new girl Sarrah v HSBC - SETTLED IN FULL

[Sarrahk]

THIS IS THE LETTER I HAVE DECIDED TO SEND BACK TO ALAN PRETTY TODAY! THOUGHTS APPRECIATED...

 

 

 

7th May 2006

 

 

Dear Mr Pretty,

 

Thank you for your letter dated 5th May 2006 which I received today.

 

I regret to note that you have clearly not been fully appraised of the present state of my grievance with HSBC.

 

Unfortunately HSBC failed to even acknowledge my letter of 20th April 2006 and proceeded to deducted £63 worth of charges of 29th April 2006. As you will see from my correspondence of 20th April 2006, I noted my concerns as to the lawfulness of these charges and warned that if they were deducted I would commence a course of action against HSBC which may entail a county court claim. Given that HSBC did not acknowledge my correspondence and in fact proceeded instead to unlawfully deduct these monies from my account, I have taken further steps against the bank, as I expressly stipulated I would.

 

On 3rd May 2006 I sent a preliminary letter to HSBC, by recorded delivery, asking for a refund of £63 along with a further £110 worth of unlawful charges, totalling £173, all of which have been unlawfully applied to my accounts since they were opened approximately 2 years ago. A copy of this letter is enclosed for your reference.

 

I have given HSBC 14 days to respond to my correspondence of 3rd May 2006, of which 11 days remain at the time of my writing this letter. Should I still not receive a satisfactory response from HSBC at the expiry date of this date then I shall be writing a letter before action, giving HSBC a further 14 days to consider this matter before I issue a county court claim with a further 8% applied as interest to the total sum.

 

I have also today been shocked and surprised to receive notification from HSBC that they intend to deduct a further £25 worth of unlawful charges from my account number XXXXXX on 29th May 2006. Yet again HSBC are seeking to commit a pre meditated breach of law as this charge is disproportionate to any loss suffered by HSBC and therefore unlawful and unenforceable in court. Note also that the only reason this account went overdrawn was as a result of the application of your charges of 29th April!

 

I am frankly surprised that you did not better appraise yourself of the present state of my grievance before writing to me. I hope that now I have taken the trouble to fully enlighten you once more, you will deal with the matter without further delay.

 

I am willing to accept £198, in settlement, which takes into account the additional £25 charges you have now marked as pending against my account, due to be deducted on 29th May 2006. I shall also require written confirmation from HSBC as to whether any defaults have been registered against my credit record as a result of unlawful charges and if so, in addition to full payment of the above mentioned sum I require that you remove all default entries recorded by HSBC from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable. This is what I require in full and final settlement of this matter.

 

Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to hearing from you by return.

 

Yours Sincerely,

[Sarrahk]

any help with my situtation.. anyone.. please notice me!!

[DJ Damo]

A refund of just under half to settle the matter seems to be their method.

Mr alan pretty also replied to my first letter. Im just about to send off the LBA.

 

keep pushing for a full refund!

 

Keep the faith. Dont let the bar stewards get you down!

[neilloffhagen]

I shall also require written confirmation from HSBC as to whether any defaults have been registered against my credit record as a result of unlawful charges and if so, in addition to full payment of the above mentioned sum I require that you remove all default entries recorded by HSBC from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable. This is what I require in full and final settlement of this matter.

Hi sarrah - it looks okay to me, but I'm not the most experienced in letter writing. The only bit I'm not sure of is the need to include anything about defaults? Do you think they would have entered one?

 

Neil.

[Sarrahk]

Thanks guys.. i am not entirely sure re: defaults, i know they keep refusing to extend my overdraft and as my credit report automatically refuses it which it never used too before i was with HSBC so i am just wanting to cover every angle.. Alan Pretty offered me way less than half so i hope he increases his offer the cheeky get!

[neilloffhagen]

I woudn't hold out too mcuh hope of an offer You may have read my own thread, but like you I refused the less than half offer he made, but he then also refused to increase the offer. So I send another letter before action and now I'll be starting a ciaim at close of business tomorrow, or maybe Thursday morning.

 

Neil.

[Sarrahk]

well good luck neil! Fingers crossed they cave in soon.. !!!

[Sarrahk]

By way i did not do a DPA request as i was able to get all my statements online. I am bit worried as because i did not do this i have not requested details of manual intervention on the account? Although of course in the prelim i left in the standard paragraph asking them to justify the cost if they can.

 

Does anyone think this is problem i havent got manual intervention details?

[Movingon]

I think it weakens your case because you can't demonstrate adequately your belief that the charges are automated and therefore extremely cheap. I have no proper legal experience however; maybe someone else could confirm or deny this assessment?

[Glitterari]

Well, I refused mr beaumonts offer of just under half, which I received after the LBA. Then Alan Pretty replied within a few days with the exact same letter as Mr beaumont, however agreeing to refund my total request as full and final.

 

i signed the agreement and sent it recorded delivery yesterday!

 

I think you will prob get it all back because it's a low amount. I think that they will prob only clamp down on the ones over £1k and then you just have to start moneyclaim and then they give in.

 

They indicated in their letter to me that it's not worth their time and effort to go to court over £650. And I received that letter on 8/5.

 

Carly

[DJ Damo]

I dont think it matters.

 

The charges are applied on the same day every month, true? Mine were, so it seems a bit too much of a coincidence for this to occur by means of a manual process.

Regardless, if you look at pending charges for a month they tell you, well in advance, what they are and when they will be taking out from your account.

 

Does this make an efficient business pratice to have it as a 2 stage manual process? If it was done manually, it would all happen at the same time, and there would be anomolies in the date is was taken. Also, there wouldnt be "pending charges" entry appear the day after you blow your overdraft limit.

 

There is little manual intervention going on here. I beleive the only manual intervention maybe that it requires an operator to specifically set a flagged account as "regularly blowing the limit - lets fleece them" at which point charges are automated.

On every account you can get away with a fair amount of abuse up to a point, then all of a sudden you get hit with everything.

[Sarrahk]

thanks! i think you make a fair point, i was just bit worried having not gone via DPA route! will keep all posted as to any new developments!

[DJ Damo]

I havent either

[DJ Damo]

You can also argue the case against their old regime, which stung me the most, does not represent the costs of manual intervention.

 

ie

 

> 10 pounds over = 18 charge

> 20 pounds over = 36 charge

> 30 pounds over = 54 charge

> 40 pounds over = 72 charge

 

I think you can eaily argue that if the adminustrative costs of going 10 or more pounds ove the limit is 18 pounds, then why does it cost them a further 54 pounds if you go another 30 pounds over that

[Sarrahk]

does anyone have hard figures for what the cost of this manual intervention is suppose to be anyway?? Load of old bollacks if you ask me! Your right it all has to be computerised & automated anyway (thats what they tell you when you try to call up & challenge it in any event!)

 

I find they seem to charge you almost £ for £ now of what you go over.. is that right? i have never had less than a £19 charge mind..

[DJ Damo]

does anyone have hard figures for what the cost of this manual intervention is suppose to be anyway?? Load of old bollacks if you ask me! Your right it all has to be computerised & automated anyway (thats what they tell you when you try to call up & challenge it in any event!)

 

I find they seem to charge you almost £ for £ now of what you go over.. is that right? i have never had less than a £19 charge mind..

 

I havent had a charge for few years. but the regime I listed above was in force for some time, but I know its not the current regime.

[juicy]

Hi Sarrah,

 

The letter sounds good lets hope you hear something soon. I sent my LBA off yesterday to Alan Pretty so his deadline to respond is 23/05/06.

 

I have just posted a question on my thread asking if I now have to submit a Consumer Credit Act 1974 complaint to the OFT . Do you know??

Also regarding your credit rating I think you would definitely know if they had put a default against your name as my husband had one on his credit file for 6 years! I think you are probably getting credit turned down for late payments and stuff like that. If you go into credit expert on the internet you can get a 30 day free trial and read your credit file and get your credit score.

 

Hope this helps

 

Keep me posted

 

Juicy

[Sarrahk]

Thanks Juicy, i have just apllied for free credit trial so intend to check it agian, i did it last year & spotted a couple of errors which i sorted out so i intend to explore and see what new problems there are for me to tackle no doubt! :-| Not that i want any more credit at mo!! But there will come a time i want a mortgage and it will prove a nightmare at this rate!

 

I am not sure about complaint.. hopefully one of the more experiences peeps will come back to you on that one, afraid am a bit of a novice too! I have not heard another word from Mr Pretty yet but he still has another week before my LBA goes out.. we will see!!

[Sarrahk]

well i seem to be going backwards not forwards with my claim! I sent my letter of 5th May declining Mr Pretty's £63 measley offer and reminding him of the contents of my prelim asking for full payment £198.. in response i received their standard letter and crappy leaflets on how to complain !!!! Its ridiculous!! |My prelim deadline is thurs 18th so looks like i will be sending my LBA out on then!!

[Sarrahk]

deadline up for my preliminary letter today and having received no further communication from HSBC since their standard rubbish was sent through to me i intend to start the REAL action now and send off my LBA.. is it my imagination or does the latest tactic from HSBC seem to be to just ignore letters being sent in??

[Sarrahk]

hey folks i am thinking about starting to prepare my county court claim as HSBC as only have until 2nd June to respond and so far I have just been persistently ignored by HSBC save for their standard complaints & leaflets letters (& i know they have got all my letters as i have sent everything recorded post) so not holding out for much...

 

Is the template for completion of the claim form just in bank templates?? I think also i need to use the interest calculator too to calculate the interest on each and every charge is that correct??

 

I am also considering just filing at my local county court (which is across road from me), once my deadline expires.. what do people think, is there any advantages/disadvantages in doing it that way instead of money claim (save for fact that should it proceed to court it would at least be listed in local court to me)?

[jonni2bad]

The big advantage of attending your local court is that you begin to familiarise yourself with the setup and layout, should you need to actually attend (however unlikely that is) and that if your particulars of claim are long winded (like mine) then you are not limited in the number of characters / lines etc as you are online.

 

The local court staff were very friendly and even showed me around the place. I think I'm the first person to take the banks on in my local(ish) court so I can consider myself a trendsetter in sunny Mansfield

[Sarrahk]

Ha ok fantastic! I am thinking it just might be easier really, as it is so close to home, are the fees the same to file at court as they are on money claim?

 

I am going to start preparing my claim soon as they only have one week left before i can file on 2nd and given they have virtually ignored me throughout i am not really expecting to hear from them!

 

I am just bit concerned because i go on holiday on 8th for a couple of weeks and am unsure whether to start the claim on 2nd as it is unlikely to resolve itself before my holiday and so it means i wont be around to deal with any paperwork etc that comes through.

 

Might it be best to write a "final" LBA just before i leave to give them further 2 weeks (whilst i am away) to resolve matter & then if not refunded file on my return from trip on 24th?

 

thoughts please xx

[Movingon]

My opinion? File your claim now, and tell the court you're not available between and . I wouldn't have thought it would be that quick anyway... but if you send a "second LBA" it makes you look weak and wishy-washy and the bank will feel up to a bit more intimidating behaviour.

[Sarrahk]

i AM SO MAD! HSBC have basically ignored my letters about charges but last night i got home to find a letter waiting for me from M Bowdon at Sheffield credit services telling me my overdraft was £46 over the limit (which is becuase of charges they applied last month!!!) and demanding that i repay this £46 back into the account in 7 days!!

 

I am so shocked & panicked?! What shall i do? I feel like writing a VERY angry letter to Alan Pretty! Please help!

 

Is this just a tactic??! I think i am going to have to put this claim in asap as suggested above.. I was really hoping it wuld not come to all this, am worried!