HSBC litigation?

[Shah57]

Hello 

 

I will keep this short

 

HSBC blocked my account without warning in January and only reopened it yesterday after 10 months. They've given me £1,000 as a way of saying sorry. The blockage was due to an error in their system but it has led to the following for me - 

 

7 defaults on credit file to the value of £152000, rent arrears of £2000 , paypal has closed my account which I had since 2003 as one of the defaults was with their credit services and as a result of this my online business has gone bust as PayPal was the only way I could get payments from clients. Car repossessed as finance payments were also blocked. 

 

Can anyone advise if I have a case against HSBC either through the ombudsman or the County Court to recover all my losses ?  They have already told me they will not be increasing their compensation . Thanks 

 

 

[dx100uk]

and you have this in writing?

did they give a reason why this happened other than 'an error?'

and did they register any kind of fraud or cifas marker on your file too?

 

dx

 

 

 

[Shah57]

Yes, letter simply stating review done, it didnt say it was simply down to a glitch in their system which caused them to review my account but nothing else could have caused it. The review took so long due to the pandemic and staff shortages. Nothing untoward was identified in the review and nothing was registered with cifas. 

[dx100uk]

got to have been due to them being suspect of large unaccounted for sums going in and out, sounds like a fraud investigation to me as thats the only real reason banks totally block everything.

 

you say this happened in january..why did you not immediately get all your going forward income paid to another account?

that doesn't take 10mts.?

 

you are going  to have a hardtime claiming defaults on your credit file some +3mts later and a repo'd car some month later is their fault.

[Shah57]

The largest ever amount that went into that account was £500 which was about 7 months before it was blocked. 

 

There was no going forward income as the 1st lockdown came 6 weeks later and I went straight onto universal credit after that and have been on it ever since. 

 

Bottom line, at the time it was the only account I had add and all of my savings of £16500 were in there which I had no access to after it was blocked. Tried to contact the car finance company but no one was available throughout the pandemic likewise many other companies who registered a default

[fkofilee]

Could the payment from Paypal spooked HSBC? Personal Account vs Business Usage? 

Not unheard of for them to do a review for this reason etc

[dx100uk]

did you immediately and regularly WRITE to hsbc informing them of the issues this block was causing you, specifically relating being unable to pay rent, credit payments, car finance etc and the imminent closure of your paypal accounts that will result in the closure of your business too?

 

did they reply each time?

 

 

[Shah57]

Fairly low amounts were going in from my PayPal account such as £150 every 4-5 days or so , I can't imagine such tiny amounts spooked them. It was a business account (had it since 2010) but I was entitled to use it as a personal account too ie pay for fuel etc. There is no law against that. 

 

Yes, when I first became aware of it as as letters were being sent by companies not getting their direct debits that's when I first knew and called them and they just told me it's under review.

 

I did indeed tell them of the consequences i.e. car repossession, defaults etc but they still said they had to carry out the review.

 

Only spoke to them once throughout the first lockdown due to the huge queues.

In total I spoke to them about 4 times about this and wrote to them once.

They did it did not reply to the letter. 

 

Bottom line, review done.

Nothing identified.

My credit history is wrecked for 6 years and I'm financially ruined.

 

 Do I have any comeback beyond the Paltry £1000 they have given ? 

[dx100uk]

send HSBC and sar leave it as is but specifically add you wish phonecall recordings or transcripts of all call since xyz date.

 

i don't think £1000 is enough no, but if this was me i would not have simply relied upon a few phonecalls here and there and only one letter if my whole life was falling apart , nor would i have awaited for them to resolve the issue so 10mts had elapsed till i seriously tried to do anything about it

i would have written to the CEO daily....

 

dx

 

 

[Shah57]

I did as much as I could do. I wasn't going to stay on the phone for 4 hours each time during the lockdown was I. 

 

Would court action likely succeed? A solicitor said something like this is likely to be breach of Duty. 

[dx100uk]

you need to prove HSBC were fully aware, in detail, of the very serious nature of your predicament.

i'll be honest and say as it stands , unless their account/comms log via an sar has notes or they have the phone call details, you don't appear to have been too bothered this was going on...from the evidence available.  a court would take the same view i think sadly.

 

you appear to have been more than happy to await some outcome where you believed they'd wave a magic wand and make it all correct again.

 

a letter from them to each establishment detailing their (HSBC) error and wanting defaults removed and the car returned and payments made upto date etc etc would be a good result, but i cant see that happening.

 

a 10 month delay is very unusual, we normally see these issues resolved within 6 weeks by most banks.

i think the sar is going to be the key here.

 

but that doesn't stop you from WRITING now to the CEO and complaining, carefully but briefly detailing, by simple bullets points how their 10month investigation concluding it was their error has ruined your life and what are they going to do about it.

 

 

[Shah57]

Got it, hsbc were aware, I told them and surely they could see the direct debits that had been going out of the account previously and that were now blocked. 

 

10 months is indeed usual. I've never heard of it happen to anyone before but my gut feeling is that the lockdown had something to do with it. 

 

I will write to the CEO and see what he/she has to say but to get a large amount which is at least equivalent to all them defaults should I go to the court or the ombudsman ?. The ombudsman has a long wait of over 5 months at the moment. I could go directly to court and as I'm on Universal Credit I'm exempt from any fees. 

[dx100uk]

Lets put this into perspective.

You wont ever get £1000's out of them most def not the £15k? you are after..wont happen even through court.

 

And if you dont get written evidence they knew but stupidly did it all on a phone without recording your calls up creek are you. Your word against a powerful bank.

 

If your pp account were to be sorted is your business one that would recover? And why didnt you simply open another pp account with differing details using another bank ac and link that to your business?

 

Dx

[Shah57]

Well the banks do record calls don't they so the court can ask them for the phone transcripts. 

 

It was all too much of a hassle trying to open a new account as I thought it would be resolved in a few days but clearly it was not. Anyway I will see how this goes. 

[fkofilee]

Can i check - The defaults that value to £152000 - Are you sure its that much or more £15200? 

[fkofilee]

Just now, Shah57 said:

Well the banks do record calls don't they so the court can ask them for the phone transcripts. 

 

It was all too much of a hassle trying to open a new account as I thought it would be resolved in a few days but clearly it was not. Anyway I will see how this goes. 

 

You had 10 months though... Surely by week 3 ... You would have realised something was up? 

Not being critical but just wondering if you thought about it?

[Shah57]

It's £152000. Ie loans, car finance,  credit cards etc. 

 

I did.

Tried to resolve it with the bank but it never happened and about three weeks later the lockdown came.

This is when my credit history started deteriorate with late payments and the chances of getting another bank account were low. 

[fkofilee]

Arh you fell into the trap... 

Just because of a poor credit score - You can get another Bank Account  

 

Monzo / Starling if you like self service with an App etc.

Barclays and Lloyds would be a good idea. Barclays is easiest to get a Basic account with / Lloyds has better CS.

Nationwide have a great basic account too. 

 

Im going to warn you now. If you have now got your account back - Get out of HSBC now and go elsewhere. HSBCs monthly reviews will likely kill any oustanding Overdraft etc and itll be called in due to the defaults etc. 

[Shah57]

I will go elsewhere,  but it doesn't mean i let them get away with ruining my credit history ,

regardless of anything it was a they who are responsible for ruining it not what I didn't do.

 

If they did not block the account for no reason then nothing would have happened.

 

Simple as that. 

[dx100uk]

34 minutes ago, Shah57 said:

Well the banks do record calls don't they so the court can ask them for the phone transcripts. - not their job thats yours to prove .

 

It was all too much of a hassle trying to open a new account as I thought it would be resolved in a few days but clearly it was not. Anyway I will see how this goes. 

but you have waited 10mts and in a nutshell have done little to nothing to mitigate your issues.

[dx100uk]

36 minutes ago, Shah57 said:

It's £152000. Ie loans, car finance,  credit cards etc. 

 

I did.

Tried to resolve it with the bank but it never happened and about three weeks later the lockdown came.

This is when my credit history started deteriorate with late payments and the chances of getting another bank account were low. 

 

£152k? or £15.2k or £1.52K

 

covid is no excuse for you or them trying to mitigate your losses.

[Shah57]

Apart from calling them multiple times what else could I do ? They kept telling me it will be dealt with. I could not call them everyday could I ? 

 

It's one hundred and fifty two thousand 

[dx100uk]

and your business was ever going to make that kind of money..?

 

there is absolutely no way you will ever get even 1/10th of that out of anyone in court let alone a multinational bank who will crush you dead.

 

the best here you could ever hope for is hsbc up their offer a few k, and give you a letter to copy to all the orgs that have defaulted you admitting it was their mistake that prevented your access to your money and if you were to now bring the balance upto date, would they remove their default.

 

 

 

 

[Shah57]

Probably not but those are the values of the defaults which I'm now being chased for. 

 

I don't think I will get 7 defaults removed,  the best I can hope for is have them satisfied 

[dx100uk]

no such thing.

 

dx