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The Consumer Forums - your free consumer community

The Consumer Forums are concerned with all aspects of Consumer Rights.  We already have a great deal of experience and expertise in reclaiming bank charges.
However, The Consumer Forums are much more than a bank charges pressure group. Over the last three years we have developed forums to help people deal with
debt problems, payment protection insurance, parking and traffic offences, mobile and fixed line telephone companies, utility companies, retail storeslandlord and tenant issues, along with many other consumer related issues. 
And what's more - all our advice and assistance is free of charge.

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Latest updates from some of the threads on our forum

Suicide note: Banker Lament by Mat Lloyd

Banks face deluge of charges claims and massive liability

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The Banks' liability to their customers is far more massive than anybody has yet discussed or even imagined.   They have demonstrated in the recent House of Lords hearing that they are very seriously frightened.

UK banks fear catastrophic liability when charges are finally declared to be unfair

 

We had recognised this some time ago on the Consumer Action Group and had been planning a new set of claims templates and legal arguments for our members to use in the courts in order to get their bank charges refunded. However, the arguments used by the banks legal team in the House of Lords have pre-empted us to an extent and therefore we have decided to go public rather earlier than we intended.
The arguments advanced to the House of Lords on behalf of the banks were unusual in that they were not limited merely to the usual legal reasoning.

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Applying for refunds of bank charges on the basis of hardship

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Although all claims for the refund of bank charges have been suspended, the FSA has agreed with the banks that where their customers are in financial hardship, that their refund applications may be looked at sympathetically instead of merely being suspended along with all the other refund claims.

 This sounds very good on paper.  However in practice we are finding that most people who apply for charges refunds because of hardship are refused.  We conclude that by and large hardship applications are unlikely to be successful.

 There seems to be no pattern or formula for qualifying for a hardship refund.  Many of our Users have been refused even though they are in serious circumstances or are even on benefits for themselves and for their children.

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Recovery of application fees from loan companies

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New templates and complaints letters.

Have you applied for a loan from a company which has agreed to act for you as a broker or "introducer"?

The Consumer Action Group has been receiving lots of reports from people who have apparently paid an upfront fee of about £60 to companies which have agreed to try and arrange loans for them.

Part of the deal is that if the loan is not arranged for any reason then the application fee will be returned less a brokerage charge, which is typically £5. Despite this we are hearing that people are either cancelling their application or the loan company has been unable to arrange the loan and yet are not returning the money as agreed.

Not only are these arrangements for repayment of money contained in the loan application contract,but also are they are guaranteed by statute because they are contained in the

The Financial Services (Distance Marketing) Regulations 2004

which requires that refunds are made within 30 days.

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Confused about the Consumer Action Group forum?

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Well it is very large now - and many newcomers tell us that they have difficulty understanding the layout and getting round the forum.

We are producing some short movies which we hope will help people to learn their way round more quickly. 

Click here to see our first movie.  It isn't quite finished but we thought that we would try it out anyway. 

We'll also be producing movie guides which will help you fill out forms and to handle other aspects of your consumer rights problems.

 

Watch this space!

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You must amend your Bank Charges claim from penalties to UTCCR

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Have you commenced an action against your bank for the recovery of unlawful charges?

Is your bank charges claim based merely on the fact that the charges are unlawful penalties?

if so, you must amend your claim. Since the High Court judgement last year it is now a most unlikely that a "penalties" argument can succeed.

The correct argument is that the charges are unfair and therefore invalid under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

If your claim is merely based on penalties then your bank will have a basis upon which to ask the court to strike the claim out. You should take steps to amend your claim immediately. Below are the instructions as to how to do this. The instructions are also contained in the library.

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ConsumerSniper.com - the new online auction sniping service

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Free unlimited bids during the ConsumerSniper testing period

 ConsumerSniper is in Beta at the moment which means that we have just launched it and are still testing.

During the Beta stage, you are welcome to use ConsumerSniper completely free of charge and make unlimited bids on your eBay auctions.

You will need to open a free  ConsumerSniper account but you will then be able to benefit from unlimited bid sniping.

Once our Beta testing is completed, all account holders will automatically be given two weeks unlimited free bidding before taking up one of our pricing options.

Please do report any problems or bugs which you may find.

  ConsumerSniper  will help you to place last-moment bids on eBay auctions automatically and without even needing your own computer to be switched on.

 ConsumerSniper  will allow you to avoid bidding-wars where you pit yourself against other bidders driving up the price so that you end up paying more than you need.

  ConsumerSniper  will let you stay in the shadows watching the antics of bidders who prefer get stuck in. You can adjust your bid at any time before the end of the auction. The difference is that your adjusted bid won't be driving up the price.

  ConsumerSniper  will let you strike at the very last moment, placing your bid before anyone else has time to react. The only others you compete with are other snipers.


Try  ConsumerSniper free of charge.

 

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