Pirus vs HSBC

[Pirus]

Hi there,

 

What a great web site this is! Took me ages to finally find a site that offers good advice and has lots of people on who give good feedback and help.

 

I sent a letter off to HSBC asking for the charges made to my account over the past 6 years about 23 days ago so theres about 17 days left of the deadline.

 

I was just wondering though if anyone could advise me. I am 24 and from the age of about 20 I had a lot of money but had a bad gambling problem, I ran up a lot of debt and now I have stopped struggling to live and just decided to stop paying the stupid bills and go bankrupt when they finally decide to take me to court and stop the letters asking for money.

 

Will this stop me being able to claim my charges back? I had a 25k loan with HSBC and that is not being paid, will they simply ignore my letters or if I file a claim against them what will they do with the money? The amount of charges I paid over the past 6 years will be huge every month I was paying £60-£120.

 

Has anyone been in a similar situation or know of anyone who has? If so what was the result?

 

Cheers

 

Pirus

[make_me_happy]

You should be able to claim the unlawful charges anyhow. Just start by getting all your statements and listing the charges over the last 6 years.

[Pirus]

Cool that sounds great thanks for your reply. Just worried that I will go to all this trouble and they will just do the reports and say this is what we owe you, thank you we will take that as part payment for your loan.

[ladybird17]

I think you have to be prepared that they MAY do that, because this is your debt to them. I'm know there's more about this type of this situation somewhere, & I will try & find a thread, and in the meantime someone may come along and clarify this for you.

[ladybird17]

I have found this on another thread - I can't verify whether it is correct, but suspect it is.

 

"If you require payment by cheque you need to put that in your POC.

If you owe them money, that are within their rights to put your refund towards what you owe and give you the difference."

[Pirus]

Boooooooooo

 

Gutted now!

 

Not sure wether or not to continue with it as there will be no point.

[ladybird17]

BUMP

 

I'm bumping this up to see if someone confirms that what I've posted is correct.

[givememymoney]

I don't think that this is correct as you are making a legal claim against them they should pay you the money without any conditions attatched. They may try to attatch conditions to a settlement but you can refuse and insist that you are given a cheque for the full amount otherwise you proceed with your claim to court. Which they are unlikely to do and will settle with no conditions attached.

[Pirus]

Sounds promising, once again thank you all for posting and helping me out here. I will update this as soon as I (if I ever) get the statements back.

 

I didnt send them recorded delivery, will they use this to just ignore my letter do you think?

[givememymoney]

I wouldn't worry too much about that although it is preferable to use recorded delivery.

[Pirus]

Hello,

 

Its been over 40 days now and no letter of reply. The letter I first sent was not sent via recorded delivery.

 

What should I do now? Start all over again and send this one by recorded delivery or send them a different letter?

[lateralus]

Data Protection Act - Non-Compliance - Template Letters

if the 40 days has passed - take a look here.

also, you could ring hsbc and ask why you haven't received any statements yet. (i think they are snowed under - but that's no excuse for not fulfilling this request).

[Pirus]

To my surprise this morning the statements arrived. Well not all of them, only 2 years but I got another letter with my £10 fee returned saying "we note you did not request copy statements, however this is the only format in which the bank holds the information you require. For this reason duplicate statements have been ordered on your account. These will begin to arrive in seperate batches and will be with you shortly.

 

I sent off the letter yesterday saying they have not complied within the timescale which they havent, their dated letter is over the 40 day mark and I have only received 2 of the 6 years.

 

I am just looking through the old statements and it has each month:

 

Interest then underneath it saying: Total Charges to 13NOV2002 and most of these have £27.50. Is this a charge I can claim back, it doesnt say what its for just says total charges and no description.

[lateralus]

so put total charges on the list. read up on overdraft interest before you try to get it back - don't jsut add it on - that doesn't work - you need to use the advanced s/s if you want to reclaim the portion of the o/d interest relating to your charges. get back if you don't understand after reading up on it.

 

read this:: Charges description on statements - Please Read

 

i wrote a long description about overdraft interest last night on this thread :

Bonesy V Hsbc-grrrr

that may help you understand it.

[Pirus]

Does anyone know what the £27.50 charges are though? Has anyone ever had these? It doesnt have a description just says total charges and monthly date £27.50. Will this be a fee for going over my overdraft?

[lateralus]

every month when you put that card in the machine and ask for 25 and there is only 10 in there - they give you the 25 and charge you 27.50 for it. everytime you exceed your o/d limit - they charge you 27.50. and that is total charges.

[Pirus]

Will I be able to add that charge into the spreadsheet then?

 

Only got a few statements but that charge is on every single one every month lol

[pinkduchess]

yep, my claim is full of them

[Pirus]

lol got about 10 letters in the post today...

 

Total charges add up to £2552 over the last 4 years

 

Can anyone please upload the advanced spreadsheet as the links on the template site havent worked for ages for the spreadsheet

 

Or email it to me, my email is [email protected]

[Castlebest]

Hiya Pirus, the spreadsheet links are back up and running now.

 

pete

[Pirus]

When trying to access this page: http://www.cag-files.co.uk/barracad/Spreadsheets/England/Complex-bank-charges-calc.xls

 

 

I get this message

 

Server not found

 

Firefox can't find the server at http://www.cag-files.co.uk

* Check the address for typing errors such as

ww.example.com instead of

Example Web Page

 

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network

connection.

 

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure

that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

[lateralus]

is it spreadsheets - try this one:

Sticky: 6. Interest calculation spreadsheets

[Pirus]

Thanks for the link lateralus!

 

I have filled in the form now, total comes to £2552 + £514.66 interest.

 

I will removed the interest and send away the spreadsheet with the other letter in the templates page.

 

Very much doubt they will give me anything because I owe the money from loans but its worth a try!

[Pirus]

Hi people,

 

Just got back from my holiday in America and have found this letter waiting for me when I got back. Does anyone know my options? Do they have to pay it off the debt I owe them or is it possible just to claim this money directly back off them? And the total funds I charged them for was £2552 + £514 interest, they are offering £2160.70. I owe them about £20,000 so it will make no difference really what money they get form it because I am going bankrupt shortly. The way I see it, this money was mine and that if they had not have taken it I would not have been in such a bad situation. If I want this money to be paying off debts I want it to pay off debts that I choose not what they choose.

 

Dear Mr Pirus

Thank you for your recent letter requesting a refund of your bank charges of £2552.00 passed during the last six years.

 

In circumstances where you would like us to make a payment that would, if met by us, lead to your account going overdrawn or over an agreed overdraft limit, we have to consider wheter to make this payment. A fee is payable for this service provided by the bank, details of which are set out in our Personal Banking terms and conditions which you have already received. If your claim for a refund proceeded to Court, we therefore beleive we would successfully resist any legal challenge in relation to these fees.

 

We are, however, midnful of the management time and irrecoverable legal costs that may be incurred in relation to such a claim. For those commercial reasons alone, and without any admission of liablity whatsoever, we are prepared to make a payment to you for the sum of £2160.70 in full and final settlement of this matter. This represents our offer in respect of the charges applied up to and including 20th July 2006.

 

If you accept this proposal please sing and return the enclosed acceptance form within fourteen working days.

 

As you have an outstanding debt with the bank, the payment will be used to reduce the amount you owe.

 

If we do not receive your signed acceptance within this timescale, we will take it that you have declined our offer.

 

I have that this matter has now been addressed to your satisfaction. However, should this not be the case, the attached guidance sheet explains the next steps available to you.

 

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

[lateralus]

"If you accept this proposal please sing" -

I'm trying to decide which song would be best..............

 

 

The idea here is this - you have more than one product from the bank, right? well, if you are missing payments on one product then the bank is within their rights to offset money from one product to make up the shortfall on another product (mortgage, overdraft, credit card payments, etc).

They have made a fairly standard 85% offer (hsbc never pays interest until the claim is filed in court).

So, I'd usually advise people in this position to reject the offer and carry on with the claim - however - i'm thinking that may not be wise in your case for a couple of reasons.

You may be aware of the news that the OFT is going to go for a test case and everything may be grinding to a halt on cases where the claim isn't yet filed - this is such new info that we aren't entirely sure but that seems like the most likely outcome - so a resolution would be aways down the line - even at best - a claim at your stage wouldn't now be finished until probably near xmas - so consider the time frame. You mention that you may be going for bankruptsy - i'm thinking you might want to take the offer and put that money out of reach.

it's an offer - so - accept it (if that's what you choose to do) on your terms - for example:

 

 

 

Date

Dear Whoever

Ref: Your Offer of Settlement

 

Account: xxxxxxxx

Sort Code xx-xx-xx

 

I acknowledge receipt of your letter date xx/xx/xx and your settlement offer of £XXX

 

I accept your offer as full and final settlement only for this claim of bank charges made on my account between xx/xx/xx and xx/xx/xx(dates of first and last charge) on the following conditions:

 

I will be willing to withdraw my claim upon receipt of unconditional full settlement of my claim. Please be advised that I require payment in the form of a cheque made out to myself and said cheque to be received from you within the next 10 days.

 

I am also not prepared to agree to any confidentially clauses you try to impose, unless of course you wish to make an offer of due consideration in addition to the amount of £xxxxx, in order to be afforded this privilege by myself.

 

I trust that you will find this arrangement acceptable.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not telling you what to do here Pirus - I'm pointing out an option that I think you should consider.