Bank Charges - The Letters you need

Letter One

Dear Sir/Madam
Request for copies of statements
Account – XXXXXXXX Sort-Code XX-XX-XX

I would like to make a formal request under the Data Protection Act for a copy of my bank statements or a complete list of all charges made on this account over the last 6 years. As you are no doubt aware, you are permitted 40 days to comply with this request. If you are of any doubt that this information is covered by the said act, may I respectfully draw your attention to the case of Durant v FSA 2003 in this case the judge ruled that bank statement information is indeed personal information and thus covered.

Yours faithfully

Letter Two

Account Reference - XXXXXXXX

Without Prejudice
Dear Sirs

Due to recent media coverage on bank charges I am now aware that you, BANK NAME have been charging me bank charges that are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Subsection 1(e) of the said regulations gives a non complete list of terms which may be regarded as unfair, such as a term which require me as a consumer who fails in his obligation, to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation.

I believe that your charges are disproportionately high. Therefore they are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999. In addition I believe that your charges are a Penalty. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this was a Scottish case, Castaneda and Others V. Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding Co (1904) 12 SLT 498. Along with the English case of Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor co Ltd [1915] AC 79. It was held that a contractual party can only recover damages for an actual loss or liquidated losses. It is clear that your charges do not reflect any actual or real loss.

Your charges appear to be nothing more than a lucrative profit-making scheme. Therefore I require you to refund my entire bank charges for the past 6 years which are as follows -

DETAIL CHARGES HERE

I hereby give you 14 days to refund the charges back into my account. If this is not done within 14 days, I will be forced to take further legal action.


Yours faithfully

FURTHER READING - http://www.bankactiongroup.com

Debt Problems

Getting Advice

Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB)

Look in the phone directory for your local branch. They can advise you on how to handle your debts and approach companies on your behalf.

Check www.adviceguide.org

Money Advice Centres

These offer free and independent advice on debt problems. Money Advice UK/Wales are on 01476 594970 and Scotland 0141 572 0237

The National Debtline

Free information and help they are open Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm and Saturday from 9am to 1pm.

Freephone 0808 808 4000

www.nationaldebtline.co.uk

Dealing With Debt

If you have too many debts that you cannot repay, you have four choices ;

1. Ignore the Problem
2. Contact the person or company you owe money to
3. Seek free advice from a money advice worker
4. Apply for bankruptcy

If you ignore a debt, your problems could be increased by

- gas or electricity disconnection
- court action
- losing your home / tenancy
- bankruptcy
- being threatened with prison
- increased charges and fines

THE SOONER YOU SEEK HELP THE EASIER IT IS FOR PEOPLE TO HELP YOU.

File Sharing Help

P2PForums.com — popular file sharing news site and community
Having Problems Using The Files You've Downloaded? Read This — the legal status of filesharing
ZeroPaid — popular file sharing news site and community
P2P United — pro-file sharing activism
MP3 Newswire — long-running digital music news site
P2Pnet — file sharing information site
File storage web applications at the Open Directory Project
Diino.com — File sharing, online storage, Personal Blog
Limewire.com — Popular P2P file sharing program.

File sharing is the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks. Usually file sharing follows the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. Most people who engage in file sharing are also downloading files that other users share. Sometimes these two activities are linked together. P2P File sharing is distinct from file trading in that downloading files from a P2P network does not require uploading, although some networks either provide incentives for uploading such as credits or force the sharing of files being currently downloaded.

Some file sharing software comes bundled with malware such as spyware or adware. Sometimes this malware remains installed on the system even if the original file sharing software is removed, and can be very difficult to eliminate. In many cases such malware can interfere with the correct operation of web browsers, anti-virus software, anti-spyware and software firewalls, and can cause degraded performance on affected systems. Such malware is typically bundled with proprietary software, and not those in open source. In most cases it is possible to easily remove adware and spyware by running Spybot or comparable programs. Such programs can often remove malware without influencing the functionality of the file sharing software.
Some are also concerned about the use of file sharing systems to distribute child pornography, racist literature, and illegal or unpopular material. Novice users may find it difficult to obtain information on which networks are "safe" for them to use. However, experienced users know that there is only one way to get in contact with such material: You have to actively search for it. Therefore they recommened not to search for illegal material.

Thanks to Wiki for info.

The Right Wing

There is no doubt that a lot of British people are upset with the "state of the country" and they blame Muslims for that. Now, while our recent terrorist problems have stemmed from Muslims (or a radical version of) not all Muslims are terrorists - that much is crystal clear. So the "chuck them all out" debate is dead before it's been born.

It's Remembrance Sunday today and on some websites I'm seeing people say "I plan to vote BNP to give a message!" WHAT?! What message is that? The message that after a generation of your family struggled, fought and died combating fascism - you are going to vote for a fascist party with far-right neo-Nazi links?

It's possible to have views right of the centre without being a far-right extremist. The sooner this country embraces the politics of common sense the sooner people won't have to seek out extremes to represent their views.

Babble

Babbling is a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with making the sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words. (Crucially, the larynx or voicebox, originally high in the throat to let the baby breathe while swallowing, descends during 'the first year of life', allowing a pharynx to develop and all the sounds of human speech to be formed [Naomi S. Baron, Growing up with Language: How Children Learn to Talk (Reading,MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992), p41-43, ISBN 0-201-55080-6].) Babbling begins around 5 to 7 months of age, when a baby's noises begin to sound like phonemes. Infants begin to produce recognizable words usually around 12 months, though babbling may continue for some time after this.

Human babies engage in babble as a sort of vocal play that occurs in a few other primate species, all which belong to the family Callitrichidae (marmosets & tamarins) and are cooperative breeders. "Interestingly, marmoset and tamarin babies also babble. It may be that the infants of cooperative breeders are specially equipped to communicate with caretakers. This is not to say that babbling is not an important part of learning to talk, only to question which came first—babbling so as to develop into a talker, or a predisposition to evolve into a talker because among cooperative breeders, babies that babble are better tended and more likely to survive." (Mothers and Others, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Natural History Magazine, May 2001)
Terrence W. Deacon infers that human infants don't even need to be particularly excited or even upset to babble because the fact is that human babies will babble spontaneously and incessantly only when emotionally calm. Deacon adds, "It is the first sign that human vocal motor output is at least partially under the control of the cortical motor system because babbling is basically vocal mimickry that happens in correspondence to the maturation of the cortical motor output pathways in the human brain."

Steven Pinker compares a child babbling to a person fiddling with a complex hi-fi system in an attempt to understand what all the controls do. Most babbling consists of a small number of sounds, which suggests the child is preparing the sounds it will need to speak the language it is exposed to.

Infants who are deaf also show vocal babbling, suggesting that early babbling arises from inherent human tendencies to use the vocable articulators in particular ways during early language acquisition. If they are exposed to sign language, they babble with their hands at approximately the same time that vocal babbling appears, although sign production appears a few months earlier than word production does in hearing children.

At what ages do children begin their journey into the world of language by babbling? At 0-4 months babies gurgle, and coo (vowel sounds such as "oooh" and "aah"). And at 4-6 months babies may start to babble (adding consonants: "gaga," "dada"). Then comes 6-12 months where babies babble and enjoy vocal play as they experiment with a range of sounds. At 12-18 months is when toddlers begin to use sound in a meaningful way. They say one-syllable words, make sounds like cars and planes, and say things like, "uh oh." Toddlers also understand the meaning of some words they cannot yet say. They may also use one word to represent a whole sentence. For example, "Juice" may mean, "Mother, I would like some juice;" "You are drinking juice;" or "Look, there is juice in the cup." By the time they've reached 18-24 months toddlers repeat words and are able to link words into short sentences. They know about 50 words, but can understand many more. They may use short sentences, such as, "She go bye bye." And "What you doing?" They may also use familiar words the wrong way. For example, a child with a dog for a pet may look at other large furry animals and say "doggie". And this is just one tiny fraction of how the language phenomenon develops: it's no wonder we are fascinated by the sights and sounds of newborn babies.

Babbling occurs during the first year of life if the child is developing normally. As the baby grows and changes, his/her vocalizations change as well. Babies use these vocalizations to communicate. They start out crying, progress to loud yelling noises, and finally they make speech.

According to Menn and Stoel Gammon in The Development of Language, “This early period of prelinguistic vocalization can be divided into five stages.” Stage one is crying, stage two is cooing, stage three is vocal play, and stage four is canonical babbling (which begins at about six months of age). The fifth and final stage is conversational babbling (usually demonstrated by about ten months of age) and it is otherwise known as “jargon.” This jargon stage is defined as: “Pre-linguistic vocalizations in which infants use adult like stress and intonation.” (Sroufe, Cooper, & Dehart, 1996, p. 258)