Business accounts;Partics of claim

[MARTIN3030]

Business accounts should have refs to consumer law omitted from the POC

Here is a suggested temp.

 

The claimant has held a current account with the defendant, conducted on their

Standard terms and conditions since (DATE) , The defendant from

(DATE) to present day has applied charges to the claimant account,

totaling £XXXXX. The bank's charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this was Dunlop Pneumatic v New Garage [1915] AC 79.along with Murray v. Leisure play [2005] EWCA Civ 963. The claimant has repeatedly asked the bank to refund their charges or offer proof that they are true pre-estimate. They have declined to do so.

 

The claimant claims £XXXXX, being the sum unlawfully debited

 

The claimant claims interest pursuant to S69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the

rate of 8% per annum, being the sum of £XXXX

[DGC]

Hi just read this re bussines accounts has anyone been succesfull yet

[make_me_happy]

I am just about to file a claim online for our business account as the first 2 threatning letters to HSBC were completely ignored!! I keep everyone posted.

[TUTTSI]

My hubby wants to start his claim against HSBC for his Business account, he is a sole trader, apart from charges i.e returned chq fees, they also charge him at the end of each month an overdraft fee for example £4 per day for each day that his buisiness account as a sole trader remains overdrawn on an unauthorised basis. Can these charges also be reclaimed as part of penalty charges.

 

Also, I notice that from Martin's sugested Busines Account Particular of Claim he only states S69 8% interest, is it not possible to claim the contractual rate as an alternative!

 

DS

[make_me_happy]

Hi dsilverstein,

 

I hope someone answers your questions, that would be useful to me too as I am in the same boat as you.

Anyone there???

[TUTTSI]

Hi dsilverstein,

 

I hope someone answers your questions, that would be useful to me too as I am in the same boat as you.

Anyone there???

 

We are just making the claim today and have decided to include the overdraft fee. Hope that helps you.

DS

[Nattt]

Hi peeps, just read this link having just filed standard POC online with MCOL for my business account. I believe you can charge for charges THAT HAVE BEEN ADDED outside of your normal OD interest charges. I have done this with my abbey claim and they've got 14 days left!!

Everything that those Bankers!!! have been charging is a liberty, Get your money back.

[TUTTSI]

Thanks Natt, yes the pre-lim letter has gone and without reference to the Consumer Credit Act, as apparently this does not apply to business accounts. Will advise in due course what re-action we get.

Good Luck with your claim and I agree, those bankers have been very greedy. Keep us posted with your claim.

DS

[sampit1]

Hi ,

i am a sole trader and have a business

account with HSBC i have sent my first letter and recived a few statments but not all of them, 40 days is up in two day time,i have managed to gather the rest myself

 

but what can i claim back on a business account?

 

my statments say total charges, i have added just these charges to £2700 i now belive that i cant claim total charges on a business account

 

can any help me with this ,i cant find any info anywhere and my eyes are sore from reading hundreds of posts over the last few weeks

is there a section just for business accounts ?if not i think there should be

 

thanks

Sam

[skintcumbrian]

I'm confused about this too. When I got a business account (about 7 years ago or more), I got 1 year's free banking. Then after that there were charges for every cheque etc. I have not received a breakdown of every charge on the account, just the statements that show the total charges.

 

If I try to reclaim for cashed cheques etc etc, then HSBC are going to point out that I agreed to pay those charges after my initial one year's free banking. Anyone know how to get a full breakdown of all charges so I can split out the ones I 'agreed' to pay from those they have just stuck on eg the £4 day overdraft etc fees?

[Celicaman]

Hi Skintcumbrian. i am going to try claim HSBC as well, i have worked my charges out. You should have a list of charges each month and it should state on there the breakdown of charges, also, you cant claim back the charges for issuing cheques & pay ins, but you can for the £4 per day ( that still equates to £28 per week you are over drawn). Also if you are a small business and dont do much banking, switch your account to HSBC online banking, you dont get charged for issuing cheques etc, only downer is cant pay much cash in per month or get slapped with fees. I only found this out after meeting with manager telling him was going to close account and get free banking elsewhere, Oh but we dont do free banking' we try to give quality service blah blah bleat. Funny thing was 3 hours later he was on phone telling me about free banking online, now why didnt they tell me that before, oh yes i know why £50/£60 month in charges is why.

I will have look at my statements when i get home & try figure out how i worked charges out. will post later

Ian

[SoB]

Hi all,

I'm also a sole trader with a HSBC business account. They recently sent me 6 years copy statements. The problem being that they omitted the 'Itemised Activity Charges' statements that came with the originals and so the only evidence I have of their wrongdoings are the 'total charges' amounts on the main statements. I threw away most of the original IAC statements but the few that I have make shocking reading. I never knew that they charged 25p for cash withdrawals plus 0.4% on top for the total amount withdrawn!

From the few IAC statements that I have, it seems that over the years the overdraft fee varies between £18 and £34. It looks like it will be quite difficult to separate the lawful from the unlawful charges. Perhaps HSBC would like to keep this info from us to throw us off the scent.

I recently posted a question on MSE about the 'total charges', got 34 views but unfortunately not one reply. I think the next stage for me is to write to HSBC and ask for a tariff of their charges for the last 6 years and see if I can take it further from there. Will keep you posted.

SoB

[deedee2665]

Hiya everyone , we are newbies here so please excuse us. We had a business acc with hsbc and it was closed down about 3 years ago now , we asked for and got our statements fairly quickly from hsbc and then added up the charges we can claim back , this came £753 . We sent our first letter to ask for oyr money back and got a reply offering us just £280 of that . Im looking for a letter template i can use to accept this only as partial payment and the lba letter . For some reason i can not find a template for the lba letter could someone please point me in the right direction ?

 

Many Thanks

 

Deedee

[deedee2665]

Please can anyone help with the thread above ?

[TUTTSI]

Hi Deedee

Have a look in this thread Business Claims - basic guide you may find the LBA letter in there. As far as I know with business claims you do not quote Consumer Credit Act. If you have a problem just come back and ask.

DS

[charliebubs]

Hi guys,

My dad has a business account with HSBC and is in the process of trying to claim back his charges with my help! We sent the first letter off to them claiming more than £2k and they wrote back offering £570 and saying that most of what we are trying to claim back is "lawful".

 

Having looked at the statements it's hard to tell as there are no breakdowns, the statements just say "total charges £xx" so how do we know what's what???

 

Has anyone got any further with HSBC regarding this??

 

thanks

CB

[Celicaman]

Hi Charliebubs

 

I have HSBC business claim to put in as well, and the statements are unclear as to what the charges are, you should also have (or may not) a break down sheet for each months charges, this gives a clear listing of charges, however i think statements may have recalled S/O & returned cheques listed on it.

Depending on how far you are claiming back, you should be able to ask for a summary of charges going back at least 6 years at a cost of £10 all in, Dont ask for copy of statements as they will charge arm & leg for! after that date all the banks seem to be playing silly B's and not giving the info up, see other posts about that side as i have not had to go down that road............. Yet

Good luck, im in the Que behind you so dont take it all

 

C

[charliebubs]

Thanks Cman!

 

I will write to them tomorrow asking for a breakdown of each month's "total charges".

 

I'll keep you posted and don't worry we won't take it all!!!! They have enough to go around!! EDITED B's!!!!

 

CB

[GaryH]

The "total charges" are, I think, just the total of the OD excess charges levied in each particular month. They are reclaimable in their entirety, as well as Unpaid DD, card misuse, etc.

 

For a business claims guide, see here - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/64975-business-claims-basic-guide.html

[SoB]

Hi Charliebubs

The 'total charges' on HSBC business account statements can definitely be a mix of lawful and unlawful charges. They can lawfully charge for servicing the account, ie, paying in cheques, cash withdrawals, direct debits, etc. If they sneak in an unlawful fee for going overdrawn, it can be missed unless you have the original 'Summary of Business Current Account charges and interest statements'.

I sent a letter to HSBC on 23 April requesting these specific statements for my account dating back 6 years. I'll let you know if they reply or not.

SoB

[GaryH]

There's a thread regarding this here -

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/15518-charges-description-statements-please.html

[Celicaman]

Hi, I have just checked on my business statements for last year and for one month is as follows:

 

Statement april

1. Charges £19.82

2. Interest £4.71

 

Sent seperate to main statement is the summary sheet relating to charges:

1. Total of activity charges ( basically all the legit charges for cheques DD SO & Paid in) £12.82

2. Account fee (another way of extorting money running account) £3.00

3. Overdraft fee £4.00 ( the only bit we can claim back)

 

However as i was charged £4.71 total interest, i can claim back the interest on the £4.00 for that month and thereafter, plus int

erest on the interest etc (somebody else can work it out for now)

 

Just checked very recent statement online and for march £52 charges, now i am with HSBC online banking and you get free banking for low level activity ( which i am) and on top of this is £9.71 interest , which OK im overdrawn, but £52 charged and next one for april is £32 plus the usual interest ( i only have a £500 quid overdraft) :-x

OK Chillllllllllllllllll

Now back to thread,

 

basically you do need the summary sheet to tell what the charges were for, if a cheque paid in however is returned it shows up as a seperate charge on your statement, and i do also think that if a cheque paid out or SO/DD is recalled it shows as sepereate item on statement and not on summary sheet. These can also be claimed for !

 

I will be claiming this little lot back COMPOUND RATE, as stated on THEIR statement sheet as 25.0000000000006878585858 % or whatever

That is as soon is i do the others on the list

Back to the War

[SoB]

Hi Celicaman

I'm a newbie to all this but the more I read about bank charges the more determined I am to reclaim mine from hsbc. They are little more than pick-pockets in suits. I'm currently reclaiming £1600 for my personal account and am trying to distinguish between the lawful/unlawful charges for my business account. Hopefully they'll send this info to me and the knowledge of how to get it might help others who are unsure about how the charges are 'totalled'. Good luck.

SoB

[skintcumbrian]

I saw the draft of my "full offer" letter (HSBC definition not mine - it seemed to be missing interest on charges, court fee etc but it's a start..) on the HSBC computer system in the bank yesterday for my personal account. It is timed to arrive about (7-10 days from now) the same time as the court give me a date and directions etc. (If I were the courts, I would start to complain at the process being employed by HSBC and DG to waste EVERYONE's time....)

 

Anyway, whilst on a winning streak, I have returned to my business account....

 

I have deducted a substantial sum from my biz account claim spreadsheet to cover, hopefully, the legit charges (eg cheques cashed and written, standing orders etc) that I can guestimate, but I am very worried this slightly hit and miss approach won't stand up in court. I have erred on the generous side of caution and it still adds up to £3300 without contractual interest. (And we wonder why so many small businesses go bust so fast?)

 

However, I am somewhat persuaded by the 'more than 6 year argument' ie

 

YOU (HSBC) prove me wrong cos I have had to estimate my charges in light of the lack of YOUR (HSBC) evidence to the contrary.

 

As a small business, I think I have at least 10 years of statements somewhere in the offices so I will attempt to find every single breakdown of charges before going the LBA route etc, but it should not be this hard. The banks have ripped us off, and they know by how much so we should be given that information with our SAR. (Our accountant was never interested in the whys and wherefores of each charge so I know some of those itemised pages were binned.)

 

Perhaps for business accounts the SAR needs re-writing to get the precise details required from the bank?

 

Then again, maybe we should put in a large number of 'estimated' biz account claims at the same time and see how HSBC respond??

 

From what I saw today in the bank's own system, my full offer (read: admission of guilt) is ready to send BEFORE I have even been given a court date by my local court and without involvement of DG. I fully expect my final personal account offer to be the amount I have submitted through MCOL, so is there any reason why a guestimated amount on my business account should be any different? Especially if I am not trying to take the mick, but am underestimating what they owe me so I get something back from these unfair charges....

 

Thoughts?

[Celicaman]

Hi SC

Seems we are on about the same timeline with our claims mine was 21/03/07 as well and i have had notice of change of court to local, no AQ reuired etc. Had nothing else since from anyone as yet, but from what you say , there may be an offer coming out soon. Have you had anything from DG or Court other than change venue.. ?

 

Also now looking at Pre 6 year personal charges to claim back

 

On the business side, i too am compiling my list of charges to claim back from HSBC . I am however lucky in the fact i have most or a lot of the summary pages.

Heres an idea, but it may take a little time to work out

if you count the number of cheques issued , DD & S/O paid out and Credited payments and multiply them by the cost HSBC charge for each item, it would give a close indication of what the other charges are. Interest is seperate on the statement and any monthly fee needs to be taken off as well. Now how are you going to find out the costs, well its easy, im going to go have a look at Mine and see what i can supply you with. Mine go back to 1990, although some of the earlier charges were based on a % of turnover (i had 2 businesses and one i didnt put many items through, but value was still good, so the bank in their wisdom put that account on a % of turnover tariff , because and wait for it..............

THey wernt making any money on the account, in fact it was costing them to run it !!!!!!!!!!! ROFLOL oh ive just fell off me chair thinking about those words, it was so sad )

any ways ill go have a look at charges regime once i compose myself and wipe the tears away...

 

CM