looking at some of the threads on http://www.bankactiongroup.com/ it would seem that penal Bank Charges may be against the law.
What is the general concensus of opinion on the legality of excessive Bank Charges?
JC
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Money Box (BBC Radio 4)
There was an item on this on last Saturday's Money Box programme (18 Feb). Basically it appears the legal position is that banks are entitled to recover their actual losses, but there should not be a punitive element to their charges. It seems that, to get round this, they are lumping together all their debt recovery costs (including residential and commercial loan write offs) and then splitting these between the defaulters (this was allegedly reported to the Treasury Select Committee recently), though Ian Mullen, the CEO of the British Bankers' Assoc, did not seem aware of this. The position of excessive credit card charges was also looked into by the OFT.
If you're quick you can "listen again" to the article (I hope the following link works):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/noscript.shtml?/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/moneybox or check Money Box's website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/default.stm