A MAN who allowed his account to go a few pence overdrawn has been charged £80.

Lewis Mathers 20, of Pall Mall, Leigh, went 15p overdrawn on his Abbey account in November and was initially charged £25.

He and his father Nigel Mathers contested the amount, but by December his account had incurred another £25 charge.

By January, when Sant-ander had taken over the society, it had risen to £80.

Speaking on behalf of Lewis, Nigel Mathers, 46, of Benfleet Road, Benfleet, said his son currently earned a small wage working for a window company and could not afford such a charge.

He said: “We were totally gobsmacked. We couldn’t believe their charges.

“When we initially complained they just said those were the charges and they couldn’t do anything about them.

“He was overdrawn 15p for 11 days so the charge represents a 53,000 per cent interest rate. They have now agreed to a £50 refund.”

Louisa Dreja, spokesman for Santander, said: “We believe that our fees are fair, legal, appropriate, and clearly explained to customers.

“Mr Mathers was given plenty of notice of the fees applied to his account, and as he was continually using his account to deposit and withdraw funds, it would have been simple for him to keep an eye on his balance and avoid unauthorised overdraft fees.”

The Office of Fair Trading launched a test case against the banks in July 2007 to establish if it had the power to decide if bank charges were unfair.

After winning the argument in both the High Court and Appeal Court, the regulator lost in the Supreme Court disappointing the hopes of hundreds of thousands of people who had hoped to get bank charges refunded.