DG Solictors. Need Help

[ppauls150]

Right had my statements now come through today and added the charges up which come to £2860.50. I am enjoying having something to give me a challenge especially for these kind of ammounts but even now i am chasing up things like £80 and even £25. Questions though is can someone please tell me where they say Card Missue £10 can i claim for these as they are under the OFTs £12 charge??? Need to know as i have to take these out of this figure if i cannot claim for these ones. What gets me aswell though is for the card missue that sometimes they charge me £10 and sometimes they charged me £30 lol. Wonder what the difference was as to £10 one time and £30 another? Also while anyone is reading this, anyone know who to start sending the prelim letter to?

Thanks for any advice.

[alanfromderby]

The OFT figure is irrelevant in this context. For one thing it was given as a maximum, and even then they said it would be up to the bank to justify it. They have charged you £10 - almost certainly this was done automatically, without anyone doing anything.

 

For the bank to justify this charge they must provide evidence that it has cost them £10 because of your action in misusing your card. If they don't provide that evidence then it is an unlawful charge.

 

Send the prelim either to your local branch, or head office.

[ppauls150]

Ok DG Solicitors have contacted me today offering me a full refund with the confidentiality written in which if i go ahead will be crossing out. What i want to know though is that i got a default against my name on this account and wanted this removed. There is no mention of this on the letter and was wondering what people think i should do? Will they remove the default? will the get shirty if i ask for that to be removed aswell? or shall i just accept the payment.?

[ppauls150]

This is what i had written to the Courts while i filed.

 

Claimant had an account with the defendant over 6 years,which is run on their standard

terms and conditions.The claimant is claiming £2860.50 taken by the defendant

in the way of charges for last 6 years and removal of a default on the account.The

bank's charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as they

are contrary to common law. Further,as a disproportionate penalty they are invalid

under the Unfair(Contracts)Terms Act 1977 s.4 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer

Contracts Regulations 1999.Para.8 and sch.2 (1)(e).In the event that the charges are

not a penalty then they are unreasonable within the meaning of the Supply of Goods

and Services Act 1982 s.15 The bank was asked to justify their charges but they

have declined to do so.The claimant claims interest under s.69 of the County Courts

Act 1984 at 8% a year from the date of each charge to 18th June 2006 of £870.92 and

also interest at same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier at £0.75 per day

[ppauls150]

I cannot believe what has just happened. I had three accounts with HSBC. I had a Current Account, Credit Card Account and and Loan account with them. They closed my accounts down a couple of years ago with around £500 outstanding on my Credit Card Account and My Loan account was £5000. I pay these off to Metropolitan at £100 per month. HSBC was suppose to refund the charges back to me which i thought that they would send me out a cheque for the refund of the charges on my current account. What they have decided to do was as my current account was closed they have decided that they will pay my credit card and my Loan accounts off instead of giving me the money . These account are seperate accounts which i pay £100 per month but they have decided to pay basically my other accounts off. Surely they cannot pay my seperate loan and Credit Card off? If i still had my Current Account open the money would of been refunded back to the account for me to do whatever but they have taken it upon themselves to pay off my other accounts. Anyone know whether they can do this or not?

[LittleMissFoolish]

Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Stories like this really really worry me about the whole process. Does anyone else know of any instances of this happening - ie. HSBC deciding to pay themselves back as opposed to awarding the cash and letting the applicant decide how it is best spent.

 

Unlike ppaul150, I have a current account with HSBC. But I also have a standard loan (which I am paying off correctly) and a defaulted credit card account (which I have made arrangements to pay and am doing so). But if I win my case (i have only just sent my first letter off mind you) I have other priority debts which I want to use the money to pay off as opposed to these HSBC debts.

 

Is there a chance that HSBC won't put the money in my current account but will decided to use it to pay off my credit card account instead?

 

I want to be the one to make the decision about what to do with my money!

[Askthebarman]

I belive they can only use your money to pay off other loan debt if you have defaulted on the agreement.

[ppauls150]

I have just been reading the small clims procedure book and came across this. Dont know if this is any good but what do you think.

 

UNSPECIFIED CLAIM.

make an offer to settle(Rule 14.7) which is what they did.

 

The defendant(HSBC) should say how much he or she offers to Pay, Also, if time is required to pay, complete the financial information on the admission form. Well they offered a full refund.

 

If the claiment accepts the offer then he or she can enter a judgement on the admission for the amount admitted. Provided the claim has been paid in full and the payment safely received, the action will be over. Well the claim has been paid in full but the payment hasn't been safely received so surely on this basis if i havent received the payment safely as they have given the payment to themselves the claim isnt over?

 

What does anyone think of that?

[ppauls150]

Two more things.

 

1. Just had a thought aswell, they have decided that they are going to pay my loan and credit card ammounts with the money that i am getting back from their Unlawful charges which people say that they can do. So what i will start to dispute aswell is that if they didnt charge me the scandalous ammount of charges in the first place then the money wouldnt of been there for them to decide to pay off my bills, so who are they to decided with my money what they stole of me 5 years ago?

 

2. I have just tried to send an email to Colin Langdale(Senior Service Quality Officer) using [email protected] and even @hsbc.co.uk and even [email protected] and even @hsbc.co.uk and all 4 have been returned as unknown email addy. Why is that then?

[alyhalfpint]

I cannot believe what has just happened. I had three accounts with HSBC. I had a Current Account, Credit Card Account and and Loan account with them. They closed my accounts down a couple of years ago with around £500 outstanding on my Credit Card Account and My Loan account was £5000. I pay these off to Metropolitan at £100 per month. HSBC was suppose to refund the charges back to me which i thought that they would send me out a cheque for the refund of the charges on my current account. What they have decided to do was as my current account was closed they have decided that they will pay my credit card and my Loan accounts off instead of giving me the money . These account are seperate accounts which i pay £100 per month but they have decided to pay basically my other accounts off. Surely they cannot pay my seperate loan and Credit Card off? If i still had my Current Account open the money would of been refunded back to the account for me to do whatever but they have taken it upon themselves to pay off my other accounts. Anyone know whether they can do this or not?

 

I think they probably can do this. Its a kind of a 'we may owe you money but you also owe us money.' If its being recovered by creditors then you must have defaulted on payments. I understand its a pain in the bum and that you were looking forward to getting some wads to spend but I think a court would probably decide they were within their rights. I also understand what you say in a later post about if they hadn't made the charges and so on but the best way to look at it is that you'll pay off those debts a bit quicker and soon have £100 more a month to play with. Sorry to be a damp squib! Also this is just my opinion, I only know what I've learned from this site (which is loads!) maybe a mod could inform you better.

[blissfulbabe]

Oh dear! I hope this isn't the case.

 

When I sent off my prelim letter in I asked for payment by cheque and NOT into any HSBC accounts because I have 3 accounts I have defaulted on and I don't want the money disappearing into them. I have a DMP with the CCCS and HSBC is just one of my creditors - I don't see why they should be treated as a preferred debtor.

 

HSBC only have this money because they took it unlawfully from my account so surely they cannot decide how the money is returned, especially as I have been so explicit in saying how I want this money repaid, in all my letters.

 

Darn it - I was going to have a nice relaxing evening but can see I'm going to be going over and over this in my head.

[ppauls150]

Well i will keep you informed as this you will have the same problem i have. Should find out at the beginning of the week.

[blissfulbabe]

I've been having a bit of a mull over this (I KNEW this would be stuck in my head!).

 

I've decided that unless payment is made by one of the methods I have stated in my letters I'm not going to let this go. My reasoning is this:

 

1. The money was taken from my account unlawfully in the first place and HSBC don't have the right to help themselves to this money again.

 

2. Yes, it probably says in the orginal contract they have the right to offset from one account to another but:

[blissfulbabe]

I've been having a bit of a mull over this (I KNEW this would be stuck in my head!).

 

I've decided that unless payment is made by one of the methods I have stated in my letters I'm not going to let this go. My reasoning is this:

 

1. The money was taken from my account unlawfully in the first place and HSBC don't have the right to help themselves to this money again.

 

2. Yes, it probably says in the orginal contract they have the right to offset from one account to another but:

a. this money isn't in an account owned by me - HSBC have it (unlawfully)

b. we already believe that the bank knows thatat least one part of the contract is unlawful so this has implications for the bank's behaviour based on that contract

 

3. I am prepared to go to court over this - I have been very explicit in how I require payment so if DG Solicitors decide not to follow my very reasonable request then I will not have received the money so as far as i am concerned the claim isn't settled, so we can go to court and argue about it. I am prepared to take legal counsel and I'm sure the good people on this site can furnish me with some interesting and pertinent questions to ask!;-)

[lookinforinfo]

The bank does not have the right to decide where your money is to be deposited.

The court is not concerned whether the bank is owed money by the claimant in

other accounts- all they are dealing withis whether the money being claimed is a valid claim and if it is, then the money has to be repaid to its rightful owner.

 

As the bank has opted not to go to Court, then they have to make restitution to the claimant as if the case had been heard and lost by them. There is a form n242a

which you can apply for which makes the bank pay the claim into Court rather than pay you direct. And if you go to this url

PRACTICE DIRECTION*--- OFFERS TO SETTLE AND PAYMENTS INTO COURT*-- This Practice Direction supplements CPR Part 36

 

under paragraph 8.4 you will see "Subject to paragraph 8.5(1) and (2), if a party does not wish the payment to be transmitted into his bank account or if he does not have a bank account, he may send a written request to the Accountant-General for the payment to be made to him by "

 

 

So, send a strong letter to the bank giving them the option of returning your money

immediately by cheque, or you will apply to the Accountant General forcing them

to pay you by cheque. They will also incur additional costs because you will restart

interest charges and the cost of applying for form n242a

 

PS Bear in mind that as the bank have terminated your accounts, they cannot even use their

T&C's to give them the right of offsetting one account against another.

[Jordan]

The bank does not have the right to decide where your money is to be deposited.

The court is not concerned whether the bank is owed money by the claimant in

other accounts- all they are dealing withis whether the money being claimed is a valid claim and if it is, then the money has to be repaid to its rightful owner.

 

As the bank has opted not to go to Court, then they have to make restitution to the claimant as if the case had been heard and lost by them. There is a form n242a

which you can apply for which makes the bank pay the claim into Court rather than pay you direct. And if you go to this url

PRACTICE DIRECTION*--- OFFERS TO SETTLE AND PAYMENTS INTO COURT*-- This Practice Direction supplements CPR Part 36

 

under paragraph *.4 you will see "Subject to paragraph 8.5(1) and (2), if a party does not wish the payment to be transmitted into his bank account or if he does not have a bank account, he may send a written request to the Accountant-General for the payment to be made to him by "

 

 

So, send a strong letter to the bank giving them the option of returning your money

immediately by cheque, or you will apply to the Accountant General forcing them

to pay you by cheque. They will also incur additional costs because you will restart

interest charges and the cost of applying for form n242a

 

great post 8-)

[blissfulbabe]

Thank you for that very useful information.

[ppauls150]

Anyone got any adivce on what to do? I have just spoken to them again and they are refusing to pay the money. They say that because it was without predujuice they can do this. She says they held their part of the bargin and win ask for the court to close the case down. If i wish i have to start a fresh claim regarding how the money should be paid but if i do that, that would be a total different subject which i reckon that they would win.

 

12 CALTHORPE ROAD

EDGBASTON

BIRMINGHAM

B15 1QZ

DX 712630 Birmingham 32

Deborah D’Aubney

Your Ref:

 

Our Ref:

Date:

3 July 2006

 

 

Dear Sir

Re : Yourself –v- HSBC Bank plc

 

Thank you for your e-mail of 30 June.

 

As you have indicated you intend to show this letter to your solicitor we have included authorities where appropriate.

 

HSBC has not admitted your claim and therefore your references to Part 14 (Admissions) are irrelevant. HSBC has made a without prejudice offer to settle your claim specifically “without any admission of liability whatsoever”. You accepted the offer and we therefore have a concluded contract of compromise between us. You are not entitled to enter judgement on the back of such a compromise as it does not constitute an admission. We have successfully applied to have judgements set aside where this has happened in the past.

 

You are unhappy that HSBC has not sent you a cheque for the amount of the agreed settlement but has, instead, credited your account which has been passed to debt collectors. You say that this debt is made up of a loan and credit card debt (both of which you acknowledge are in default) and, as such, you say HSBC should not set off the settlement monies against these sums. You say that when you received a similar settlement from Lloyds TSB (where your current account remains open) they did not seek to set off against a loan (which is not in default) with them.

 

The HSBC situation and the Lloyds situation are clearly different as you are in default with HSBC and are not, apparently, with Lloyds. Your HSBC loan and credit card debts are owed to the same legal entity which is paying you these settlement monies (HSBC Bank plc). As such given that your accounts are in default and demand has been made HSBC is perfectly entitled to set off the monies that would have stood to the credit of your current against the sums outstanding (Paget‘s Law of Banking Chapter 2 6 (a)(vii)).

 

Your original action has been compromised and is therefore at an end. Any dispute you have with the way HSBC has executed that compromise agreement should be the subject of a separate action (Chitty on Contract, 27th ed, 22-014). We have recently been successful in arguing just this point before the County Court.

 

Your debt being managed by Metropolitan Collection Services Ltd has therefore been reduced by the amount of the settlement - £3851.42 – from £4809.62 to £958.20.

 

We trust this clarifies the position and would respectfully suggest that you take legal advice as you have indicated you intend to do.

 

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

 

 

DG SOLICITORS

[ppauls150]

I am drafting a letter to the courts to ask them to carry on with the claim. Anyone got any ideas on what i should say. ?

 

Please find enclosed my letter regarding this claim. I wish for this claim to still go ahead to court regardless of what the defendants Solicitors say. There are main issues surrounding the claim that the defendants have failed to uphold on their side. I have been mislead into believing that I would be paid in full directly and safely where this has not happened. Also I was informed that the default surrounding this claim aswell would have to be dealt with separately which I have now found that this is not the case and would like this to be dealt with by the courts. Due to the underhanded procedures from the Defendants please take this letter as me wishing to carry on with the claim.

 

Regards

 

 

 

Paul

[lookinforinfo]

Time and time again, Bankfodder and the other Moderators exhort forum members

to read all the FAQS and as many threads as possible before beginning their

actions.

In most cases where settlement is offered, you would have seen that the bank

often states that the agreed sum will be placed in the relevant account, and had

you read any of those threads you would have seen that some members had

asked for [and received] a cheque instead. So it was down to you to stipulate,

prior to signing, how you wanted to be reimbursed.

 

Now that you have shown fuller details under which you signed, one can

understand why they were keen to offer you a settlement on their terms. You

could give them the choice of paying you a cheque on the grounds that the

settlement was not paid as you had assumed it would be. But if they refuse to

alter their stance, you will start a claim to have the interest on that part of the

£5500 {?} loan which was bank charges. I assume that you did not factor in

that interest in your calculations? That would amount to an extra £550 to £800 or so depending on the rate of interest charged and may give you some leverage to

come to an acceptable deal-including the default.

 

The other thing as well, is that every time DG respond to your requests and

counter offers etc, it costs the bank money, and they may well decide to cut

their losses and come to some sort of accomodation with you, just to get rid of

paying DG their probably extortionate fees.

[LittleMissFoolish]

Sorry to jump onto someone elses thread, but I am really interested in what has happened here as I want to avoid it for my own case. At what stage should the OP have stated that they wanted the refund in the form of a cheque and not placed in their current account? (I have only sent off my first letter) I could not find this info in the FAQ

[lookinforinfo]

Sorry to jump onto someone elses thread, but I am really interested in what has happened here as I want to avoid it for my own case. At what stage should the OP have stated that they wanted the refund in the form of a cheque /QUOTE]

 

After they have agreed to settle out of Court, but BEFORE you sign anything. Tell

them what you want out of the settlement. Eg paid by cheque and/or default

lifted. This is when you are in the driving seat.

 

Notice thet DG Solicitors said they had been to Court to challenge a similar situation

"We have recently been successful in arguing just this point before the County Court."[Aside to PPauls-it would be worthwhile asking DG to supply you with dates and which Court as well as any other relevant info on that case] So they were prepared to argue over a point of Law which they felt certain of winning, but not prepared to go to Court to argue over £3800, or any other amount from anyone else. I wonder why.

[ppauls150]

To Deborah D’Aubney

Please understand one thing this is my money which the bank have taken unlawfully. Regarding them deciding to take the money which I have asked for to be paid by cheque they decided to pay into what is a closed bank account instead of by cheque. They say that they have reason to take my money and pay to another company that I am paying £100 per month on and pay every month without fail and give them what is lawfully mine. You say that the reason that they can do this is due to the fact that the loan and Credit Card that I had with them was in Default. This was only in default due to the fact that they took money in Unlawful Charges which hence I couldn’t pay the monthly amount on the loan and Credit Card. By my summons to the courts reqarding these issues I was and still am challenging the default notice on the account. Now if there was not a default notice on the account as you say then, they wouldn’t be able to take my money that was taken unlawfully in the first place and pay themselves. It is only due to the fact that you told me that I would be paid in full and regarding the default notice would have to start a separate claim for. Due to you telling me this, the bank has taken my money because you say of the default on the account. Now if you had not lied to me and told me that I would be given a full refund and would have to claim the default notice separate and went to court for the whole summons that HSBC had received which was for a FULL refund plus the removal of the default charge then there wouldn’t be an issue.

I would also like to point out that over a month ago I started a claim and I am in dispute with the amount owed to HSBC regarding the Loan and the Credit card account for the amount they say I owe. Again on this basis with the accounts being is dispute no action should have been taken for these to be paid on them.

Tell me if you hadn’t of lied and said that I needed to claim separately for the default charge to be removed, (which clearly you mislead me as I can and will claim for this in all one claim) then I would have received a full payment to myself and the default removed correct?

There are now several reasons that justify you as a solicitor and HSBC as a bank have been done things underhanded which I will challenge in court under this current action still going ahead.

Regards

[lookinforinfo]

Paul, that letter is a bit garbled as it stands. If you haven't already sent it, let's

see if it can be crystallised though I am bound to say that we are all prety much

in uncharted waters on this one.

 

First, you have agreed to accept their offer out of Court. The only way that I think

you could challenge them on that now would be if they have not adhered to the terms of the settlement. Or the terms of the settlement as you, a layman, without the benefit of independent legal advice, understood them to be.That is why it is

important to know how they said they would repay you. [What were their exact words, as there may be an argument as to whether by paying off the outstanding

amount ,they have not paid you].

 

You expected them to pay you as if you had won the case in Court and would

therefore have been able to stipulate that you wanted to receive a cheque. Had

you known that they were not going to pay you direct, you would not have

accepted their terms.

That's point one.

Following on from there, by their own admission "We have successfully applied to have judgements set aside where this has happened in the past" they are taking

advantage of the lack of knowledge of those entering into these negotiations,

to secure better terms than they would have had the Court had the final decision.

This cannot be equitable. The terms are therefore unfair to the claimant and the

contract should be regarded as such, and should be set aside.

Moreover, as the bank cancelled your accounts with them two years ago, you are no longer bound by their

T&C's as far as offsetting one account against another.

 

On the subject of the original debt. From your first post, it seems the amount was around £5500-was it, and did they convert it to a loan, and what

was the rate of interest? Also, the £3800 odd you asked for, was that all charges

[plus Court fees] or was the 8% rate included?

 

What I am getting at here is that initial debt minus the lump sum and the monthly payment [5500 -3851-2400 {2 years}=£751 in credit], not £900 still outstanding.

so if all else fails, it appears on these figures that as the charges should not have been levied in the first place, then the debt should have been around £1800 which

you have more than paid, so the default should not now stand. Or did they force you to take out insurance payments on the £5500?

 

PS Still unclear as to the negotiations involved with the default-how did they word it

so that they could not tie it in with the settlement.

[ppauls150]

Ok sorry for the garbled messages. I will try and explain best i can but this is the outcome of the day coming up. I believe that HSBC have not fully complied with my Data Protection Act request as when i first started my claim all they sent me was my statements in about 50 envelopes and i asked for any manual interventions that was done on the account but they sent me a letter saying that although many of our systems are automated, a "Manual Intervention" by HSBC staff may be required in a variety of situations including account opening dealing with correspondence or telephone calls, when deposits or withrawals are made over the counter at our branches and from time to time during account administration. If you require more information, please let us know. So basically I received no mention of manual interventions for my accounts on where staff have put notes on my accounts, I.E like when i took my credit card out with them on who authorised this or for my Loan, or for details on when my accounts was closed or what the decision was to close my accounts or even made the decision to close my accounts. Now they are saying that if i want this information that i should of sent another letter stating what i wanted.(I thought that by saying ANY MANUAL INTERVENTIONS ON MY ACCOUNT ON THE Data Protection Act SHOULD OF BEEN ENOUGH INFOMATION THAT I WANTED ANY MANUAL INTERVENTIONS THAT HAS HAPPENED) (PEOPLE WATCH OUT FOR THIS AS THEY ARE SAYING THAT THEY WILL NEVER GIVE OUT THIS INFORMATION EVEN IF YOU MENTION IT ON THE Data Protection Act AND THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO RESPONED TO THE LETTER THEY SEND YOU AFTER THE DPA REQUEST TO GET THIS INFORMATION SO BEWARE)

 

Now I cant remember who actually closed my accounts but i believe that is was HSBC, i had no overdraft on my account and when my account was closed it closed being 375.41 o/d on the 17/3/05. as i have had no response still on my loan account on how much that closed with and when i will have to say later but it wouldnt surprise me if it was at the same time. I spoke to Metropolitan today who say that they received the accounts on the 22/3/05 with the ammounts of current account being £375.41 and the loan being £5834.21. They defaulted the account on the 21/3/05 and malgrimated the two accounts together making the total ammount to pay back £6209.62. If they hadn't of kept charging me large ammounts of charges every month my loan would of been paid which was only £84 per month but cause of their charges i was paying there was never enough to pay the Loan. Once the charges stopped as the accounts were closed i was then able to pay them directly £100 per month for the loan From then on 22/3/05 to the 13/6/06 i had paid for the 14 months @ £100 per month leaving up to the 13/6/06 a total ammount of £4809.62. My orignal loan was for £5640 which i took out on the 19/6/04 which again until i get my Loan Statements won't know how much i paid off that until the account was closed.