PPI Bank Charges - Claim PPI Bank charges back with us
The Bank Charges and PPI claims Controversy
Bank charges such as the ones consumers are being hit with today in the UK, were not common practice until the 1990s when banks began to introduce this type of charges as a means of product differentiation often offering additional services bundled with the bank account itself..
Such services include travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and preferential rates on other products. It is estimated that UK banks make billions of pounds of profit a year from unfair bank charges to their client’s accounts.
Other bank charges include returned cheques fees, excessive fees for overdrafts, excessive fees for unpaid standing orders, excessive fees for unpaid direct debits, card misuse fee, unpaid cheque fee, unarranged borrowing fee, late payment fee for credit cards, account misuse fee, late payment fee for store cards, late payment fee for catalogue purchases, fee for exceeding authorised overdraft limit, and other irregular fees. Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) is again another major bank charge many consumers are payng far too much for.
We often find ourselves being hit by bank charges when it is least expected, making it difficult for us to budget or even save. You may find if you account for all the bank charges that you have paid and the PPI you may have paid on a loan or other policy you will end up with a large sum of money. Have a think about the day to day necessities that you should have been able to spend that money on instead of having it withdrawn form your account, without your consent.
Unfortuantely the ruling in the Supreme Court on the bank charges case was that bank charges were not subject to fairness rules under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation (UTCCR 1999) However this is not the end of the road for bank charges as the Office of Fair Trading have been advised by the courts that they look at the 'fairness' via a different route. The OFT could refer the case to the Competition Commission for a full investigation of the consumer bank charges within the UK.
PPI bank charges however have are different case can be ruled unlawful if they were:
- Overpriced
- The insurance provides little cover for all the required situations
- The policy was inflexible and provided no refund in the case of cancellation
- They were considered a 'hard sell' to the customer
- The full costs were not explained to the customer
- Limitations and exclusions of the policy were not drawn to the customers attention
- The customer was misinformed that PPI was compulsory to take out in order to get the loan
If you feel you were misled in any way when taking out PPI, or over the course of your policy then enquire about making a claim as you may be owed alot of money.