Victory reclaiming my Credit Card charges

I finally won my battle to claim back my credit card penalty fees today when I received a letter from my credit card provider confirming they would refund the charges in full. The battle commenced back in May when I sent them a letter based on the brilliant templates provided by MoneySavingExpert.com.

I wrote to my credit card company claiming back the three charges totaling £55 between 2004 and 2006 along with 8% interest that I would be entitled to if were to win my claim in court. These charges had always frustrated me as the payments had left my bank in time but had not cleared in time leaving me liable to their penalty charges, so I was determined to get them back if only as a matter of principle.

I did not receive a response to my first letter so I sent a follow up letter in early July to chase my claim and this time I received a response saying they were considering my claim. After another couple of weeks I finally received their response offering me £19 based on the difference between what they had charged me and the £12 charge that the OFT had referred to in their 2006 report.

Knowing that the OFT had simply said they would not investigate card companies with charges lower than £12 and had not necessarily judged this to be a fair charge I sent another letter re-iterating my claim for the full £55, but offering to waive my claim for interest if they settled within 14 days.

My perseverance finally paid off today when I received a response confirming they would be crediting my account with the full £55 as requested. Despite taking almost 3 months from start to finish the process was almost effortless taking less than an hour of my time by using the templates on MoneySavingExpert.com and cost me just £1.08 in postage.