J Vs HSBC ** WON **

[Jason1975]

Ok so I have compiled a spread sheet of the charges, added it to the Preliminary approach for repayment letter and will be posting it out today recorded delivery. I must have been a good boy cause it is only £724.57, but it is still my money!! To make things a bit more urgent, I was made redundant today!! (Can you hear the violins?):-|

So if I am correct I now wait for either the 14 days to run out in which I then send the second letter or for the responce..

 

Wish me luck!!

 

J

[nathal]

wait the 14 days then send your lba

[Jason1975]

Well no surprise here that the 14 days are up and no response from the bank so first thing in the morning I will be sending them the LBA....

[Jason1975]

Ok, double checked the status of the original letter I sent to the bank and it turns out that according to the post office it 'hasnt been delivered' or 'is lost'. Shall I continure with the LBA in the hope that it was delivered and was a mistake by the postman in not getting it signed or shall I resend the first letter?? I'm thinking that the second option is the better one as I can keep records of all postal transactions using recorded delivery if I need it for court action.

 

Please advise......

 

Thanks.

[Jason1975]

I'm going to re-send the initial letter and get it sent recorded again, hopefully this time it will get there safley.

[Jason1975]

Two weeks after sending the first letter for the second time, I now have proof that the letter got delivered. The LBA is now in the post, recorded delivery so hopefully there will be no repeat of the first letter....

 

I will keep you all posted.

 

J.

[steve_n]

Hi Jason,

DON'T be surprised to hear absolutely NOTHING from the bank.

 

Start to calculate your charges plus 8% interest, and then you are prep'd to file your MCOL (money claim on line) its dead easy to do, you will have to pay a fee, this you add to your total claim.

 

Then your in with the rest of a lot of us in here !!

 

Good luck !!

 

 

Steve

[Jason1975]

Thanks Steve.

 

I dont expect to hear from HSBC untill I either over my overdraft again in which they will phone me on several occasions asking me stupid questions like is there anything they can do (all together now. STOP THE UNLAWFUL CHARGES!!) or the MCOL has been filed.

 

Is a good idea to do the calculations in advanced though.

 

Thanks.

 

J

[Jason1975]

Hi All.

 

Got the letter of 'good will payment' from HSBC today and this is what it says.....

 

Dear Mr Winsor and Miss Mabey

Thank you for your letters requesting a refund of your bank charges of £618.00 going back six years.

HSBC's interest rates are well publicised in respect to both authorised and unauthorised overdrafts. You have asked us to refund overdraft interest on your account. It is, of course, a condition of your borrowing from us that you will pay interest at the agreed rates on that borrowing. As such we will not be refunding the interest that has been applied to your debt.

In circumstances where you have authorised a payment that would, if met by us lead to your account going overdrawn or over an agreed overdraft limit, we have to consider whether to make this payment. A fee is payable for this service provided by the bank, details of which are clearly set out in our published price list. The circumstances in which the fee will apply are clearly set out in our personal banking terms and conditions which you were provided with a copy of when you opened your account. If your claim for a refund proceeded to court, we therefore believe we would successfully resist any legal challenge in relation to these fees.

HSBC is, however, mindful of the management time and irrecoverable legal cost that it may incur in relation to such a claim. For those commercial reasons alone, and without any admission of liability whatsoever, HSBC is prepared to make a payment to you in the sum of £525 representing the charges applied in full and final settlement of this matter.

If you accept this proposal please sign and return the enclosed copy of this letter to us within 10 working days and we will arrange for a refund to be made to you. Please allow 7 working days for your account to be credited from receipt by ourselves. If we do not receive your signed acceptance within this time scale, we will take it that you have declined our offer.

I trust that this matter has now been addresses to your satisfaction. If you are not satisfied with the banks response you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Further details about the Ombudsman scheme are set out in the enclosed leflet and you have six months from the date of this letter, within which to refer your complaint to them should you decide to do so.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

 

The first thing is the interest. Am I correct in thinking that I can reclaim the interest that was charged to me at the time of the charges? Also I did notice that not once did they say that they were following the law or recomendations set out by the OFT just following the conditions in THEIR T's and C's. I'm also curious as to how the come up with the settlement figure?

 

So what do I do now... If I was correct with the interest charges then I will go with the next stage if not then I will take the offer.

 

Please advise!

 

Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

J.

[Dani]

Was the interest charged solely because of the charges??

 

Or would you already have been overdrawn without them??

[steve_n]

Hi Jason,

 

You welcome matie !

[Jason1975]

On most I would have already been over drawn but not necessary over the limit. Most of the time when I did go over the limit the charges just added to the amount rather than taking me over my limit.

 

Thanks.

[Dani]

The way I believe it to be is they are obviously allowed to charge interest on your account for you being overdrawn.

 

You can only claim back the interest if it was charged solely because of your charges. So in your case, you'd have to work out the amount of the interest that was charged because of the charges and what was charged for just being overdrawn as normal. If you get what I mean.

 

There is a spreadsheet in the templates section that will help you work it all out.

[steve_n]

The only bit I'd add to the above is:-

 

Example you have an agreed OD of say £500 and you are at the moment £490 overdrawn, so within your limit !!

The bank will charge interest at the going rate, this you cannot claim back. ok, you write a cheque for £50 guaranteed by your card, so the bank paysit, and now your now £540 over, and the bank charges you £30 for the priviledge, so your now £570 overdrawn !!

 

Right, you can claim the £30 charge and you can claim back the interest incurred for the (but only) £70 that you are over your agreed limit. and you can back dae this for 6 years or to the actual date of the event (whichever is sooner)

 

The spreadsheet works all this out for you

 

Hope this all helps !!

[Jason1975]

Thanks for the advice guys. I think because I screwed up the interest I'm gonna have to accept the settlement. If I did push my luck then it could go horribly wrong cause of the mistake. Still, £525 is better than if I had done nothing about it at all.

[Guest bong]

The only bit I'd add to the above is:-

 

Example you have an agreed OD of say £500 and you are at the moment £490 overdrawn, so within your limit !!

The bank will charge interest at the going rate, this you cannot claim back.

 

sorry steve - you need to work out how much of the £490 overdraft was attributable to charges, and you can claim back the interest on those charges, even if you haven't exceeded your overdraft limit.

 

 

ok, you write a cheque for £50 guaranteed by your card, so the bank paysit, and now your now £540 over, and the bank charges you £30 for the priviledge, so your now £570 overdrawn !!

 

Right, you can claim the £30 charge and you can claim back the interest incurred for the (but only) £70 that you are over your agreed limit.

 

in this example you wouldn't necessarily be able to claim back the interest on the £70 (don't forget that £70 includes £40 of a cheque you've written), the interest you would reclaim would be that in relation to the total charges within the whole debt of £570.

 

So if your charges historically totalled £600 at that point, you could say that your entire overdraft resulted from bank charges and reclaim all the interest. If you hadn't been charged you would not be overdrawn and paying any interest at all.

 

If on the other hand your charges totalled £300 at that point, you would work out that you could reclaim 300/570 x interest charged.

 

sorry to labour the point, but even if Jason decides not to reclaim any interest I think it needs to be explained so that others don't get the wrong end of the stick.

 

The spreadsheet works all this out for you

 

yes - try the advanced excel spreadsheet. its not as daunting as it may seem at first glance.

[lateralus]

i agree, jason, before you decide whether to take the offer - it would be an excellent idea to know what you are turning down - and the fact that you may be asking for a different amount means nothing - you've stated your case so nothing has changed except for possibly the amounts. if the s/s looks like it is gobbledegook to you - you could try my really simple instructions (it has helped some others) to conquer the s/s - here is my little piece: try it and see where you stand on how much they owe you - then decide if you want to back out now or stand your ground for another month and come out with what you are asking to have returned.

 

here it is:

ok, take it from the top. you have all your statements for the last six years, right. go through them and mark all the charges: Charges description on statements - Please Read this is the list of charges you can claim for. now, next to those charges there is often an debit for "interest". so, as you are marking all the charges, mark all the interest items as well. look at everything with a DR next to it, if it is on the list in the link, mark it, and all the interest with DR next to them.

then, go to:6. Interest calculation spreadsheets go on England, Advanced - Works (or excel) to get the spreadsheet. now, at the bottom, click on Charges & Interest. this will bring up a blue and yellow spreadsheet.

start with the oldest item marked on your statements and start entering them, the date listed on the statement, next column the charge - just call it exactly what the bank called it and next column put in the amount.

when you come to an interest one, move tab to the right hand side and put in the date, the interest, the balance at that point (here i will tell you that if the balance is in the minus numbers, a portion of the interest will go onto the spreadsheet - if you are not in negative balance - nothing of that interest will be added - so you will only see an amount come up if you have a negative balance at that point). as for the agreed o/d amt.

(i don't think this column was in there when i was doing mine - so try leaving it blank - if this messes it up - you will have to ask someone else what to do with it)

proceed through your statements from the oldest to the newest adding on all the charges and interest debits. you will see a total emerging, one on the left side and another on the right side. at the end those are the "you have taken £XXXXX(left side) plus £XXX(right side) which you have charged me in o/d interest.....total £XXXX.

That's about as clear as I can make it - i don't claim to understand it - it just worked for me. This is the information you will need for your prelim. letter and the spreadsheet is your schedule of charges.

 

more info but not for the prelim. and lba letter:

when you have the spreadsheet done that far, you can click on the 8% button at the bottom and reenter it all again with the date (put a date about 30 days from now - that way, it will be figuring your 8% interest that you can add at the mcol stage at about the same date as you will be filing) it figures the 8% for you based on how many days have elapsed since you incurred the charge. this gives you the 8% interest you will add when you file your mcol.

 

again, i really never understood what i was doing - just followed the step by step instructions at the top of the site and honestly - the spreadsheet was pretty simple - even for me and i'd never done anything like it before.

good luck with it - you'll soon be ready to decide whether to accept your offer as a partial and go for the whole tamale or not (i hope you go for it).

[steve_n]

Well, I stand corrected by 'Bong' and bow to his superior knowledge, after all he is 'OLDER' and wiser than I (in here at least) LOL

 

Only teasing Bong

 

I'll rememeber your corrections for other future posts, I know the interest calcs can be very daunting to many members, especially if you have lots of charges going back the full 6 years, mine took a whole evening to work and check !!

 

Respect - Steve

[lateralus]

never mind bong - i used to think you were a guy too - should have known we females are actually the supeior thinkers!

so, jason did it add very much?

[steve_n]

Bong = 'her' OOOPS :o

 

Ummm . . . I'll just go over there >>>>>> and hide I think !!

 

Steve (very male)

[MichelleMaurice]

Hello all,

 

I've been following this thread in an effort to get started and its all very daunting. I'm a new Mum and don't have lots and lots of time but could use my money paid back. Is it really difficult?

 

Michelle

[Guest bong]

hi Michelle, welcome on board!

 

Its not difficult but it takes a bit of time in the early stages to find your way around and get to grips with what you need to know. As a new mum you already have your hands full but if you see a thread that you think will help you then subscribe to it so that you can refer back to it when you need to.

 

first things first, start your own thread by clicking on "new post" button at the top of the forum. that's not to say you shouldn't be posting replies in other users threads but questions relating to your own claim should be kept to your own thread and that way it becomes like a diary that you can add to as you progress through your claim. If you can imagine threads would pretty quickly get very confusing to follow with advice here and there to different users.

 

I would then settle down to some reading - the FAQs, userguides, template letters, other users threads in the HSBC forum, as much as you can manage.

 

When you've done that come back to your thread with any specific questions you have and maybe ask if you've understood everything correctly before you take your first step.

 

its a very friendly forum and there is lots of help around. so don't be afraid to ask, we've all been new once.

[steve_n]

Hi Michelle,

 

Likewise, welcome to CAG, there is literally 1000's of posts in here that will help you through the process of getting back what is 'your' money from the bank . . .

As Bong said it can seem daunting at first, and even scary, but . . as your experience and confidence grows your soon be helping those yet to start on this . .

 

Don't be worried about asking what might seem trivial or even silly questions, we all did (and still do sometimes LOL)

 

Also by keeping all your posts in one 'thread' you will have a nice 'diary' of your own claim as it proceeds, and others can advise and also learn from your questions and the answers as they go

 

Anyway, best of luck,

 

Steve.

[Jason1975]

Hi all.

 

Ok, So I have decided to bite the bullet and get the entire lot back. so the claim is now for £744.10. I have just finished the forms on www.moneyclaim.gov.uk My only question now is do I need to send any thing else to the bank to say I have done this or do I just let the courts do that? I noticed in the moneyclain template that it does state that I am going to send another copy of the charges but do I include the 8% as well? Also is there a letter to go with it?

 

Thanks Guys (Again)

 

J.

[steve_n]

Hi again,

 

Once you have submitted your MCOL, you will get a paper copy from teh court, send 3 copies of your schedule directly to the court with a BRIEF letter saying please find enc, can you repectfully attch to my claim papers