Bank charges worth £2 billion 'unclaimed'

Bank customers have yet to claim up to £2.12 billion in refunded bank charges, a money website has claimed.

Almost 19 million people have incurred bank charges amounting to £4 billion pounds and just over half of them have not made claims to recoup them, according to comparison website uSwitch.com.

An industry has sprung up around reclaiming fees, with around 30 different companies offering to undertake the proceedings on the bank customer’s behalf.

The comparison website claims that at current levels, the industry is still worth £531 million, or roughly £17.7 million per company.

But with these "ambulance chasers" charging commissions of up to 40 per cent, customers would be better off reclaiming their charges individually said Mike Naylor, personal finance expert at uSwitch. He added that it would cost consumers only £10 to pursue refunds themselves.

Financial Claims UK and Reclaim Yours are the bank charge reclamation companies charging the lowest fees, though this could still amount to more than it would cost an individual.

One individual who is fighting his bank not only to reclaim his fees, but also to force the bank to justify its overdraft charges is Tom Brennan who was charged £2,500 as a student and has taken NatWest to court.