Bounced cheque

[daveorange223]

I recently got conned out of £3000 basically by my own lack of judgement, however in recent communications with my HSBC branch, they have actually admitted some responsibility. They admitted that it should of only taken 4 days for the cheque to come back to them, it took 6 days and for that reason i was "allowed" to take the money out of my account as i was told that it normally takes 4 days for it to fully clear.

The fact that it took 6 days to come back to them and they still put the money in my account indicates they are at fault, however they are still denying they should pay me back the money and get rid of the interest free loan, thats right INTEREST FREE!! until 2018 which is practically unheard of and which i believe to be a sign of guilt.

I am just wondering if anyone else has had this experience and what i can do. I have already written to the ombudsman and am awaiting the outcome of the banks investigation.

Thanks

[BankFodder]

Is the interest-free loan signed up in writing and untouchable - should they decide to get nasty?

[daveorange223]

yeah i still have it in writing, however everyone i have talked to, including police officers and people at the HSBC itself say that they should have waiting until the cheque had fully cleard before paying the money in. I argued that the UK banking system needs updating from the victorian era into the 21st century, they replied by saying that they would only do that when ALL the other banks did it. In some countries i takes 2hours from receiving the cheque to the funds being fully cleared. The UK network unfortunately lags way behind which is why i got conned as they take advantage of this slow system.

[BankFodder]

Can you list the ways in which you think that your bank failed to carry out its proper duties to you?

[daveorange223]

yeah sure

1. Failure to detect fraudulent cheque
2. bad customer liasing (was given bad information/informed NOT to tell police.
3. unsatisfactory processing of the cheque in that it took 6 days to return it to the bank when it is supposed to take 4.
4. paid me the money before receiving a cleard payment.
5. the teller actually said to me that if i had told her what the money was for she would of stopped me withdrawing it.
6. they took the £3000 out of my account without contacting me first, i received a letter the same day they took it back.

I pretty much think that covers it.

[BankFodder]

Now if you want to construct a case against the bank, you will have to find some contractual term or some evidence of industry practice which shows that each of your points was reasonable for you to expect and was a failing by the bank when measured against some standard of how these things are done. Do you understand?

I can see one problem already, I think.
Point 3 - you seem to be blaming your bank but isn't it the clearing bank which has a duty to return the cheque efficiently or to indicate that the cheque has a problem.

Point no.2 assumes that the problem was known about so that by the time the police would have been informed, it would have been too late as the money and the rogue were gone.