£2.12bn of Bank Charges ‘Still Unclaimed’
About £2.12 billion in illegal bank charges are going unclaimed by consumers, according to latest research. A new survey from uSwitch cites figures suggesting that 18.96 million people have been affected by bank charges at some point, which has led to £163.4 billion in extra income for banks. And while 65 per cent of people who have been charged illegally have disputed the levy, only 48 per cent have been successful in receiving a refund.
Nick White, director of financial services at uSwitch, commented: “While the majority of banks are bending over backwards to refund bank charges to those consumers that take the initiative to fight back, this is not because the banks have gone soft in the last couple of months.” He added that this is because banks would rather settle disputes than appear in court and face a “damaging test case”. Among the charges issued are fees for direct debit payments or standard orders with insufficient funds in an account, which affected 58 per cent of consumers. Consumers concerned about the state of their finances might wish to seek debt help to sort their outstanding repayments.
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