At the end of September she filed a lawsuit against the Sparda-Bank Baden-Württemberg (Az. 11 O 482/21) at the Stuttgart Regional Court and at the beginning of October against the Volksbank Welzheim (Az. 34 O 98/21 KfH), such as the consumer advice center on request announced. The two banks fight back. Volksbank Welzheim is even suing the consumer advice center (Az. 11 O 487/21), which the bank had previously warned.
The highest German civil court ruled at the end of April that financial institutions must obtain the consent of their customers for changes to general terms and conditions (Az. I ZR 26/20). Until then, banks and savings banks have usually increased the fees through clauses. They then assumed that customers would tacitly agree if they did not object to a change within two months.
With the BGH ruling, these clauses are no longer valid. Financial institutions now have to ask their customers for approval of the current fees. In addition, consumers can reclaim fees charged by credit institutions without their explicit consent.
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In a letter in July, Sparda-Bank gave consumers the choice: Either they waive the reimbursement of the account fees that have been charged for almost a year and continue to pay five euros a month for the time being. Or they get back the wrongly charged fees – but in future they have to pay 7.50 euros per month.
Sparda-Bank threatened with termination
The third option: if you do not want both, you will get the fees back, but at the same time the cancellation. This would “regrettably result in the termination of the account,” said Sparda-Bank.
In its reasoning for the complaints, the consumer advice center refers to the law against unfair competition. Under certain circumstances, it regards the actions of the financial institutions as “impermissible influence” and “aggressive business activity”.
The Stuttgart money house rejects the accusation of the consumer association and describes the representation as wrong: It has only just increased the prices. Since October 1st, all customers have to pay account fees of 7.50 euros per month. “The time-limited promised fee of five euros is a special incentive for customers who forego a reimbursement of fees paid.”
The bank complied with all legitimate requests for reimbursement. However, Sparda-Bank makes further account management dependent on “the customer agreeing to our current fee model”.
Customers of Volksbank Welzheim have less choice, which from the beginning of 2020 had charged fees of five euros per month for an account model. In July, she offered customers to waive the refund and guaranteed to continue the account for five euros until the end of 2022. Customers who did not agree to this by mid-October were announced by Volksbank to cancel their accounts within two months.
Volksbank Welzheim is suing the consumer center for its part
Customers could agree in writing. Even an “individual instruction”, a transfer or a card payment, within the four weeks before, the Volksbank regarded as consent.
The money house, for its part, has filed a lawsuit against the consumer association, as the lawyer Ferdinand Scholl said. He pointed out that the bank could not be forced to “offer loss-making account models”, although it had given customers a period of three months to consider acceptance.
“If the account is too expensive for the customer, he can look for a new bank with a different account price during this time, in which he does not have to pay any fees to the Volksbank.” Terminate account.
At the beginning of the week it became known that the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) is seeking a model declaratory action against the Berliner Sparkasse and Sparkasse Köln-Bonn. In the opinion of the VZBV, both banks reject “claims for reimbursement for the fees they have wrongly levied”.
The question is for what period of time consumers can claim back fees – for three years or for much longer. The VZBV believes that all fees that have been increased or newly introduced without the active consent of the consumer would have to be reimbursed.
However, many financial institutions – like the two savings banks – see it differently. You refer to a BGH ruling from 2016 (Az. VIII ZR 241/15). Accordingly, prices are valid if customers have not complained about them for more than three years. It is questionable whether this decision can also be applied to checking accounts.
More: “Changes according to the landlord type” – BGH opens gate for high interest payments to savers.