back through the county court.
After 30 days the bank had not responded and so on December 10 the court ruled in Mr Purcell's favour.
It ordered RBS to pay the charges and £120 court costs. When RBS again failed to respond Mr Purcell got the court to give him a warrant of execution, allowing him to order debt collectors to reclaim items from the bank equal in value to the amount he was owed.
Finally on Monday, January 8, a team of debt collectors walked into the busy Camden Town branch in North London, demanded to see the manager, showed their court order and announced that they were repossessing items.
Mr Purcell, who now works for London Underground, said: "I was dismayed by the bank's reaction when I made my claim for a refund – it was so rude and arrogant.
"They thought they were above the law, so it is great to know that customers can use the law in the same way the bank does to get money they are owed."
A spokesman for RBS said: "We are looking into this as a matter of urgency, but early indications suggest that unfortunately due to an administrative error, the bank failed to defend the claim leading to a default judgment being obtained on the branch and a resulting warrant.
"The confusion was cleared up at the branch."
Marc Gander, who set up campaign website Consumer Action Group, which helps consumers get refunds from their banks, said: "I am quite sure that Mr Purcell will not be the last person to send bailiffs in to his bank.
"The continued operation by UK high street banks of their unlawful charges regimes will see to that.
"The heavy-handed debt collecting approach is something that the banks have been handing out to their customers for years. Mr Purcell simply gave them a bit of their own back."
The problem is that they DO have overdraft protection; they cover all overdrafts and charge $30 each time. It's mandatory. I'd rather have it declined.
"The confusion was cleared up at the branch."
They were confused about the concept of accountability.
They didn't know it applied to them.
Wow talk about extortion.. this idiot borrows money from the bank without taking a loan and that extorts the fees back out of the bank.
This should be felony robbery and he should be put away for 15 years.. that will teach him.
Unbelieveable.
That's exactly how it is.. and it's because the bank doesn't want to bounce your mortgage check.. it would rather bounce the other 4 checks for groceries etc.
Perhaps you should be mad at your wife and not the bank?
That's not how it works. It is always the husband's fault.
Seems that most credit unions are pretty easy to join. The small town I moved into a year ago has 2 different ones that said I could join. I did join one of them.
I have two Visa's with a credit union. I don't get any of the perks I see advertised. But I get good interest rates and the other terms are much more favorable. Worth more than the airline miles and stuff like that.
Thank you. Your willingness to listen is appreciated.
No, the funny thing is the credit union here has better CD rates than literally any other institution in the country that I can find. 7-11 months @ 5.65% for $500 up. If you have at least $200 per month deposited electronically in your savings account the available rate for that term is 6.15%. And they are only 2 miles from my home.
Actually the only short term account, outside of checking, is the ING account. All the longer term stuff is local.
The credit union here in Colorado has its loophole. If you join a certain consumer group, you gain access to the credit union. The cost to join the consumer group is $5.
consider what you pay in ATM fees and it is a bargain.
Now if you have a bank like USAA which only has one branch, they pay any ATM fee up to $2, They are great except when you want to cash your rolled up change.
While assigned overseas I was responsible for getting welcome gifts for newcomers. The unit 'booster-club' funded it. I received a check from the booster-club and deposited it into my credit union account. The check, written on an account at the same credit union bounced.
This credit union charged me $15 for the bad check. Can someone please explain why I should be charged for depositing a bad check, in good faith, that someone else wrote?
Because it costs money to return a bad check.. someone has to pay for it.. unfortunately they aren't going to go after the person that wrote the check for the fee.
That being said my bank only charges 6 bucks for that.
To add to that my bank also has a system to look at it's own checks so that they can tell me whether or not to deposit the item because it's "bad".
they aren't going to go after the person that wrote the check for the fee.
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Wrong; they also charged the unit 'booster-club' $15 for the bad check.
Double Dipping. Ticks you off, doesn't it?
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