Second Gold Card customer wins refund

LLOYDS BANK has been ordered by the Banking Ombudsman to refund a second customer for overcharging on a Gold Card overdraft. The bank admitted this week that there were three similar cases still before the Ombudsman.

Last week we reported that a London dentist, Alan Gold, had won a long-running battle with the bank over the way it changed the interest rate payable on an overdraft linked to his American Express Gold Card.

Another Independent reader, Peter Marshall, of Cumbria, who complained of a similar experience, has now won his case.

When these customers took out their overdrafts the interest rate was set at 2.5 percentage points over the prevailing bank base rate. At the end of 1987 the bank scrapped the link with the base rate and interest was now charged on a 'managed' rate.

When Mr Gold discovered the change in mid-1991 he was being charged 19.5 per cent, eight points over the then base rate.

In Mr Gold's case the Ombudsman, Laurence Shurman, decided that if the bank had told him about the change it had not been made clear. He ordered Lloyds to refund Mr Gold with the difference between the original base rate and the new managed one back to the end of 1987. Mr Shurman has made a similar decision in Mr Marshall's case.

Lloyds continued to insist this week that it had written clearly to Gold Card customers about the change.