Business account claims

[Smasher]

There is some confusion at the moment on the issue of business account charges claims.
In September 2007 most banks rewrote their T&Cs to present charges as 'services'. This quite obviously appears to be directly in anticipation of the OFT test case. Until September 2007 banks claimed that their charges were to cover their administration & management costs when you exceeded your OD limit or bounced a DD or cheque. In order for these charges to be lawful, they would have to be a genuine pre-estimate of their costs/losses. The recent ruling in the test case has found the new 'services' incapable of being penalties, but awarded the OFT juristiction to test them for fairness under the UTCCR.
However, these are all in relation to CONSUMER ACCOUNTS not business accounts. The judge had said that business charges may be enforceable on business accounts under the current terms & conditions. These would be the terms & conditions which present charges as 'services'. If you have a business account which incurred charges before September 2007, please check the T&Cs of the account. If it says that charges were to cover admin/management costs, then you have every chance of winning a claim under common law and misrepresentation principles. Please start a thread for your case in the reclaim unfair bank charges forum if you need further help.