In the UK banks are **not permitted** to financially penalise you for bounced cheques, failed direct debits and standing orders etc
The charges the banks apply should be only those charges truly incurred by the bank and should not exceed this.
**
Any series of bank charges that make money for the bank rather than simply allow it to recover its costs are unlawful.**
**For example:** I had one failed Direct Debit for which the bank charged me £38.00. I recieved no notification that the Direct Debit had failed.
7 days later the company represented the Direct Debit and once again it failed the bank then charged me a further £38.00 which took me over my limit for which I incurred a further £28.00 charges.
I telephoned my bank and told them that I had been advised to call and challenge these charges, to my surprise my charges were instantly more than halved, saving me over £100.00
Another example of this is an accountant who took a bank to court the details are available at the following site:
https://timesonline.co.uk/article/0, 200-2088046, 00.html
I advise anyone who feels that they have been unfairly charged for any reason to telephone their bank and challenge it, this could save you a lot of money in the long term.