Banks 'should pay for credit damage'

Banks could face a barrage of angry calls from customers who have seen their credit ratings suffer as a result of bank charges, it has been claimed.

Marc Gander, the founder of the Consumer Action Group (CAG), has pointed out that not only is there the possibility that millions of pounds of bank charges were unfair, but that it may have damaged customers' credit ratings.

This means that these people may have had to pay more for loans and could have been refused credit from other outlets, even though they would otherwise have been entitled to it.

According to the BBC, the Office of Fair Trading has won the right to investigate whether or not bank charges are excessive. The banks have until May 22nd to appeal.

Mr Gander said that the banks should fix the damage if this is found to be the case, but that it could be "super expensive".

"Anybody who has had a bank charge has this black mark put on their credit record. If all of these charges should never have been levied, what are the banks going to do about repairing all these broken lives and broken reputations?" he asked.

He added that the CAG is currently working on a set of claim templates for people to make complaints to their banks about the damage to their credit reputations.