The mum who dared to fight back

Gaylia Ashby has paid thousands of pounds in penalty charges on her credit card and current account after running into financial problems three years ago.

She was made redundant from her recording studio manager job when she was expecting her second child.

"I had a £7,000 loan and a few thousand outstanding on my Barclaycard. I wanted to come to an arrangement so I would not run up bank penalty charges," says Gaylia, 38, who lives in Ruislip, Middlesex. She also asked the bank to stop the payment protection insurance on the loan. But instead, Barclays sold her another loan so she could pay off the Barclaycard.

Soon after, Gaylia was diagnosed with a rare form of multiple sclerosis and began falling behind with payments. To make matters worse, the PPI policy refused to pay out.

From then on, Gaylia was charged penalties - including £30 per month for not paying the loan and a further £9.50 a month account fee as well as other fees ranging up to £25 for not being on time with her credit card. Then there were more charges for being in an unauthorised overdraft - she went beyond her limit because of all the penalty fees the bank was hitting her with. By 2004, her original £7,000 loan had ballooned to £13,000 - all as a result of the charges.

"At that stage, I went to the local Citizens Advice for help. It drafted a letter for me to send to Barclays. I complained because the bank had mis-sold the loan and the insurance."

Barclays would not relent. So she went to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The FOS found that Barclays had mis-sold the loan and insurance - and that it had failed to address her concerns within the eight weeks' time limit.

"Barclays had to repay all the charges and give me £5,000. Now I'm down to £5,000 which I'm paying at £10 a month - that's 41 years. It's really important to know you can fight back - banks just expect you to roll over and pay."