Barclays Capital - Rate swaps.

[anonbarcap]

thanks slick 132

 

so if i understand what you are saying is everything has to be open ?????

 

that will be great for Barclays Captial to read perhaps what we should do is invite them to this site as well ? !!!!!!!!

 

i must be missing something here i think FOS would say we are stupid as well as agreeing to there Miss-Sold product

 

[Cardinals]

Hi Anonbarcap

 

I don't have the required number of posts to PM you either! Once I have enough I'll drop you a line.

 

I agree that it is likely that Barcap monitor forums so perhaps not every strategy should be discussed openly!

 

Unlike other posters I have some faith in the FOS based on cases that I know have settled this year.

 

There are also a number of possible routes for litigation. Again I am aware of cases settling at the LBA stage rather and at issue stage. I am not aware of any cases that have made ir as far as a hearing.

 

Given the very varied circumstances of each individual case I'm not sure group action would be appropriate.

 

Lets keep this thread rolling as there are routes out of these terrible products!

[Cardinals]

I also meant to add the the FSA's Rules based around TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) and most of the Principle of Business should prevent Barcap penalising you simply because you are in dispute with them.

[slick132]

that will be great for Barclays Captial to read perhaps what we should do is invite them to this site as well ? !!!!!!!!

 

You would be very foolish to assume that they are not here already - this is an open and public forum. We know that banks, DCA's and others follow our forum closely.

 

Of course you should be guarded in what you say and about keeping anonymity.

 

What I am saying is that the forum is far more use to folks generally if topics are discussed openly as far as possible.

 

If everything is discussed in secret by PM, the forum will have little to offer anyone.

 

By all means, communicate with others by PM if you want, but please share everything that you can on the open forums.

 

Thanks

[anonbarcap]

What Barclays seem to be doing without question is targeting the businesses that challenge the sales method and validity of the product they have acquired in basic terms they are sending such individuals to there SLS team and believe me if you are not financially stable or without sufficient equity they will bring you down and they have several ways of doing that

Even now I am not certain I am safe but they will not get away with this the choice we all have is simple

We await a precedent which will be a long time coming but will come I am certain or go head to head with them as a consortium my belief is they will settle the consortium I have it on very good authority there biggest concern is the two “p”s

Precedent

Publicity

The difference with this case as apposed to PPI they have screwed businessmen and we have not got where we are today without a fight we can I believe a lot more and a lot sooner that just individual members of the public

[anonbarcap]

So Sorry Slick you are right we must keep things rolling publically but we must remain very aware that we canot be identified

[Ennill]

It's like taking on the Maffia, isen't it -we know we are innocent - we trusted the banks we had been with for years and years - and basically what they have done is set up a dictatorship - we trusted them and they took us for everything they could.

 

Even though my bank has written off what they said I owed, it will never make up for the 3 years of hell and, in my opinion, my partner's stroke due to the stress.

 

The FOS - having dealt with them (one person who took 13 months to come backt to us was allegedly promoted and passed us on to another person who then immediately went on maternity leave, and passed us on to another (v sympathetic it seemed at the time) person we spoke to and explained we were having our first holiday in 3 years who then sent us a letter the day after that saying they had found in favour of the bank... (therefore cutting down our time to reply). We appeal, again the 'senior ???" says he/she finds in favour of the bank???

 

If they were so impartial why did the bank back down very quickly when we got a specialised solictor involved (he wasn't cheap but a snip compared to what the banks wanted).

 

One of the bank 'managers' who got us into the swap thing - when we thought it was a totally straight forward loan was in my local paper - posing as having done a charity bike ride - if you see a headline in your papers "Pensioner knocks bank manager off bike and kicks him" -that'll be me...

[anonbarcap]

Many thanks for that can you tell me why you think the bank gave into you what was it the solicitor raised that fos did notsee or should i say wish to see you are one of the first that i have spoken with that actually got money back there definatly seems to be a diffrence if its in a personal name as i have a felow buisnessman that has two swaps one in a ltd and one in a personal name and they seem to be wishing to communicate over the one in the personal name

[Ennill]

I didn't get my money back - the bank wrote off the 'debt'. The agreement was that if they did that, there would be no further claims.

 

When I first took out what I thought was a straightforward loan ( had never heard of swaps at that stage) , I used my normal solicitor to check the papers before I signed, and he raised the alarm pointing out that they wanted me to sign over my house as well - and he said "That's not on". Signing over my house had never been mentioned at the bank meetings.

 

The bank phoned me a couple of times saying "You haven't signed the papers about your house?" and I replied that in their paperwork it said to consult a solicitor before doing so, and that I had, and that the solictor advised me not to sign. Therefore it shows I was not accepting their terms from the beginning.

 

From experience with FOS I have learnt that the 'contract' actually took place when I received a phone call from a representative a couple of days after I had received papers from the bank about the loan and having read the papers, the representative was told "This is not what I agreed to?" He assured me it was the same thing, to sign, and if there was a problem it could be sorted out by my bank advisor. So I signed. My signing the papers, if I understand the FOS properly, was not the contract - the phone call was - this is the call that allegedly was recorded but, due to techinical difficulties, the bank could not supply a recording or transcrip of - now that would not have gone down well in court.

 

My new solicitor was as surprised as I was by the total turnaround by the bank - but they did push us to the limit - they won't give in if they think they can get away with it and that you will give in first - they are ruthless.

 

Things for you to think about - the banks have to use 'due dilligence' when selling this sort of product (I certainly wasn't told I was being sold something - I went there for a straightforward loan). Swaps were never mentioned, or the risks, or the fact it was a gamble - therefore they did not do due dilligence in explaining everything to me -I would have walked out there and then and said "No thanks".

 

Think back to when it first started for you - was it explained what the risks were - did you know it was a 'gamble'? Did you think you were securing a loan at the same rate for the life of the loan (I did). If you didn't, then the bank did not exercise due diligence.

 

On the other hand, if you knew you were entering into a 'swap' and understood it all, then you don't have a leg to stand on (ie no case).

 

I think this is a massive scandal - as far as I am concerned decent hardworking business people have been decieved, dreadfully decieved

Edited October 23, 2011 by Ennill
Wanted to cancel posting but don't know how

[Ennill]

Are we talking swaps here or something else?

[anonbarcap]

i think his issue is that when he took the loan it insisted within the agreement that a swap was taken as part of the deal this is what they did with a lot of the limited company loans

[Ronster1]

Hi fellow victims

 

There is a rumour (see James Ducker @ Twitter) that 2 UK banks are starting to make provisions for paying out compensation regarding the mis-selling of derivatives. Fantastic news if true!

 

Regards

[anonbarcap]

thanks for that sounds like we might all get some money back in the long run

[Little Lord Rainford]

Barclays are in the Bristol Mercantile Court on April 16th 2012 for a 6 day trial on a case relating to interest rate swaps. FSA are aware and interested. Watch this space!

[GLfree]

dc

Edited December 12, 2011 by GLfree

[Vedanta Hedging]

Hi, We have been put in the same boat with a interest rate swap deal, we did go to the FSA, which to be honest was a waste off time, I would be very interested in hearing what has happened with other peoples cases.? Paul

 

Hi,

Just to be clear, was it the FSA itself that you approached, or the FOS instead? If it was the FSA, how did you go about raising a complaint to them?

 

Abhishek

[anonbarcap]

can you give us more details about why the FOS/FSA failed what was your principle srgument with them

[buzet]

Thanks, Little Lord Rainford, that's the best news yet. We are still awaiting advice from FOS.

[PokerPete62]

Barclays Bank due to court in Bristol on the 16th Apr 12, they settled in March. According to a link on Bully-Bank website via the Daily Telegraph Barclays Bank have settled this case before going to court

[evanowen]

There is a meeting of MPs in Committee Room 14 on Tuesday 24th April.

 

Please contact your MP as soon as possible so that he/she attends what will amount to a seminar educating them in the area of Swaps.

[all2lgain]

The case at Bristol Mercantile was dealt with by SRBlegal of Newport.

 

Until recently they offered a free intital review of a complaint, but its now a £1000.00 plus vat fee due to them being swamped.

 

There has been a lot of press recently - The Telegraph are running a series of articles on the issue, all pretty much anti-bank.

 

As mentioned previously, there are a couple of documents the banks must complete prior to the swap taking place - the cases settled are as a result of the banks not doing their compliance paperwork properly - this left the client still classed as a non-investment professional and unsuitable to be sold the product, hence the banks had to back down.

 

If you took the swap as a sole trader or partnership, you should put in a data protection act notice to your bank, asking for copies of everything they have relating to you, then you need to go through it with a fine tooth comb, or get someone else to do it for you.

 

If you are a limited company the dpa doesnt apply to you - but you should still write to the bank asking for copies of the compliance paperwork - chances are if they have it they will send it to you, it does tend to indicate they are currently watertight.

 

FOS ? Complete waste of time - its free, and you get what you pay for.

 

Are the banks reading this forum - yes they are. How do I know - because in my pile of dpa paperwork from the bank was a print out of my comments on this thread.......

 

The FSA are currently reviewing the systems used by the banks to sell the poducts - in particular the use of advice of compliance paperwork plus the presentation handed to the client, when combined these two allow the banks to avoid the 'investment professional' issue. However......under the 2001 regs they couldnt do this, under the 2005 regs they can - and who changed the regs? Government after consulting with the FSA..............

 

Dont overlook the involvement of third parties. If you had a loan brokered for you by a financial advisor, then you may also have a claim against them - particularily if you asked them for a fixed rate loan and you were given a rate swap on the basis it was the same thing - the one thing the FOS are adamant on is that the term Interest Rate Hedge (aka rate swap) CAN NOT be considered a Fixed Rate, it may achieve similar results but it is definitely not the same thing.

 

The FOS normally use this to defeat complaints - ie the terms of the loan stipulated an interest rate hedge, not a fixed rate, so you shouldnt have taken the loan if it wasnt what you wanted. This is the bit that may assist in claiming from a broker - if their own paperwork only mentions fixed rate loans, yet they negotiate a deal that includes a Hedge then they have not arranged what you asked for, nor have they advised you in relation to the hedge.

 

As regards a group action, its not going to happen due to individual nature of the dealls.

 

What you could consider is forming an action group, everyone put a bit of money in the pot and use a solicitor to cherry pick the best cases. There are a few small groups already in existence, but its very time consuming and whoever runs it will find it takes over your life.

 

There is also the issue of continuing to deal with the banks, you can quote me all the banking agreements you want, but I can give you speciific examples of peoples lifes being made very hard once they start to complain - businesses being handed over to the 'Recovery Unit' is the standard practice.

 

Dont make the mistake of thinking that Recovery means they want your business to recover - Recovery means that the bank wishes to recover all the debts it thinks you owe it, going over to them is a harsh time indeed.

 

So what should you do?

 

Firstly, you need every piece of paperwork relating to your swap.

 

The presentation they gave you.

A copy of the advice of compliance form.

Your bank mandate.

 

The advice of compliance form must be signed in accordance with the bank mandate.

 

If you have them, consider starting a group where you can pool your knowledge and individual experiences, there are tens of thousands in the same boat as you at the moment, you are not suffering alone.

 

All2lgain

[evanowen]

I've seen paperwork that makes it quite clear that it was a "Fixed Rate" yet the FOS found in favour of the bank, the adjudicator swallowed a very comprehensive defence from the bank's complaints department and even issued an Ombudsman's final decision on that basis. Having read what the bank said and compared it with what actually happened according to the paperwork I can only conclude that the FOS needs a kick up the backside.

 

As for people saying you don't need a third party when taking a complaint forward I would say that is misleading in the extreme, particularly when you are up against the banks and an apparently submissive FOS. Sadly the damages some people are entitled to is many times greater than the award available from the FOS.

[all2lgain]

Thats about the same as my experience with then, complete waste of time in these matters - the view they take that this is a commercial deal, and thus both parties are considered equal in ability etc, is completely contradicted by the many individual conplainants I have spoken to, who have clearly had their inexperience taken advantage of.

 

As said though, they have clearly stated that the terms fixed rate and interest rate hedge are not interchangeable, there are definitely some uneasy brokers at the moment.

 

An action group, headed by someone who isnt on a gagging condition in their loans, with its own members website and private forum is what is needed - I'm sure the handful of solicitors taking on these cases, and the financial people offering consultancies, would be happy to advertise and pay the website fees!

 

Cheers

 

A2G

[42man]

Interesting and good news for some - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18640101

[all2lgain]

It is indeed good news....for the banks.

 

FSA have identified a large percentage of mis-selling in the 50 cases they examined, so they have handed the investigation over to....the banks.

 

An unbelievable cop out. A large part of the complaint is that the banks arent investigating complaints thoroughly - Barclays have already said they will do as the FSA ask, but that they anticipate a very small level of genuine mis-selling cases to be uncovered. I'll bet.

 

I previously mentioned a pressure group was needed, well one has formed and is doing sterling work, google Bully Banks to find their (free) site.

 

Cheers all.

 

A2G