The Phoenix v HSBC - Invoices

[Spiceskull]

As has been mentioned elsewhere, I have been invoicing HSBC whenever they have applied penalty charges to my account, and this is to reflect the research and effort involved in bringing the errors they have made to their attention. We make mistakes, they write to us and charge us for it - it works both ways.

 

They signally refused to pay, and therefore I issued a claim in the courts. They have entered a defence, and I have a couple of weeks to respond to it, and to complete the AQ:

1.The Claimant's account, which was closed in XXXX, was governed by the Defendant's personal banking terms and conditions.

 

2.On XXXX, the Claimant wrote to the Defendant informing the Defendant that the Claimant would be submitting an invoice for £XX in consideration of his time spent "rectifying the bank's errors". The letter stated that" .... receipt of this letter indicates the [Defendant's] acceptance of these terms, unless the bank notifies me to the contrary .... ".

 

3.In XXXX and XXXX the Defendant notified the Claimant of charges that were to be applied to his account. following each of these notifications the Claimant submitted an invoice for £XX to the Defendant. It is denied that the imposition of these charges constituted an error of the part of the Defendant. The charges were subsequently refunded or adjusted off the Claimant's account on the XXXX. The invoices submitted by the Claimant dated XXXX do not reflect any amount owed to him by the Defendant, whether under the Defendant's terms and conditions or otherwise. The Defendant denies that the letter of XXXX amended the contract between the Claimant and the Defendant or otherwise entitled the Claimant to charge any amount to the Defendant. The Defendant's terms and conditions provide for the Defendant to amend its terms (which are its standard terms of business) from time to time, provided that if the change is to the customer's disadvantage the Defendant will inform the customer personally of this decision at least 30 days in advance. The Defendant's terms and conditions do not provide whether expressly or impliedly for customers (including the Claimant) to amend the terms. Accordingly, by a letter dated XXXX, DG Solicitors for the Defendant wrote to the Claimant and stated there was no question of the defendant meeting the "invoices".

 

4.Save as expressly set out above and save that it is admitted that the defendant refunded charges to the Claimant for the period XXXX to XXXX without admission of liability, the Particulars of Claim are denied. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief sought or any relief

The main point of the argument, at least from my own angle, is whether or not I had good reason to raise an invoice. Considering that the penalty charges were in clear defiance of the OFT guidelines, and also that the bank admits that all penalty charges have been refunded (without admission of liability) it is going to be interesting to see how they can defend this in court.

 

The bit I find most puzzling is their assumption that amendments to the Ts&Cs is one way, even though the Ts&Cs themselves indicate that the amendments can be made by both parties. Any contract can be amended, in the due timeframes, and the other party has the option to either accept or decline the amendments - I really don't see how they can provide a valid argument against this point, although I will concede that they could argue against the amounts charged.