another letter, please advise.

[allen_zhang]

You received a letter from your bank stating that you will be charged £35 for a banking service you didn’t use. You know this information is incorrect.
Write a letter to the bank. In your letter
write what the erroneous banking service is
explain why this is in error
describe what you would like the bank to do about it

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing in reply to a letter I received from your bank recently.

In your letter, I was told that your bank will charge me £35 for the short message noticing service. I believe you made a mistake. I did subscribe this service since January 2014 but I called it off last month, because I do not think it is so useful and it seems to be too expensive. Last month, I phoned your bank and requested to stop this service. One of your attendants acknowledged my request and even sent me an email to confirm it. That is to say, you are supposed to stop charging me since this month.

Please check what happened to my account and explain why this service hasn’t been stopped. Also, I hope you refund me for the money you charged this month as soon as possible.

I look forward to receiving your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,
Allen Zhang

[durai]

Hi Allen, here is my comments,

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing in reply to the letter I received from your bank recently.

What I understand from the letter was the bank will charge me £35 for the short message noticing service, and I believe you made a mistake. I did subscribe this service since January 2014 but I called it("it" remove) off last month, because I do not think this will be useful, and it("it" not required) seems to be too expensive. So, I phoned your bank last month, and requested to stop this service. One of your bank staffs acknowledged my request, and confirmed the same via email.. That is to say, you are(remove "are" suppose to stop charging me(remove 'me'. because its obvious to understand there are only two person communicating, the bank and yourself, so need to tell everywhere) from this month.

Please check what happened to my account, and explain why this service has not been stopped( incorrect tense, please check it, the verb form must be in "ing")( suggestion: "why this noticing service is still active . Also, I hope you refund me for the money you charged this month as soon as possible. ( here i don't understand, earlier you said bank will charge, now asking for a refund, how can they refund without charging

I look forward to receiving your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,
Allen Zhang

overall good letter, task acdievement is visible, could be BAND 6.5 TO 7, NOT SURE

[allen_zhang]

Thank you Durai,

A little discussion,
"Call it off" --> You suggest to remove "it". But I think this "it" is needed. I think we should "call off sth.".

"you are supposed to " --> you suggest "you suppose to ". I think it should be pasive voice here.

"acknowledged my request" ,I just come up with a new word: "acknowledged my cancellation request". Maybe it can help to show my vocabulary.

[durai]

Hi Allen,

Call it off" --> I am not sure of this, if I write I wont use , please check with high level candidate

"you are supposed to " --> you suggest "you suppose to ". if "supposed" is an adjective then its ok, but if it is verb then it becomes redundant, just check supposed is an adjective or verb.

"acknowledged my request" ,I just come up with a new word: "acknowledged my cancellation request". Maybe it can help to show my vocabulary. this is a good collocation, you get mark for these wordings, try to think this kind of words, once you get use to it, it comes on your mind, so I believe reading is the best method to learn collocations.

good luck

Durai

[Chi]

You received a letter from your bank stating that you will be charged £35 for a banking service you didn’t use. You know this information is incorrect.
Write a letter to the bank. In your letter
write what the erroneous banking service is
explain why this is in error
describe what you would like the bank to do about it

Below are my comments:

I am writing in reply to a letter I received from your bank recently.

I believe that "in reply" is not accurate. So, you can either change it to "to reply" or "in response". Also, if you mention a banking service, make sure you use the right terminology. I am not sure "Short message noticing service" is the right one. You might have meant "SMS banking service". Also, I would like to extend your sentence a bit, so I rewrote it as following:

"I am writing in response to your letter regarding a charge of £35 for SMS banking service which I am no longer subscribed since last month."

In your letter, I was told that your bank will charge me £35 for the short message noticing service. I believe you made a mistake. I did subscribe this service since January 2014 but I called it off last month, because I do not think it is so useful and it seems to be too expensive. Last month, I phoned your bank and requested to stop this service. One of your attendants acknowledged my request and even sent me an email to confirm it. That is to say, you are supposed to stop charging me since this month.

You don't need to use the phrase "in your letter" because you are replying their letter. Unless you want to refer to any other correspondence, it's assumed that you are addressing matters arisen due to the letter in question.

Overall your message is clear, but there's still some awkwardness in your writing.

Please check what happened to my account and explain why this service hasn’t been stopped. Also, I hope you refund me for the money you charged this month as soon as possible.

I would just say: "Could you please make sure that this will not happen again in the future." There's no need for a refund, as the amount has not been charged yet. You should notice that the question says "you will be charged" - that means it was just merely a notification of a provisional charge, which is a mistake anyway. In this situation, if I was a customer, I would mention in my letter that this kind of mistakes make you feel insecure, and if this happens again, you might consider changing to a different bank. That might pressure the bank to pay more attention to your issue. In any case, you should remain being polite.

Hope that helps,
Chi

[allen_zhang]

Hi Chi,
Thank you for you review and comments. I learned a lot from them.

Regarding the "refund", you are totally right. I set a 15 minutes time limit for myself and I found my letter was still shorter than 150 words when I was about to run out of time. That's why this mistake was made. you are right on "SMS banking service".

However, regarding "in reply to" and "in your letter", they were used by an model answer in Cambridge Book 1:
"I am writing in reply to a letter I received from you a few days ago. In you letter you state that I am $240 overdrawn.."

Yours sincerely,
Allen

[Chi]

Hi Allen,

I am glad you do make your own research and discretion and don't just take in any recommendation that others gave you.

Regarding "in reply to": you are right, it's possible to say that.

About the phrase "in your letter", it is not a grammatical mistake but just a suggestion, as I already gave you the explanation. I tend to be concise so I don't use unnecessary phrases. Anyway, it is more like a personal choice.

"I am writing in response to your letter regarding a charge of £35 for SMS banking service which I am no longer subscribed since last month."

I realised that I missed the article "the" in front of "SMS banking service", as you are talking about a specific service.

Cheers,
Chi