HSBC - Going to Court

[Chop321]

Hi everyone

I have never posted anything on any chat forum, so please bear with me if my etiquette is clumsy !

I am suing HSBC for penalty charges (mostly going past overdraft limit) going back 6 years and they are actually fighting it. Does anyone have any advice about what to put on the court forms as they are saying I had the standard terms and conditions and agreed to them?

 

Thanks

Chop

[Josamolly]

You have 2 choices when you file at court. You either do it online or complete a N1 and send it in. Personally i would do a N1.

 

But, you need to read the FAQ pages first and then you will know what is likely to happen. Also read some of the other threads and then you will gain the knowledge that you need

 

Start a thread in here...

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/

 

Some useful links..

FAQ's

Step by Step Guide

If you wish to make a Donation

A-Z Guide

Making Posts

Start a thread

Letter Template Library

Rejection Of Settlement / Good Will Gestures

Interest Spreadsheets

Contractual Spreadsheet

Court N1 Form

Court Bundle

Preparing a Court Bundle

Bank Contact Details

Moneyclaim Online

AQ Guide to Completion

Court Fees

Data Protection non Compliance

Witness Statements for Court Bundle

Banking Code Website

Limitations Act

Fast Track Costs

Scottish Procedure

Scotland Forum

[Chop321]

You have 2 choices when you file at court. You either do it online or complete a N1 and send it in. Personally i would do a N1.

 

But, you need to read the FAQ pages first and then you will know what is likely to happen. Also read some of the other threads and then you will gain the knowledge that you need

 

Start a thread in here...

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/

 

Some useful links..

FAQ's

Step by Step Guide

If you wish to make a Donation

A-Z Guide

Making Posts

Start a thread

Letter Template Library

Rejection Of Settlement / Good Will Gestures

Interest Spreadsheets

Contractual Spreadsheet

Court N1 Form

Court Bundle

Preparing a Court Bundle

Bank Contact Details

Moneyclaim Online

AQ Guide to Completion

Court Fees

Data Protection non Compliance

Witness Statements for Court Bundle

Banking Code Website

Limitations Act

Fast Track Costs

Scottish Procedure

Scotland Forum

Many Thanks Jos, I'll look at the threads and see if I can find one relating to HSBC. I was happy with the process of suing them following advice on a BBC link (I didn't know this site existed !) but advice sort of peters out if you sue them and they put up a defence about what the resultant paperwork should do next...

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry to say that it is clear that you haven't heeded our advice to read around carefully and to prepare yourself properly before beginning your claim.

 

The result is that you receiving the standard responses from the bank which everyone receives but unlike most of the rest you are in a panic about it.

 

You can eiyther choose to keep on panicking or you can choose now to deal with your claim properly by reading everything you can on this forum before going any further.

 

It is up to you.

 

You may have been rather nonchalant when they were taking the money from you but you have now to take things rather more seriously now that you are trying to get your money back.

 

Slapped wrist?

 

Definitely

[Chop321]

Thanks for your note BF. However, it is difficult to take the forums advice if you don't know the forum exists, which I didn't until yesterday (as my very first post on any forum anywhere said) ! I guess ignorance is no excuse...

- I've done everything else claiming from HSBC without help, out of necessity. Slapped wrist accepted.

 

Best Chop:)

[Chop321]

Hi everyone

My first post was two weeks ago, when I explained I hadn’t known this forum existed and I am embarrassingly far down the road of suing HSBC. As Bankfodder has pointed out I should have been trawling the forum for the appropriate most effective actions at each stage and long before this, but like I said I didn’t know you were here, HSBC ignored me and I thought I was doing the right thing. So the best thing I think is to throw myself on the forums mercy and ask for help. Any assistance at this late stage would be greatly appreciated. I have reached the Allocation Questionnaire stage. Could I have some advice please about what you think I should say in this?

 

Bit of background: HSBC ignored my initial letters to them within the time I gave them, which mentioned the Dunlop precedent etc etc.. So I have put a claim in to our local Court under the small claims track. I'm claiming approx £3500. They have put up what looks like a standard defence consisting of

“1. I am governed by their personal terms and conditions

2. HSBC is entitled to make a charge for its services

3. They deny their charges are a penalty

4. Charges are reasonable and are fully disclosed in T&Cs, and represent the contracturally agreed price and the UTCCRs are therefore not applicable to them or alternatively, charges made are not unfair contrary to the UTCRRs. They are not default charges and therefore cannot amount to a penalty."

 

In other words they are saying the charges are not penalties and are reasonable, and I must have agreed to them because they are in the standard T&C’s. In response I need to complete appropriately the allocation questionnaire section G, Other Information.

Now, I HAVE been studying the forum and I am really impressed by many letters on posts but a bit daunted by the grasp of case law also: as a result I have got more confused about what to say than I was when I started !

I think quoting the case law is important but I don't want to refer to the wrong section and make matters worse. Reading my draft back I'm also not really saying WHY their charges are not lawful despite their T&C's...I've been climbing over the site for hours over the weekend but am confusing my self more and more. Am I over complicating things and going on a bit? Would anyone mind commenting on the following draft for Section G, as bluntly as you like? Like I said, I’m a novice but I now have at least some idea of what I don’t know….

 

Points 1+2 of the Defence submitted do not address the disproportionate nature of the Bank charges. The point is that the charges do not reflect the costs incurred by HSBC in managing my account whilst under breach. My initial letter to HSBC quoted Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor co Ltd [1915] AC 79 along with Murray v. Leisure play [2005] EWCA Civ 963. In this it was held that a contractual party can only recover damages for an actual loss or liquidated losses. It is clear that these charges imposed on my Account do not reflect any actual and or real loss.

 

The defence argument is that the charges are reasonable and I must have agreed to them because they are in the standard T&C’s. The level of the charges can be seen below to be unrelated to the costs of the services provided; to exceed actual individual instances of loss to the bank, and to unjustly enrich the bank. Further, I will aver that I mistook the charges to be lawful when I paid them and I had no choice in paying them, they were simply removed from my account without permission. Also, prior to becoming aware of the OFT’s report last year I had trusted HSBC plc to operate lawfully.

 

 

I wish to draw the Courts attention to the fact that I have previously asked HSBC to demonstrate that the bank’s charges are lawful, by inviting HSBC to illustrate the actual or real loss incurred over the last six year period that each charge.has been applied against. Nothing has been forthcoming.

Consequently I am of the view that HSBC plc is unable to demonstrate that its charges are lawful or that there has been manual intervention in relation to the breaches that have occurred and the charges that have resulted.

 

Based on the following, I believe that if HSBC plc is unwilling to settle my claim in full I will have no alternative but to attempt to persuade a Court that by electing not to reveal its costs and the profit element of the charges, HSBC plc has always concealed the fact that its charges are unjustifiable and unlawful.

 

I do not expect to borrow from the bank free of charge - I fully expect to pay interest. But I do not see why I should pay (but I am not yet claiming back) overdraft interest caused by unlawful charges applied to my account. Note also that what I consider to be penalty charges continue to be applied subsequent to the dates under claim. I reserve the right to claim these and other subsequent sums later should I wish to do so.

 

As an example, if HSBC incurred costs (over and above the overdraft interest) of £125 when I exceeded my overdraft limit in January 06, I would like to know what those costs were, for I have never been told.

I believe I have received, at most, ten automated letters from HSBC concerning breaches of the account terms throughout thirty-odd years of banking history with HSBC. In my estimation these would cost no more than £2 per letter to print and dispatch. Direct communication with the Branch was terminated some years ago as a service. I as a consumer have been forced to use the general call centre, and I have used the call centre facility possibly twice, most recently about a month ago to advise them that if a specific direct debit payment was made I would go over my overdraft limit. I was advised that to cancel the payment would cost £25 or it would cost £25 for the bank to “bounce” the payment and represent this later. So whatever course of action I took in trying to responsibly manage my account I was to be penalized £25. I asked how the banks actual costs could reflect this and I was told simply this is the charge. I will ask the Court how this can be viewed as anything other than punitive.

Of course, I receive paper statements and cheque books which undisputedly involve a cost. However, all of the above services are provided to all HSBC customers and those who do not pay penalty charges are in effect receiving these services free of charge; consequently I do not accept that the charges imposed on me have paid for these services.

 

 

It is my considered view that HSBC plc, as a multinational corporation of very high standing and repute in the business and banking world, with the benefits of accounting expertise, in-house lawyers and/or access to top legal experts, owes a duty of care to its customers, in relation to ensuring that it is trading lawfully; and has therefore always had the resources to know that its charges were and are unreasonable, punitive in nature and therefore unlawful.

 

PS tried to log this as a litigation issue as requested elsewhere in the forum but the system wouldn't let me, or I was doing something wrong...will try again...

 

Many Thanks for any responses !! :???:

 

Chop

[cheddar]

Hi sadlyu you still don't have seemed to have read around the step by step guide you need to be posting in your banks forum. Then people there can have a read of that huge post you have posted and be able to wade thru and help you. Best advise is to post also what you have put in your PoC also...