They did so on 9 May.

Between 25-28 January 2011, the British Banker’s Association (BBA) went to court with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Financial Ombudsman (FOS) over the mis-selling of PPI policies.

On 20 April 2011 a high court judge ruled that the BBA lost their case over complaint handling rules on Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).

On 9 May 2011 the British Bankers’ Association announced that it would no longer appeal the ruling of the high court, meaning that the banks must continue to compensate consumers if they were mis-sold PPI.

Judicial Review – a win for consumers

Which? is delighted with this outcome. Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said: ‘We’re delighted that the BBA has at last seen sense. Hopefully this will be a watershed moment in how banks treat their customers.’

Which? is calling on members of the BBA to respond to the complaints they may have had on hold as a matter of urgency.

No excuses to delay compensation

There are now no excuses to delay compensating those who were mis-sold this insurance product and we’d encourage anyone yet to complain to get their complaint in to whoever sold them the product and to take their complaint to FOS if the are unhappy with the response.

We hope this outcome sends a clear signal to the banks that they must move on from PPI, cannot get away with poor complaints handling, and must pay up to the roughly two million consumers who have been mis-sold.

It will help you to make a DIY PPI Claim yourself which could save you thousands of pounds in fees to a claims management company.

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Are Credit Card  Charges Unlawful?

If you have a bank account, credit card or loan of any type you will know about the credit card fees you are charged by your bank should you break  their rules of business.

British Consumer Law states that any charges credit card providers and banks charge their customers must be proportional to the actual costs the lenders incur.  The question is this, ‘does it really cost £35 to send an automated letter when someone’s gone 1p over their limit?’

The credit card lenders are not supposed to fine you; yet over the years that is what they’ve done whenever people have missed credit card repayment dates or exceeded their credit limit. For this reason you should be able to get back the last six years’ worth of fees and charges. It is no surprise that the UK credit card industry made somewhere in the region of 9 billion pounds profit last year from interest and charges paid by consumers.

Even the OFT says credit card charges are unfair

It was not realised at the time but a report in April 2006 by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was absolutely crucial in supporting the case for reclaiming credit card charges. Having investigated credit card charges the OFT said, in plain English, that it would not launch a specific investigation on any card companies with charges lower than £12. While the OFT ruling had no technical power, across the board, most credit card companies reduced their charges to £12. This was of course a positive step but actually this amount, I feel, is still far too excessive. The real administration costs are usually little more than a few pounds. It has made it a lot easier to reclaim back the difference between what you were charged and the £12 figure. Therefore for each £35 charge, you could receive a refund of at least £23 although many people receive the whole £35.

The bank charges test case doesn’t impact on reclaiming credit card charges.

You may have read of the OFT’s decision to introduce a Bank Charges test case which has led to the financial regulator, the FSA, putting a hold on reclaiming. It’s important to understand this is specifically about bank charges and does not apply to credit card charge re-claims.

There are a number of excellent companies who offer a first class service in reclaiming credit card charges for you. They act on a no-win-no-fee-basis and usually charge a percentage of the total charges refunded to you which varies from company to company.

Here is a step-by-step guide to doing it if you want to do it yourself.