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.

[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?

[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?

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[ppauls150]

Now after a bit of tit for tat over the phone and via emails as i am not going to lay down on this but they keep stating that they are in the right on what they have done this was the email i sent them this morning.

 

Hello

I have now found out more information from HSBC which now puts a better light on the subject. Found Below are a few key points.

 

1. It was only a loan and not a loan and Credit Card that was put into default.

 

2. The reason that the loan was transferred to the collections agency was due to the fact that HSBC took the Unlawful charges out of my account first which meant that there was not enough money in the account then to pay the loan.

 

3. The monthly loan amount I was paying was £84 per month. Since they stopped trying to take it out of my bank account and paid them directly for the last 14 months I have paid £1400. I have paid more than what the original loan agreement was for.

 

4. If it hadn't of been for the Unlawful amount of charges coming out of my account each month then the loan would have been paid every month and would not of gone to the collections department, Hence why I am also contesting the default notice put on the loan agreement.

 

5. Since the loan agreement is currently in dispute aswell, there should have been no decisions regarding what happens with the payments on the loan agreement as for paying a lump sum off.

 

6. The terms of me accepting the Payment from HSBC was that I received a Cheque upon signing the agreement for a full refund.

 

7. I have taken this matter up with the complaints Team who are looking into this matter but I expect something to be done due to the fact of the following information above.

 

8. I have now contacted several media departments regarding what has happened and I am now awaiting a response on if they which cover my story.

As you can see from the above key points, nobody should have had the authority to pay something off on my behalf which is clearly in dispute and using my money which was taken unlawfully in the first instance. I hope this clarifies my stance on wanting a full refund regarding this matter and once again have spoken to the courts who are awaiting your reply if you wish to defend this matter as Full payment has still not been received.

[ppauls150]

Now this is their reply.

 

Thank you for your further e-mails and telephone calls.

 

You have raised several points on which we have taken HSBC’s instructions. We set out HSBC’s responses below:-

 

Part 36

 

 

You made reference to Part 36 in a call to us yesterday. As we indicated the Part 36 regime does not apply to matters in the small claims court. There are no funds in Court.

 

The charges

 

 

HSBC does not, and has not at any stage, agreed that the charges are in any way “unlawful”. An offer of settlement was made to you solely on the basis of the commercial realities of litigating in the small claims court.

 

Your original claim and the settlement agreement

 

You are adamant that you can continue with your original claim. We disagree (and have pointed you to authority) as it has been compromised. You have a dispute over that settlement agreement – that does not mean your original action continues but means that you have to mount a fresh action on the compromise agreement. You disagree. We will therefore ask for the Court’s decision on this point.

 

The default registration

 

Your initial claim included reference to the default entry. HSBC’s offer of settlement – which you signed and accepted – did not make any mention of removing the default and was clearly expressed to be “in full and final settlement of your claim”. This is why we (D’Aubney) informed you, quite properly after the conclusion of the settlement, that you would need to raise that issue as a separate matter.

 

Accounts with Metropolitan Collections

 

There would appear to be no dispute with these accounts given that you appear to acknowledge the debt and, indeed, have made payments. As we have previously set out HSBC is entitled to set off the sums agreed to be paid to you against other accounts in default. For the avoidance of doubt you did not make it a condition of the settlement that you would receive a cheque by way of payment.

 

HSBC is confident of the legal position but acknowledges that you will be unhappy with our response. On a without prejudice basis and as a gesture to resolve this matter HSBC is, therefore, willing to write off the sum outstanding on the accounts with Metropolitan (£958.20) so that you will have no debt outstanding to HSBC.

 

We look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

DG SOLICITORS

[ppauls150]

I must say though that she says that i am not disputing the loan account, obviously she has looked this up but i filed with the Credit reference agency that i am disputing the default on the account and also sent in the Data Protection Act request to HSBC on the 30/5/06 telling them that i want all information on the account and if i find any charges on the account i will dispute this, but obviously she has not seen this on the file, and my main arguement is that when i mentioned to her about accepting the claim and what about the Default on the account as i have asked for that to be removed on the summons to the court she said that i would have to do that separtely.

Now my main problem is that yes the offer that they are giving seems very good in principle as they are now looking at wiping the debt out but a few gripes i have with it.

1. I am quite happy paying them £100 per month till it is paid off. But if i don't accept the offer and they pay me the £3851 then all i will be worse of is the extra £958 that i would have to pay extra. So really i would be silly not to accept on this basis.

2. But my main issue is the Default on the account which if they don't remove will be on my record for another 5 years. I cannot see them wanting to clear this aswell and if they don't i would rather go to court to get it removed. They have said the reason that they wont remove it is due to the fact that i say i have got the default due to the unlawful charges but they are saying that i am execpting the payment on a none blame policy.

3. Would this claim still go to court even though i did sign the agreement to accept payment though there are flaws in this as i was misinformed that i would have to claim the default seperately, and secondly that they paid the money to collections as opposed to myself.

[ppauls150]

Thank you for the response yesterday which was an unexpected response offering to clear the loan completely. Now I am not a greedy person and have looked at the possibilities of what HSBC are offering, and have looked at several conclusions.

Claim Against HSBC

When I first started my claim against the HSBC my main goal was to have the charges refunded in full and have the default removed. Now me being just a normal citizen and not being a solicitor or being a bank or person who has a solicitor on call all day like the HSBC, when I receive an offer through the post from yourselves I was naïve to expect that it is a straightforward offer. Since things have all come to light on certain aspects of things I.E like the default etc, where I was informed that the default would have to be done as a separate claim, which this was only due to the fact that I was being offered a non prejudice offer. What would happen then would be when I start a separate claim for the default to be removed, HSBC would turn around and say that the default could not be removed as I accepted part of my claim on the summons to take an offer without prejudice payment and would get nowhere. This was nice tactics by HSBC which as being just a normal citizen didn't look at what was on the other side of the coin by accepting the offer.

Default Notice

As I mentioned before I now understand that the only way that I will get the default removed is by showing in court that the charges were put on the account unlawfully, and the only was to do that is by still going to court. This would be due to the information that I was told before I accepted the offer regarding the default or not told of the way that I would be paid my refund and the tactics behind which accepting the offer stood.

As I say I did speak to the courts yesterday morning and again they said that the case will not just get stopped with HSBC presenting the letter I signed as I was mislead on several things which would mean that it would have to be finalised in the courtroom on who is right or who is wrong. I have an appointment with the solicitors on Tuesday 11th June so I shall see what they have to say aswell.

Negotiation and settlement of claim out of court

Like I said I am not a greedy person and was only looking at having the charges refunded in full and the default removed in court and this is what I was expecting to happen. I didn’t expect all this to start from HSBC with all these offers.

I suppose like the courts say that we should always try and resolve the matter outside the court room so I am willing to negotiate before anything if need be gets to the courtroom.

Now all be it that I was expecting the payment to be sent to me in full, this hasn't happened and the majority of my loan was paid off. HSBC have said they will wipe the little bit left and that is the end of the matter.

What I believe could be the final conclusions to this matter are the following.

1. Accept HSBC's offer of the loan being finished as a goodwill gesture.

Problem with this is that the Default will still stand for a further 5 years and that is not what I want to happen as I believe that it should not be on there.

2. Go to court, show the court that the charges are unlawful which will then show that the only reason the loan ended in default was due to the fact of the charges on the account, and get judgement for the payment to be made directly and safely to myself.

3. HSBC decide to conclude this once and for all, to make a last goodwill gesture of my claim on the summons, and instead of my asking for the money to be paid to myself in full, for the loan to be wiped off completely like the previous offer but to also as a goodwill gesture and no blame on either side to contact the credit agencies and have the default removed on the account.

I hope a final decision HSBC come to be option number 3 as number 1 is not a real option to me due to the default notice still on the account. Option 2 is an option but as I feel we are three quarters of the way to getting to a conclusion, option 3 would be the way forward and everything is settled.

Regards

[ppauls150]

Cheers lookingforinfo.

 

I have received correspondance again from the solicitors saying that they will mark the account as satified and if i wish to accept the terms now to let them know.

 

Again i can't believe that they tried to pull another one over on me. I know that there is actually a difference between an account being satified and an actual account of a default being removed yet they try and put it as if i think i would take it as satified meaning that they would remove it. I have emailed them back telling them that i know the difference between the two and like you say costs them hardly anything at all to actually remove the default as opposed to marking it down as satisfied.

 

All they have to do now is just accept that they will remove the default as a goodwill gesture with no blame and pay the whole loan off which they previously offered and that should settle the claim once and for all.

[ppauls150]

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.

 

Ok Quick update seeing as it is 6am and i am tired. This quote has been playing on my mind for a day or so now and thought i would investigate what is mentioned. Now then i have read someone elses thread where their loans was made up of majority of Unlawful Bank Charges and thought to myself i reckon this could be the case with me. Now here is the food for thought and working on the figures tomorrow and seek advice regarding this matter. Lets just say i think you might of opened up a can of worms and as more info keeps coming the better i believe my case is getting. Lets take them to the cleaners. Everytime i think ok lets finish this case something else pops up and i think no they are not getting away with it. Now then look at this Loan agreement £2500. Unlawful charges applied to my account was £1400.(See Below Regards to this not being the final figure)

 

Now then what is also not calculated in the £1400 is the interest lost on this money which i should have so figures need to be looked at there.

 

Also and this is a big issue. HSBC have not fully complied with my Data Protection Act request for data regarding my Loan Accounts but especially my Credit Card Account.

 

Now then the Credit Card Account which was paid off with the Loan, which had charges on the Credit Card aswell + Interest. So the actual figure of £1400 is a lot higher in Unlawful charges that was paid by the Loan.

 

Lets carry on talking about the Cedit Card Account and the DPA. The DPA issued on the 30/5/06 (This is the second 1 issued on them) and anyone doing Math, my calculation is that they have till Monday to respond if not then they have Failed to comply with the DPA.

 

I know that they will fail to meet the deadline ( wait for it ) due to a lot of chasing around and getting nowhere i do know one thing from chasing this up, and that is they have lost all information or MISPLACED the account and therefore cannot send me any information on this account.

 

Now with all this information coming to Light no doubt they are wanting to wipe what is outstanding and also remove the default on the account. But i beleive to just allow this is letting them off the hook lightly and we shall see what happens.

 

Will keep people updated. Happy Reading.

[ppauls150]

This has now all been completed. If i havent already said then sorry but about a month ago they paid the whole of my loan off that was outstanding which was an extra £958 on top plus through keep getting on at them they caved in and removed the default within 72 hours which shows they always tell lies especially when trying to tell me to check it in 3 months as that is how long it could take. All you have to do is make sure that you always ask for payments by cheque and if they dont pay by cheque then you will carry on going to court for the settlement.

[ppauls150]

This topic was closed on 10 March 2019.

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