Hi,

my 19 year old son who has recently been diagnosed with depression got himself into a muddle with his banking due to inexperience and the ease of contactless payments.

He was paying charges of £80 per month for the majority of a year and was unable to get himself out of the financial mess he had got himself in.

Once I became aware I advised him to speak to the bank HSBC and ask them to give him an authorised overdraft so he could limit his charges and get himself out if the situation he found himself in.

He contacted HSBC and as he failed a credit score (no surprise there, he has never had credit) they refused to give him an authorised overdraft.

He buried his head the sand a little longer and then finally took my advice to contact the Financial Ombudsman.

HSBC initially denied to the FOS that he had made a call to them explaining his financial situation and asking for help

but after we supplied a telephone bill detailing the date and the fact that he was on the phone for in excess of an hour they agreed that he had made contact.

The FOS requested the conversation.

However HSBC did not submit a recording of the phone call

they supplied hand written notes.

These notes failed to mention that he was experiencing financial hardship.

Therefore the FOS said that he had no case.

He stressed that he did state this in the phone call but the FOS decided that as it was not mentioned in the notes submitted by HSBC then that was the end of the matter.

My son has paid in excess of £800 in charges on a paultry income and it feels that he has no redress against HSBC.

Can they not be forced to submit the original recording?

If a recording of the call doesn't exist or can't be located then of course this won't be possible.

Your son may may be able to make a Subject Access Request in order to obtain a copy (if there is one).

Though, whether he's experiencing financial difficulties or not,

HSBC are not under any obligation to refund any charges that your son's own spending habits have incurred.

As your son is on such a "paltry income" and is inexperienced with his banking perhaps your efforts will be better focused on educating him on his responsibilities in managing his finances?

(It's just a suggestion and I appreciate you may have already done this, but your post didn't mention it so I thought it worth mentioning)

get an sar running

they cant use 'notes' if they've nothing to base them on.

and those 'notes' must have been made at the time of the call.

so study the comms/account log very carefully.

Well of course this will depend on whether or not there is a recording.

And my understanding was that a bank is not supposed to perpetuate a cycle of debt especially when the person has raised the fact that the charges were pushing them into an overdraft that the bank would not authorise to limit the amount of charges.

Since becoming aware of the problem I have tried to educate my son and offer advice and support about managing his finances which was why we started by approaching the bank directly for help in the first place. We raised the issue of the amount of charges only after they refused to help him get out of debt.

I will try the subject access request as you suggest

Thank you. We will look at this

I was wondering if we would have a case to take to the Independent Assessor

just for want of ref

the FOS never side with customers in cases of unfair bank charges

they never do no matter how strong the case

remember who pays them...

I just find it bizarre that initially denied any knowledge of a telephone call from him explaining his situation and asking for help and only supplied the 'hand written notes' once we supplied telephone records showing the date he called and the length of the call.

is it all just a waste of time?

Even if we do the SAR where will that leave us?

One week after charges he had £2.00 in his account after he got paid.

He had to find his travelling money to get to work and so was immediately back in the red again accruing more charges.

I completely understand that the debt was his fault prior to the date he contacted them but afterwards for at least another 6 months he was in the same situation even though he'd asked them for help.

no we'll hit them harder

its disgusting..

They were able to change the rules after a succesful trial... it used to be that you could quote financial hardship and they would have to return all those unfair charges which pushed you further into debt.

Some people really do find it hard to manage on a very small income... wages are at an all time low whilst costs of living go up and up... it's not a matter of educating people, it's just that some are 'just about managing' and some don't manage at all because they are on zero hours, or whatever, and have to juggle the bills.

I was trying to help my own son a few years back... the bank was aware that he was in trouble, and he was in receipt of housing benefit, even though he was working full time... but they just kept chraging him for bounced DDs, etc, until he ended up with an unauthourised overdraft of £4k!!

These banks just don't give a damn and especially HSBC... always involved in all sorts of fraud and corruption, but the last to admit to any wrongdoing, especially where those who have been treated unfairly are concerned.

Just appalling.

TB