I am writing with reference to your letter dated 1 June 2006, which was acknowledged by Mrs Denise Dee on 2 June, relating to charges that have been applied to your account.

On reviewing this account, I can confirm that unpaid/paid item charges totalling £723.50 have been applied to your account since opening. In each case, these charges were applied as a direct result of insufficient available funds being held to pay items presented for payment. In addition, where your account has entered an overdrawn position, you have been charged overdraft fees and interest for the use of this service.

In your letter, you have made reference to media coverage and previous case law which in your opinion implies that the Society has acted incorrectly in applying charges to your account abd tgar our charges are excessive. This media covered is, on the whole, as the result of the report recently issued by the OFT, which related to credit card default charge, where they have given a view that a benchmark for justifiable credit card default charges would be £12 per incident. The OFT's report did not consider, in any detail, unpaid item fees for current accounts (for example, direct debits, cheques).

The Society believes it has acted lawfully at all times when operating your account and we have simply enforced the advertised charge structure, to which you agreed when entering into the contract with Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (the application forum you signed on opening your account incuded a declaration and agreement which stated that you had read and agreed to be bound by the conditions of the account).

We offer a simple and competitive Gold Current Account, and we aim to provide a real price and service alternative to the High Street Banks. To enable the Society to do this we require customers to ensure they have enough money in their account to pay items presented for payment and where this is not the case, the Society will applu charges as appropriate (details of our charges can be found within the Gold Current Account conditions brochure, on the reverse of the bank statments issued to you each month and on our website (www.npbs.co.uk).

The Society is owned by, and listens to it's members and we recognise that mistakes can happen so, if a customer makes a mistake and they incur a fee we will refund the first one on application. Thereafter, to be fair and consistent to all our customers, all future fees and charges will not normally be refunded unless there were exceptional circumstances that we feel should be taken into consideration. In your case, our records indicate that we followed this policy and on 13 November 2004 we refunded a charge that had been correctly applied to your account. At the time that the refund was authorised, you were reminded of the terms and conditions of the account and of the charge structure. By continued use of the account, you have indicated your accceptance of the terms and conditions, including the advertised charges.

In conclusion, having reviewed all the facts, I am unable to agree to refund the remaining charges that have been correctly applied to the account. In the event that you remain dissatisfied in this matter please let me know and I will arrange for your complaint to be passed on to Susan Price, Customer Service Manager for review in accordance with our internal compaint proceedure, details of which are included in Our Service Promise booklet (a copy of which is enclosed).

Yours sincerely
David Presland
Banking and Investments Manager