WOW... I have recieved a letter!!!! Very polite one too from Mr Langdale! Thankyou for you letter dated... blah blah blah... I will contact you again by 08 February 2007 with a full response... blah blah blah In the meantime, thankyou for you patience... blah blah blah!!! Patience??? what patience... i want whats mine, and i want it now! I read a few other posts in this great forum, and looks like a standard letter most others are getting... Well my LBA was sent on 29th Dec 06, so that gives him untill 13thJan07 (i think). Should i just stick to my deadline and continue with MCOL on that date? Or send a reply saying i am going to do this? its taken him just under one month to reply to my prelim letter, so do i expect he hasnt read the LBA yet? Also, i have been given a customer reference number, would it be wise to use this on any letters i do send now? Thanks in advance....

Well after reading so much in here and actually trusting me for once... now my wife wants to claim what is rightfully hers!!! I have copied exacytly what i have done, and prelim sending tomorrow! Thanks all for a great site and loads of exceptional advice!

Well suprise suprise... NO reply from HSBC regarding my Prelim letter... Just printed LBA and sending it via recorded delivery today along with my schedule... The clock is ticking hsbc!

Letter Before Action Good luck with the claim!

by the way, sending prelim to the canada square address.. correctme if im wrong! cheers

ok, thanks for the help guys... i will be sending prlim letter tomorrow! Only other thing i am unsure about is how the time period is worked out... i know i give 14 days for a response to the prelim, but i also read somewhere i give 5 days delivery or something... if i send tomorrow 10th Dec, do i give them untill 24th to respond or 29th? also, what about christmas period? should i not include christms day/ boxing day, etc?

anyone help please??? Really wanted to get this prelim letter off tomorrow! Would it be ok to delete the overdraft column in th spreadsheet and see what the bank replies? if they query it then i will have to redo the spreadsheet. I will apply for SAR too (if i can find the correct address and who to make the cheque payable to)

At present, i definately do not have an overdraft facility... but 6 years ago i think i did, i just do not know how much it was for. At one point in 2003 i think i had 500 pound, but they soon stopped that and then went down to 100. Since then and now, it has changed yet again. I di once have a temporary overdraft for one month to 'stop charges' but looking at my spreadsheet, that probably didnt happen! I have completed the spreadsheet now and am ready for the prelim letter (assuming i can sort out this overdraft problem). Would you advise me to apply for my SAR as well? also, having a problem finding the addres to apply for SAR, i used the link from this site, but do not know what to search for, i searched for hsbc but it came up with more than 100

ok tried that... it just ives you your current account details... i tried looking at an old statement from 2002 then clicking account details, but it still showed my account details as of today... Another question... Going through my charges i noticed a couple i am unsure if i charge back... Foreign CHQ Negotiated (i was cashing in canadian checks) Temporary Limit Fee (when i asked for a temporary overdraft facility) I havent added these onto the spreadsheet, as i belive these are deemed as a service to me which i thuink i read somewhere cannot be charged back... just want to double check...

definately doesnt here... but i got my statements printed from online banking... i didnt send off for them... is that wht you done?

thats the problem bong... it doesnt show on my statements what my agreed overdraft was at any time. Will it do any harm if i just leave the column blank... ?

Thanks for the advice honiegie and bong... Ok, i have started entering my charges and interest into the spreadsheet, and all is working fine... i'm just a little concerned about the 'Interst Free Overdraft' column... can anyone shed some light onto this for me? Is it required? if it is, how can i find out what my overdraft limit was? i know it has fluctuated between 100pound and 500pound... but god knows when it actually changed... and not sure if it was interest free! Any help much appreciated!

crikey, i can see i will need a lot of help with all this!! Just looking through the spreadsheets! Not sure which one to use... I want to work out the interest accrued from the charges and add to claim, then use the 8% if it went to court... Any suggestions? or am i getting this all wrong!

ahh, i see... i have to work out the proportion of the interest that is a result of the charges! OK... but the rest of them are ok yea? Cheers

Hi all... been reading through the forums in here and i gotta say, all looks very promising. Still worried about doing it (as i'm sure you all were!) but i have decided to go for it... Just been adding up my charges from 6 years ago using internet banking... 2904 pounds! Did anyone else find this bit confusing!?!? I found that hsbc's charges seem very inconsistent, and i dont really make much sense of them... Total Charges for 15th April Unpaid Item Recall of S-O/D-D Interest Card Misuse I understand what they mean, but it was the amounts that confused me... ranged from 30 to 18. In one statement they charged 16 pound for a reversall, then three days later charged 30 pound for another reversal. Its the interest one i'm not sure if i should add or not (its small amount anyway). Anyway... am i right in saying i just add these up and begin to play around and read up on using the spreadsheets? Thanks in advance for any help... its much appreciated

Firstly, well done on what looks like a fascinating and extremely helpful website/forum. My wife and i have been struggling for the past 5/6 years, mainly with bank charges from HSBC. Most of the time it was the bank charges themselves (35 pound i think) making either of us overdrawn again, therefore securing another charge for the following month... this then led to returned Direct debits and more charges and so on, not to mention the charges from the companies expecting their direct debits! Anyway, it is only a year now since my wife got a Nationwide bank account after being so fed up with HSBC. To cut a long story short, they charged her after the first month because a payment went out 2 days before she got paid and we suffered th charge (which was even more than HSBC!). She straight away closed the account and went to the bank in person and paid everything she owed. Months went by with the account still open but not in use... anyway, we just found out that she has been charged monthly at 28 pund a time for the past year!!! Completely fed up with them all and decided we will do something about it. I look forward to chatting with you all and reading as much as possible in these forums. Any help and advice from any of you will be hugely appreciated... Cheers