how much are they charging you as a penalty for going over your overdraft/ unpaid dirct debit etc.... Banks in the uk charge roughly £20-35 stg penalty for going over your agreed overdraft/ declining a direct debit etc. This follows an OFT (office of fair trading) investigation that the banks charges are basicly rediculous
'Banks and card providers charge penalties if you breach your contract by defaulting, making a late payment, going overdrawn, returning a bounced cheque, or if a direct debit or standing order fails. The thing is, they're not allowed to do this.
What they can do is get you to cover the administrative costs that arise from it, but how much can it cost for a computer to print off a patronising automated letter, or to not process a direct debit? Not £25 to £40, but that's what they charge
As many of you will have heard, the Office of Fair Trading has decided that banks and credit card companies should charge no more than £12 for such breaches of contract. However, the only reason they set this figure was: "In order to swiftly reduce charges and avoid heavy-handed regulation." In other words, the charge is still too high, but they just quickly set a limit to help all consumers immediately. If they procrastinated over regulation instead, we'd take longer to see the benefits. Also, it'd cost businesses money to implement new regulations, and those costs would filter down to us' (extract from fool.co.uk)
possibely somebody else could advises on weather you could reclaim here