If you are looking to recover Packaged Bank Account (PBA) fees, the Bank cannot stop your account. As an account provider, they can of course choose who they wish to do business with, but making a complaint is not one of those. If, however, you have misused your account and the Bank has seen fit to warn you on a number of occasions – and it just so happens that you then make a complaint about the facility in question, then there is an opportunity for the Bank to look at closing this. However, if when looking at the Packaged Bank Account fees there is also an argument to recover the “excess fees” which the Banks refer as a result of you exceeding your facility (primarily as a result of the Packaged Bank Account fees) then the Bank would not be in a position to close that account facility.
There are approximately 11 million Packaged Bank Account facilities in the Country operated by the main Bank current account providers, of which a large number have been mis-sold. This has been highlighted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which conducted a study in 2013 into the way that the accounts themselves were sold.
Sadly, the Banks have used the Packaged Bank Account facility in order to generate revenue and obtain a fee for operating a current account. The Banks, however, justify this by bolting on various elements to a package which make the sell appropriate. Unfortunately, most of the elements are incorrectly explained to the client at the point of sale, and some are not established as being relevant to the individuals concerned.
Whilst this is not a huge problem financially for the Banks (as has been the case with Payment Protection Insurance claims) the Banks are themselves making considerable provisions in their financial accounts, which ultimately will run into several billions of pounds, to compensate clients who believe that they have been mis-sold the packaged account facilities.
We have been dealing with clients’ complaints and disputes against the High Street Banks and other various Lenders since the late 1990s. We have considerable experience in dealing with a wide range of complaints, whereby we have recently been dealing with numbers of Payment Protection Insurance complaints, as well as now dealing with the Packaged Bank Account facility complaints. Our clients (when a refund has been agreed) are obtaining refunds in the region of £1,000 to £3,000, although this is only an estimated figure, as it does depend upon the number of fees that you have paid.
We work on an entirely “No Win No Fee” basis. If, for some reason, there is no refund following our claim on your behalf, then there is no fee to pay. We work on this basis for any of our service offered, both for Packaged Bank Accounts and also in relation to Payment Protection Insurance claims. Our fee, if successful, is 24% including VAT upon any amount recovered.