Hi, just got success in a claim against HSBC - for £1790 charges over last five years. Decided to say I would appeal to the Financial Ombudsman in my first letter rather than take them to court and gave them eight weeks to respond according to Ombudsman rules. This meant waiting longer initially, they got back to me two days after eight weeks offering to settle £1564 'in full and final settlement' (random?!? plucked out of thin air as far as I can tell) and of course admitting no liability and stating that if it went to court they would win! So I wrote back and said if they didn't give me the full amount in 14 days I would take them to court - I received a letter last week offering me the full amount - which I have taken. Not threatening to take them to court in the first place actually gave me an extra bargaining chip instead of having to initiate the online claim process in order to get the full amount. I'm going to turn to my credit cards next.