Simple Pound

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The hearing for yesterday’s NatWest case has been delayed by the Judge until April, 30th. He regards the issues as “extremely important” and therefore requires a full day’s hearing as opposed to the two hours scheduled for yesterday.

Tom Brennan, the young barrister fighting this case, was disappointed by this outcome since it buys the defendants more time. He said:

“It should be noted that any delay is going to assist the defendants because only six years of charges can be made. Every day that passes, more money is being saved by the bank.”

BBC’s coverage here. I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on…

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It looks as if someone is finally talking serious with regards to the hideous bank charges one can easily accumulate by mistake. The young London Barrister Tom Brennan is taking NatWest to court on Friday despite being offered £4,000 to settle his claims of £2,500 worth of bank charges which he racked up in overdraft fees while at University.

He is accepting a considerable risk since losing could mean having to cover NatWest’s cost, which would bankrupt him and thus prevent a career in the legal profession.

I’ve had some trouble with my bank myself when they charged me £30 after my account had accidentally gone overdrawn by 20 pence for a few hours. I got an appointment with the branch manager, who finally agreed to refund my money after I had threatened that I would take my money (and the prospects of being able to sell me a mortgage and/or car insurance) and go some place else.

It all worked out fine in the end, but was a real nuisance and cost me a considerable amount of time, so I’m hoping that the court ruling on Friday will be in the consumers’ favour.

According to Tom Brennan, the administrative costs of a bounced cheque (for instance) are roughly £2.50 while banks frequently charge well above £30 - I don’t even want to calculate that profit margin. However, even if Brennan might win on Friday, he said that the ruling might not necessarily apply to other retail banks as well, but at least it should be a step in the right direction…

BBC Radio 4 interviewed Brennan last week and a transcript of the show can be found here in case you are keen on the details.

Thanks to MoneyWatch for making me aware of the news.

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