Accordign to the article banks (in UK at least) can only impose charges related to the actual cost of administering a bounced cheque, etc. They cannot use it as a profit making tool. A law student in Plymouth filed a small claims case for 6 years worth of charges. Rather than contest the bank paid up. THe article mentions a couple of other people who have reclaimed significant amounts of money using the same technique. The key seems to be that the banks don’t want to go to court as this would involve them having to disclose what the administratiove costs actually are (nowhere near the charge amount I would wager)
Be nicer if someone didn’t opt for the quick buck (pound) and actually took them to court, and made them show how usury they all are. Another case of THE MAN…
Isn’t there some kind of commerce commission which can investigate this in the UK? Here, our Commerce Commission recently found banks and credit card companies had overcharged on charging for overseas transactions on the cards. Surely something similar could be done in Britain?
Not to stick up for banks but…my bank charges 29.00 for a bounced check that probably actually costs them a nickle to process. I would never purposely bounce a check if I knew it would cost me 29 bucks. If the fee for a bounced check was under a dollar, more and more people would bounce checks and would be an even bigger pain in the ass for the bank employeess who process these.
More bad checks might mean more money spent to process them, if the person that does it isn’t sitting around being paid for when their done dealing with the bad checks, so then they can charge more for the fee.
Understood, but the banks power to levy charges, if my understanding is correct, is merely to recoup administrative losses. Use as a deterrent or profit making vehicle appears not to be allowed.
About a year ago, i sent a check by mail and it never arrived. Not wanting to have a $1,200 floating around in the world, i decided to cancel it with the bank so that it could not be cashed or deposited. The fee? $30. For something that might, perhaps, cost them a buck or two to process.
It’s not like i was writing bad checks or paying my overdraft late. I was a victim of the postal service losing my letter.
I raised hell in the branch, asked to speak to the manager, and got the charge waived.