BANK charges are a highly emotive issue, and not everyone is as lucky as Graham in getting their complaints speedily examined, following the current moratorium in dealing with claims for compensation, writes Teresa Hunter.
This is not helped by the extra confusion which is being added by the difference between English and Scottish law, and the various steps which are being taken under different bits of legislation.
Scottish customers with claims outstanding again
st their banks cannot understand why their cases are being mothballed, when the English court case has nothing to do with their legal rights.
Each week, the Money pages receive a number of e-mails making this point, with more flooding in last week.
One, from Adam Campbell, said: "I have a complaint pending against the Bank of Scotland for charges, which was ongoing a few months before the Financial Services Authority decided that the matter in its entirety needs to go before a court for a de facto decision. I then received correspondence from my bank that all claims were currently on hold until this was decided.
"Is this incorrect advice or should a Scottish bank therefore have continued to deal with this matter irrespective of an English High Court ruling?"
As it is complicated, and various bodies are involved, we will take it step by step.
First of all, normally if a customer has a complaint against a bank, he complains to the institution, which is obliged to have an effective disputes procedure, and to take his complaint seriously. This is obligatory under financial regulations established and monitored by the Financial Services Authority, and applies to all banks in the UK.
However, if the bank will not concede fault and compensate him, he can then take his argument to the Financial Ombudsman Service for an independent hearing free of charge. Again, the FOS operates in the same way where all UK banks and customers are concerned.
There is another route to redress, which involves going to court, but we will come back to that.
The Office of Fair Trading has embarked on a two-stage court battle against the banks, in the High Court in the Strand. Firstly, it is attempting to prove that bank charges are unequivocally covered by EU regulations covering unfair terms and contracts which require any charge to be "proportionate". As EU regulations, these apply to all of the UK including Scotland.
This case is ongoing and we expect a verdict before Easter. If it wins, the watchdog is expected to move on to stage two and a new court fight over whether the current level of charges is indeed fair and proportionate.
Pending the outcome of this hearing, the FSA has allowed all UK banks, including all those in Scotland, to freeze outstanding customer complaints about charges. This means they are not required by law to look at them.
Similarly, the FOS says it has decided to place on hold all its bank charge complaints. And south of the border, the courts too have agreed a moratorium.
How long the moratorium lasts is a moot point. Appeals are likely whoever wins, and the row could drag on for many months or indeed years. Customers waiting for their money back could face long delays.
So where does all this leave Scottish customers? The difference between Scottish and English law does present one opportunity for speeding up compensation, provided you do your homework and are prepared to take a risk. Those who argue that the case in the 'English' High Court is an irrelevance to them are technically partly right. But that still leaves most avenues to redress closed to Scots.
It is true that the outcome of the current case cannot be enforced in Scotland. However, the tradition is that English test cases have a 'persuasive' rather than enforceable influence on Scottish Law. In other words, when a test case is held in the High Court on the Strand, changes to Scottish Law along similar lines are expected to invariably follow.
Similarly, if banks are forced to change their charging structures, or indeed leave them as they are, they will do so across the entire UK.
But there has been no blanket freeze on court cases in Scotland, as has been agreed in the English courts, so Scottish customers can still go to the courts, although there may be risks and costs involved in doing so.
If the bank so wishes, it can appeal to the individual court for a freeze pending a High Court judgment. In some cases, the banks have made such an appeal, and in others they haven't. Sometimes the judge has granted the freeze, but at other times the judge has not.
So if you want speedy restitution of your bank charges, then your only option is to find a Scottish court that is hearing cases, and put your own complaint before a judge.
Customers that have done so have won compensation in some cases, while others have not been so lucky.
