Eight leading street banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, have sought permission to appeal against last month's ruling which gave the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) legal jurisdiction to determine whether bank charges are unfair.
If permission is granted bank customers, who have submitted claims for "rip off" fees, may have to wait years to receive their compensation.
Needless to say, there have been accusations that the banks are using this appeal to delay repaying customers.
Phil Jones of Which?, is quoted in The Times:
"The banks should stop stringing this out. The charges are seen as unfair by consumers so they should do the decent thing and pay compensation to those who have made a claim and reduce the fees to a fair level."
Whatever the outcome, one thing is for certain, the banks will find other ways to charge their customers. The most likely change will be an introduction of charges on all current accounts, whether they are in credit or not.
Banks are not charities!
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