How can I tell If I have Fallen Victim To An Unfair Bank Charge Or Deceptive Practise?
How can I tell If I have Fallen Victim To An Unfair Bank Charge Or Deceptive Practise?
The area of what is acceptable or unfair or even a deceptive practise can sometimes seemed blurry and confusing. A deceptive practise can be defined as a exploitation of agreements, usually through signed contracts, where specific terms and clauses are sometimes omitted, permitted to be changed without any notice or prior consent of the person who signed or simply failed to be explained or mentioned at all.
Other times it may be an occurrence where two different contractual instruments clash .These instances fall more into the realm of unfair bank charges than deceptive practises unless the party who formed the contract had made this intentional. One such case where a woman had managed to successfully claim back excessive interest charges on her mortgage (the difference had extended her home mortgage loan by up to 3 years!) was when she had a mortgage from one major retail bank but a current account from another.
Her payments where due on the same day of each month and she never missed a single payment. On the tenth year she decided by chance to enquire on the details of her existing mortgage with a mind of perhaps remortgaging. She was astounded by what she had discovered. Her original 15 year term home mortgage loan had somehow been increased to 18 years. When she enquired for the reason of this she was told that because she had made her payments by standing order with a different bank, she was charged interest on the 2 days it took to clear between the due dates and the dates it was actually credited to her mortgage.
