Please read this information carefully

On the 26/7/07 the Office of Fair Trading announced that it had agreed with seven banks to take a test case to the High Court to establish whether the provisions of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations that deal with unfairness apply to unauthorised overdraft charges.

In the light of this agreement the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has stated it will put on hold its own work on complaints about these charges, pending the outcome of the legal proceedings.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced that banks and other current-account providers can also put cases on hold, pending the "test case" decision. Once the law has been clarified by this test case, the banks will have to apply the High Court decision to all the complaints they have put on hold.

The FSA has issued a 'waiver' from its complaints handling rules which means that until
the test case is resolved any bank or building society will not be required to handle
complaints relating to unauthorised overdraft charges. The banks and building societies
will probably put all outstanding complaints on hold and new claims may not be
accepted, whether they have been made directly or though a claims management
business