Numbers, numbers, numbers…..

Thursday 29th May, 2008 - £9,341.19 in debt…

A year or so ago, I heard about an amazing thing I could do to claw some money back from my bank – I could just make a list of all the charges I’ve had to pay over the last six years, and be reimbursed for all of them! Good idea, right? Then my mum told me I should do it, and all of a sudden I lost interest.

But finally, this week, I made myself go through my statements. I’ve got a fair amount of time on my hands, and apparently now is the time to get my claim in so I’ll be near the front of the queue if my bank does end up paying out (although that could be up to two years away). There’s an article here that explains the background to all of this.

So, all I had to do was look at my bank statements for the past six years and add up all the charges (for going over my overdraft limit and bouncing cheques). Then I had to write to my bank with a breakdown of these charges and the total I wish to reclaim, using one of the template letters from Martin Lewis’s website. Simple or what?

Not so simple when all your bank statements are in various piles of miscellaneous paperwork, but I needed to get all of that sorted out anyway. Four hours of bank-related nostalgia later (“ooh, I remember that cashpoint in Turkey!”; “did I really spend that much in Ikea in 2003?”), I had a claim of £1,540.00 on my hands. And now I play the waiting game…

Has anyone else done this recently? Should I expect some acknowledgement from my bank that they’ve received my letter? Anyone have any success stories from making claims before the process was put on hold?