Business account over 19,000 in bank charges.** SETTLED IN FULL ***

[the_final_straw]

elsinore, natweststaffmember,

 

I will start a new HSBC topic to save hijacking dolfos' thread. Please pop over. I have a few questions which may be pertinent.

[sarahpp]

Sole Trader in this case I believe and therefore treated as an individual as far as SAR requests are concerned.

[gemspan]

Hi Dolfos

 

I believe that this is a very definite stalling tactic by HSBC because of the size of your claim. If you sent a SAR which specifically asks for ALL charges to be identified then I believe that HSBC would not have a leg to stand on regarding asking you to break down the charges.

 

Another thing I find deplorable is the fact that they dont list what the total charges are. By that I mean they do not itemise them to let you know exactly what you are paying for. I was under the impression that your SAR covered all aspects of personal information - not just relating to charges - but everything that they held on you. Am I wrong in thinking this? So far all the banks have sent back are bank statements but by hiding behind a "total charges" theory they are effectively disclosing from you some of the information you requested. This is less than transparent which would make me think they have something to hide. We, as consumers, have a right to know exactly what we are paying for and therefore they should be detailing everything you have been charges for. If they have "forgotten" to include the breakdown then this will be covered in the original SAR. I most definitely would not be sending off another SAR to them. You have waited long enough. You sent off your request and paid for it. They have not sent all the information required. That is their problem and if you are 100% sure that you have listed only the default charges etc., I would go ahead and claim if their time has run out. Start your court proceedings. They are hoping you will give up. Remember, these people took your money in the first place and "helped" you get into debt.

 

Go for it. Let them know that you mean business. This is purely what I would do but I think you have given them enough chances.

 

Kind regards

Annie

[Neil Birch]

If HSBC argue that a business account is not covered by the dpa why did they send the statements in the first place!

In the same way your personal credit report would reflect bad history for you in your personal or business capacity [assuming sole trader status] the dpa has to apply.

[Guest NATTIE]

Neil we moved discussion onto another HSBC thread so as not to hijack dolfos thread.

[bottomburp]

deleted

[dolfos]

Dolfos,

 

Going back to the subject of the banks being able to credit themselves with any refunded charges I've been having a look at this for someone else and have come across a draft IVA document which has a clause regarding "After Acquired Property" - point 12 on page 14 of the enclosed link http://www.insolvencyhelpline.co .u...al_sample1.pdf clearly states that after acquired property goes to the supervisor for distribution.

 

It might be worth double checking your husband's document and giving The Insolvency Service (the government's site on insolvency) a ring to find out what they think The Insolvency Service Website There's a telephone number on the site.

 

Thanks for this you are right and funnily enough I did go via the insolvencey service website and although strictly speaking the money should go into the pot banks more often then none will off set regardless as they know as our IP has also told us that it would take too much hassle and money to take them to court to get it back. It would bedown to the IP to do this but as he acts for all the creditors as he now the supervisor of the IVA he would not be able to justify the costs or time to the other creditors.

I agree this completley wrong and imoral but this is the banks we are speaking about. Apparently they know full well they shouldn't do it but also know theres not much any one will do it about it.

[gemspan]

Hi Dolfos

 

You could always make sure they pay the money to the IP as part of your agreement to settle. In other threads I have read that you can request payment by cheque in full and final settlement therefore I would think you could make your own terms on settlement in this case too.

 

Annie

[dolfos]

ok,

Here is what I have decided to do. As my last attempt to communicate with HSBC and to demonstrate to the court I am being anything but patient with HSBC and that I have truely exhausted all means possible to resolve this matter outside of court I have decided to omit the total charges element of my claim.

Can you guys have a look at my final leter to dear Mr cuff and feel free to tweak.

 

 

Dear Mr Cuff,

Thank you for your letter dated 28th December regarding your view that I am refusing to co operate with your requests. I am sorry you see it this way as I feel it is yourselves not looking at my request for refunding of bank charges appropriately.

It appears you are intent on stalling any such real consideration to my request and are using the ‘total charge’ issue to keep on preventing matters moving forward in appropriate means. I have been since September trying to resolve this matter via communications with yourselves which you chose to ignore fully until the 18th December after I had to resolve to forwarding my complaint to the financial ombudsman in order for a response from yourselves. Since this all correspondence has been in my opinion made in such a way as not to properly deal with the true matter at hand. I have asked now on several occasions that if the charges levied to my account are not unlawful that I am given a full breakdown as to how the charges are made up for charges of returned cheques, returned direct debits and standing orders.

There has been no response on this matter and all communication has been based around your ‘total charges’ which I have included in my schedule of charges. These are only a small proportion of the charges under this heading I am questioning and yet this seems to be the only area you communicate to me about.

For this reason I am now excluding the total charges from my schedule and again ask that you supply me with a written breakdown of how the other charges are made up.

I stand my statement that the charges you have applied in relation to direct debit refusals and returned cheques etc are unlawful at common law and contrary to statue.

I do not feel you have upto this point in any way entered into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter, for this reason this will be the last correspondence I will enter into with you as I feel by me retracting the ‘total charges’ element from the equation completely is more than reasonable of me and immediately eliminates you query regarding ‘total charges’ and will enable you to now give full consideration to the rest of my request to provide me with either a full breakdown of your charges to prove to me they are in fact lawful and that you charges are not penal in nature and really do reflect your actual costs.

In view of my omitting the total charges element of charges levied the total I calculate you have taken is £21,498 in levies and further, I am still claiming interest at an amount of 20% AER as explained in previous correspondence I believe this to be fair and justified under the principle of mutality and reciprocity and it is based on your unauthorised business borrowing rate. There fore the total amount owed as of todays date is now £33,939.82.

I request that the charges are refunded and enclose a breakdown of the charges. If you do not respond within 7 days I shall be left with no other option but to take my claim to the courts to decide on this matter I feel this line of communication is now exhausted and I wish this matter to be resolved. I feel four months has been more than enough time for yourselves as a large company and dedicated staff and departments, if you were going to try and genuinely consider this matter truly and appropriately to have done so.

Yours faithfully

 

I know some of you may say wait for info on total charges but I don't think HSBC are really gonna genuinely give a fair response to this one outside of court so I just want to eleminate their stalling tactics in one blow. The amount is still ridiculous and I do take on board the fact that although I don't have the bits of paper to confirm this that some of the total charge element may be made up of lawful charges and this may appear to be nit picking.

Thanks for help on advance guys. Has anyone got Mr Cuffs direct email address so I can send this to him today?

thanks

 

x:)

[bottomburp]

deleted

[dolfos]

Gemspan, I totally agree with you. The banks are NOT above the law and it's about time they realised that.

 

An IVA is a legal entity. It is agreed by the creditors and lodged at a court. The agreement is that the pot is divided up on a pro-rata basis and if any windfalls come in they go into that pot. If the banks simply re-pay themselves they may re-pay themselves more than the amount agreed - I mean, say you owed the bank £10,000 and the IVA was agreed at 24p in the £ - by my calculation the bank would get £2,400. If the bank charges were £3,000 then the bank would have broken the terms of the IVA by not only giving itself preferential treatment but by overpaying itself too.

 

Dolfos, we have to stand up to these people. If the IP cannot/will not go after a creditor who has re-paid himself above the others then maybe you will have to do it yourself. The IP has a responsibility to you and to the other creditors, I'm sure the other creditors wouldn't be too pleased if they found out about it - and if I were you I'd tell them that you intended to reclaim your bank charges and what the IP and banks have told you.

 

I do agree with you.

One point which has been pointed out to me by our IP is that in some ways if HSBC do offset it may infact be to our benefit. HSBC are the largest creditor. If the money goes in the pot and they all get a fair share as they would then HSBC would still be the largest creditor. If we wanted to try and make an early settlement offer to our creditors HSBC would being more than 30% of the overall debt would have the deciding hand and on principle of what we are doing they would refuse any deals offered. If we reduce HSBC's claim or eliminate it all together making them not the largest creditor by them off setting any reclaimed monies we will have more chance of if possible settling our IVA earlier. Although no such offer is in the pipeline we are still only in the first year of the IVA and do not want to close the option of early resettlement if the chance were to arise. This is why although in principle yes we should fight to ensure all creditors get their fair share it may not help us any. Even if HSBC do offset it means the creditors left are still going to get approx an extra 10p in the pound if not more than what they agreed to in the first place.

I hope you understand my reasoning for not fighting HSBC if they do offset any monies.

[dolfos]

Hi Dolfos

 

You could always make sure they pay the money to the IP as part of your agreement to settle. In other threads I have read that you can request payment by cheque in full and final settlement therefore I would think you could make your own terms on settlement in this case too.

 

Annie

 

Hi Annie,

We have spoken to the IP and it may not be in our interest for the money to go in the pot if we want to eave the door open to any possible early resettlement of the IVA later. I have explained more in my previous post. The banks know full well what they are doing and in our case they don't really lose either way. If they off set the money they are technically owed nothing. if they put the money in the pot they can cause us aggo if at any time we want to setlle earlier and just say NO.

[dolfos]

ok letter recieved back today fromMr cuff again without predjudice of course. New offer now of just under 13000UKP for full and final settlement. Again same sort of response they believe they will win in court etc and that they are mindful of the management time and irrecoverable legal costs it my incur etc.

This is now their final response.

We shall write back and accept this as part settlment but will proceed to court if neccessary to get the rest refunded as no breakdown of how charges are made up has been explained in this letter so this has still not be tackled

As this is their final response still looks like court action is going to be forced by them

[sarahpp]

Well, I guess we all knew that it would get to the litigation stage but, wasn't that a considerable increase in offer!! - interesting don't you think?

[joejeavons]

Wow.

 

That was a good read. I'm routing for you. I wish you the very best of luck, hopefully you wont need it.

[Guest Tracey284]

It is very encouraging to read these threads as I have just issued a MCOL against HSBC for £13,000 (including 8%) and had a call from Mr. Cuff this week in reply to my letter of 5 December (which actually gave 14 days to respond, then they ignored LBA). He wasn't impressed when I said that I had issued a MCOL but I said we could enter into dialogue. See my thread Tracey284 -v- HSBC Round 2 for the full story. We did get a letter saying they were going to close the account.

[dolfos]

It is very encouraging to read these threads as I have just issued a MCOL against HSBC for £13,000 (including 8%) and had a call from Mr. Cuff this week in reply to my letter of 5 December (which actually gave 14 days to respond, then they ignored LBA). He wasn't impressed when I said that I had issued a MCOL but I said we could enter into dialogue. See my thread Tracey284 -v- HSBC Round 2 for the full story. We did get a letter saying they were going to close the account.

 

We sent letters starting in September they ignored everything until i filed a complaint with the financial ombudsman and then they have been writing lots of 'without predjudice lettters' It's bad they aren't even following their own complaints procedure in practice with these kind of complaints

[Mr_Fen]

Hi Dolfos,

Sounds like HSBC have finally pushed you into going to court, I hope this means you are going for the full amount including the 'total charges' they kept arguing about? Good luck and keep us posted

[steve!]

Hi,

 

I just wanted to offer my support. My sister's claim seems trivial in comparison to yours, and I think you've been shafted more than most, especially having an IVF to show for it too.

 

I just hope you get every penny back! Please don't settle for less or let them grind you down. It's your money! Every penny!

 

Good luck!

[Guest Tracey284]

Hi Dolfos

Have a look at today's Dail Mail (17 Jan) and read article on page 17. Very interesting reading!!! Tracey

[elsinore]

Tracey, for us non-Daily Mail readers can you post the gist of it please?

 

Elsinore

[photoman]

I have scanned the article, and can publish it somehow (if someone tells me how to, guess I will need someone or somewhere to host it) ?

 

I can email it to anyone who sends me an email otherewise?

 

You can email me (use a psudonym or anonymous email address if concerned about disclosing personal details) To

 

[Guest Tracey284]

Have taken the following from the Daily Mail website today - good reading!!!!!

 

Banks accused of 'mugging' customers over charges

 

Last updated at 16:59pm on 16th January 2007

 

High Street banks are "mugging" their customers by imposing "illegal" charges, an MP has said.

 

 

Liberal Democrat social exclusion spokesman Matthew Taylor said charges on customers who go over their overdraft limits are a "major contributor to the debt crisis".

 

Mr Taylor (Truro and St Austell) told MPs penalties imposed on customers for bounced cheques and declined direct debit payments netted the six main banks £4.5 billion last year.

He said in a Westminster Hall debate: "This is a major contributor to the UK debt crisis and to social exclusion.

"Most importantly of all, these bank penalty charges are more than inconvenient, more than unfair, they are illegal."

He said the charges, which were on average £30, could lead to a "spiral of debt" as penalties mounted up.

Mr Taylor said: "The truth is, this is the banks using poverty as a source of profit."

He said the law only allowed banks to impose a penalty that allows them to cover the administrative costs of bounced cheques or the refusal of a direct debit payment.

Mr Taylor said: "The absolute maximum it costs the bank in these cases is £4.50 for a bounced cheque.

"For all other items, the absolute maximum in this electronic age where it's all done automatically through computer is £2.50."

He said that any time people had refused to pay the charge and threatened to go to court the banks backed down.

Mr Taylor said: "The only possible reason is that they know they will lose.

"If they lose a test case they know they will forfeit this multi-billion-pound source of illegal profit forever."

Mr Taylor added: "They know it's an illegal rip-off of trusting and often impoverished customers.

"They are mugging their customers and the Office of Fair Trading and the Government are letting them get away with it." Mr Taylor said a recent OFT investigation into credit card charges had led to a £12 limit and called for a similar inquiry into bank penalties.

[sarahpp]

Good stuff - thanks for that.

[photoman]

Heres the link to the online version of Todays mail article.

 

Banks accused of 'mugging' customers over charges | the Daily Mail