HSBC questions-big claim!

[skyrocket123]

Hi there

My husband and I have not only our joint account and my personal account but also our mortgage and two remortgages with the HSBC. They own our arses!

We have paid a ridiculous amount (yet to be calculated) of charges over the past 6 years.

Is anyone in the same siuation as us, having mortgage etc with them and are you nervous about the implications of claiming? All of is angey about the charges but part of me is worried about them closing our accounts and our mortgages with them.

[davz]

I wouldn't be nervous, there are plenty of lenders who will be quite happy to take on your mortgage ( try Northern Rock for a deal) , as for your account, try the Alliance and leicester, their account is much better, 10% on savings, £2000 interest free overdraft, interest free credit card for 9 months including balance transfers. What does the hsbc offer ....... naff all just excessive charges! I am in the process of changing over to the A&L after hsbc charged me £125 for going £6 OD! So claim your money back I am!

[JimBobWalton]

Hi Skyrocket

 

Yes we are in a very similar position to you. I found out yesterday that HSBC have taken £125 from us on top of £50 last month for an overdrawn period of 10 days.

 

We too have a joint account, our main mortgage, 1 remortgage, my wifes personal account and her business account!

 

I too am worried about the same things and basically I am going to be very careful how I approach this and read as much as I can on the forums to ensure I am as prepared as I can be... I totted up our charges over the last 6 years tonight and it comes to nearly £1000! Still can't quite believe it....

 

I have started my own thread on this if you are interested, it is at :-

 

http://www.bankactiongroup.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1112

 

I will be interested to watch your progress on this as well.

 

Best of luck.

[emmcartwright]

Yes me. We only have one account with them but all our wages go into it and all our direct debits come out of it and I am dreading having to move it all over.

 

See my post above

[akosa]

Hi I have just come to this forum after getting stung for HSBC for going over by a few pounds due to thier charges £100. I am so fed up I have set up an Alliance and Leicester account which took 10 mins to apply for they will transfer and organise all your Direct Debits fron HSBC.

[storm]

I would be absolutely staggered if a bank terminated your mortgage agreement on the grounds you have claimed back charges from them

 

Do not forget the banks have to go to a court for repossession citing their reasons and surely no sane judge is going to throw people on the street for claiming back unlawful charges from their lender

 

Not to mention the incredibly bad publicity the bank would get (understatement of the year)

[Bookworm]

Hi I have just come to this forum after getting stung for HSBC for going over by a few pounds due to thier charges £100. I am so fed up I have set up an Alliance and Leicester account which took 10 mins to apply for they will transfer and organise all your Direct Debits fron HSBC.

 

Please start your own thread, you're hjijacking someone else's. It makes it hard for that person to keep up with the responses, it makes it hard for readers to follow who said what to whom, and it makes it impossible for mods to do their job. And it means your questions are more likely to get lost and stay unanswered.

[skyrocket123]

Haven't started persuing these yet as all our accounts are with them and I am working currently on old accounts first.

We were told yesterday that we will be getting charges wacked at us again by these lot.

When my husband asked the lady on the phone if they could stop the charges she said no they couldn't. " Are they automated charges? Is it just a computer that puts the charges on the account?" he asked.

"Yes" says the woman "It's the computer, it's got nothing to do with us".

I got straight on the phone and demanded a copy of the conversation and the woman crapped herself!

Considering they were ringing us at home to harrass us about money she soon lost the supercilious tone she had!

We will see if it turns up!

Sky

[Movingon]

If it does turn up this will be important to a lot of people. It would be most helpful if you could give the name of the agent and date/time of the conversation; this could theoretically be used as evidence in court by any number of claimants against HSBC.

 

You wanna know the best bit? They can't sack her for it either... !!!

[nickmack]

Getting hold of the conversation under the DPA would be very useful.

 

However you may well find (as I did when MINT supervisor made a bit of a faux pas with me) that the conversation disappears or they claim was never recorded.

[skyrocket123]

Nothing from these lot would surprise me. I asked immediately for her staff id number and name and wrote these down. So will let you know if/when it arrives!

Sky

[krakan]

I used to work at the CSSC in Leicester - I can assure you that *every* call is recorded, can be monitored realtime and is in a big database accessible from the Windows PCs which every team leader have access to..

 

That was probably 2-3 years ago, things won't have gone bakwards since and certainly the new centres in India will have at least the same level of monitoring...

[DanielWooly]

Personally i can't see a record of this conversation being all that helpful, it's pretty damn obvious the charges are automated, i very much doubt anyone from any banking organisation would even try and deny it. How many people would they have to employ to put charges on peoples accounts if they were all done manually?! Loads!!

[krakan]

Obvious and undeniable though it is, if you do end up in a small claims court, and HSBC do send a solicitor then, well, you'll be dealing with a solicitor.. It might be nice to have a recording of an HSBC agent explicitly stating that no work is done in the application of charges - it would undermine the liquidated costs argument and the 'service' argument, on account of being unreasonable and no agreed in advance..

 

You know what they say - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name:)

[skyrocket123]

I have been combing through my statements online and I knew this was going to be a biggie!

Our joint account is just over £5000 in charges and for my account nearly £2000.

Just for fun and cos I was stuck in on a Saturday night I did the interest thing to see what it would currently stand at and for the joint acc its a grand and my acc its nearly £400.

So seeing as it's totalling over £8000 I need to know the best way to go about splitting the claims up.

To keep my first claim under 5k do I need to add the court costs to keep it under 5k?

I a presuming that once I start things off it will go to this stage as I can't see them coughing up before then.

Is this the largest at the moment that anyone is claiming from HSBC? Has anyone yet had their accounts closed by them at the end of a claim?

I know what the charges are and am keen to get going, do I need to waste 40 days doing a DPA?

Also how long is taking people to generally get their info through HSBC?

Sky

[maverik1979]

well im not an expert , but from what ive read in everyone else cases, it goes like this, if your total net claim (ie no interest and no court costs) is less than £5000 it will then be allocated to the small claims track, which means you wont be liable for massive fees if you lose, thats the main reason i think.

 

so in someone else case they suggested splitting the large claim into 2, possibly as its a joint account you could each put in a seperate claim? not too sure on that though, but you would have to stagger the second claim for the individual account as the bank would try and ammalgamate (sp?) all the claims into one thus putting it beyond the small claims track, so not impossible, just more risky

 

as far as getting hsbc info is concerned i dont think this matters as your the one dictating the timetable, not them so if they dont get back to you its not your fault, as long as you have proof they received the preliminary approach letter, and the request of payment,

 

I think this is the largest amount ive seen someone claim yet, my letter goes in on monday, and that will be for £4115

 

 

 

just had a thought, if your claim is literally just over £5k why not wait until the first charge on your list becomes void as its beyond 6 years thus bringing your total claim amount under £5k , assuming ofcourse you dont incurr any further charges ofcourse

[jonni2bad]

Keep the 2 account separate, waiting for the first account to be dealt with anf finalised and then starting the claim on the other account. This will keep out most of the problems you describe.

 

Is this the largest at the moment that anyone is claiming from HSBC? Has anyone yet had their accounts closed by them at the end of a claim?

I know what the charges are and am keen to get going, do I need to waste 40 days doing a DPA?

Also how long is taking people to generally get their info through HSBC?

Sky

 

1. Not sure about HSBC, but there have been cases of claims totalling over £10k with a banks.

 

2. You don't have to do the DPA if you have all your statements. The DPA request also asks for other onfo in relation to manual intervention - perhaps you could incorporate that part into your prelim letter (if you have evidence bla bla bla then please supply this)

 

3. See the survey results

 

 

Generally speaking though, the issue of £5k limits may not be such a problem. The bank may be entitled to move the claim to the fast track rather than small claims, but even then would not be able to claim massive costs if you were to lose.

 

They would also face disclosure problems if they did this - effectively being forced by the courts to supply evidence of their ACTUAL costs - they are not surprisingly keen to avoid this.

[maverik1979]

1. Not sure about HSBC, but there have been cases of claims totalling over £10k with a banks.

 

2. You don't have to do the DPA if you have all your statements. The DPA request also asks for other onfo in relation to manual intervention - perhaps you could incorporate that part into your prelim letter (if you have evidence bla bla bla then please supply this)

 

3. See the survey results

 

 

Generally speaking though, the issue of £5k limits may not be such a problem. The bank may be entitled to move the claim to the fast track rather than small claims, but even then would not be able to claim massive costs if you were to lose.

 

They would also face disclosure problems if they did this - effectively being forced by the courts to supply evidence of their ACTUAL costs - they are not surprisingly keen to avoid this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ah well im learning new stuff all the time cheers johnny

[skyrocket123]

So do you think that I should put the first claim in for £4k and then add the 8% when the time comes? Then once that is done and dusted go again with the rest of the charges from that account? Could I ammalgamate the claim for charges from my personal account with the rest of the charges from the joint account so in effect there wer only two claims?

I don't have the statements I got the info from the online statements. Do you think I need to go for the paper statements? Or can I just get cracking?

Sky

[jonni2bad]

If you are overly concened about the £5k limit, then make you first claim for £4999 (or as close as you can with the charges). The limit is for charges only, not including interest and costs which will then take it over the 5k.

 

Pick a timeframe of , say, 6 years ago to 5 months ago (whatever timeframe gives you the closest to £4999) and then you could possibly make a separate, later claim for 6 months ago to present.

 

Don't have 2 claims running at the same time though.

 

If you know that you have seen all possible charges in the last 6 years, just proceed.

[dinghy]

Pick a timeframe of , say, 6 years ago to 5 months ago (whatever timeframe gives you the closest to £4999) and then you could possibly make a separate, later claim for 6 months ago to present.

 

I'd be careful doing this as it could be seen as an abuse of process, ie artificially trying to get it onto the small claims track. You may be better off dividing up the types of charges (ie overlimit / bounced cheque or direct debit / etc.) and/or across different accounts...

 

Don't have 2 claims running at the same time though.

 

I would agree with this... HSBC could request they be joined and or it could also be seen as an abuse of process

 

If you know that you have seen all possible charges in the last 6 years, just proceed.

As quickly as possible !!!!!

[jonni2bad]

...I'd be careful doing this as it could be seen as an abuse of process, ie artificially trying to get it onto the small claims track...

 

Wouldn't it only be the case (or shall we say a possibility) on the second claim? If it was argued in the 1st case, surely the claimant would be the one who decides what to claim for?

 

That's the reason I suggested £4999 - knowing the extra amount initially mentioned wasn't too much more than £5k would mean not risking a large quantity if the second failed...

 

I still believe the best option is to claim it all.

[skyrocket123]

Thanks for replying.

I just want to clarify that with the Small Claims track limit being £5k if I put in a claim for just under £5k for the charges when I fill in the Money claim form when I add the 8% which will take me well over 5k to practically £6k that won't affect my case being heard in the small claims court?

In short is it just the charges that need to be under £5k or the whole thing (charges + 8% interest + court costs)?

Sky x

[alanfromderby]

In order to qualify for Small Claims track the claim + interest, must be below £5,000.

 

However, going in with a claim between £5,000 and £10,000 would put you onto Fast Track. This has limited potential costs of £500, and has the advantage that you can request disclosure of documents from the defendant.

 

It is your call, but potentially it would be even more dangerous for a bank to risk going through Fast Track, than through Small Claims.

[skyrocket123]

Thanks Alanfromderby!

Something else to think about! Think I best buy that Patricia Pearl book!

One last thing (for now) I got the infor about my charges from the Online banking facility. Do I need my statements in paper format or can I just proceed? I just wonder if because I know the amount do I still need to get the hard copy as it were?

Sky x