ebod_vs_HSBC

[ebod_files]

Greetings to all,

 

I am about to send up my LBA to the listening bank but since my prelim letter, they have levied additional charges to my account for going overdrawn but it seems they now class and describe these charges differently than previous.

 

They wrote me 13 April to say "I am pleased to advice that we have agreed your recent informal request for an overdraft.... An informal overdraft request occurs when you authorise a payment from your account that, if made by us, would exceed your formal overdraft limit....An arrangement fee may be payable for this informal overdraft and any subsequent requests that we agree. We will pre notify you of any such fees before they are passed. Every informal overdraft we agree to may cost you an Arrangement Fee." and subsequently on my online statement I have received "NOTIFIED FEES/CHARGES" and "OVERDRAFT CHARGE".

 

I am including these charges in my updated schedule in the LBA.

 

Rgds,

ebod

[pinkduchess]

hello ebod & welcome

 

its just their new name for it - still a charge & claimable.

 

you can add on any extra charges right up until you file your claim.

 

send the updated schedule

 

good luck

[ebod_files]

Hi all,

 

As expected I received no response from my updated LBA so I submitted a claim form to my local court on Monday requesting charges (going back over 6 years ago by a month or so) totalling 1228.50 + interest of 358.73 + court fee 120 = 1707.23

 

Today I've received a response from HSBC (dated 22 June, hmm wonder what they were waiting for...) which reads as follows:

 

"Dear me,

 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

 

Thank you for your letter dated xxx requesting a refund of your bank charges of 1228.50 passed during the last 6 years.

 

In circumstances where you would like us to make a payment from your account that would, if met by us, lead to your account going overdrawn or over an agreed overdraft limit, we have to consider whether to make this payment. A fee is payable for this service provided by the bank, details of which are set out in our published price list. The circumstances in which the fee will apply 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 believe we would successfully resist any legal challenge in relation to these fees.

 

We are, however, mindful 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 liability whatsoever, we are prepared to make a payment to you for the sum of 1056.15 in full and final settlement of this matter. This represents our offer in respect of the charges applied up to and including 19 June 2007.

 

We are not however prepared to refund certain charges for the following reasons:

 

Charges applied more than six years ago

 

We have noticed that your claim goes back more than six years. We will not consider any claim over six years old given that it is time barred under the Limitation Act 1980. Therefore, our proposal does not include those charges applied more than six years ago.

 

If you accept this proposal please sign and return the enclosed acceptance form within ten working days and we will arrange for a refund to be made to you....

I hope 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...which goes on to say...if you wish to escalate your concerns to the next stage, you can write to the Senior Manager of our Service Quality Team, at the following address..."

 

 

I've already spent 120 on the court fee so if I accept this offer and cancel the claim I'm down to 936.15 whereas if I reject the offer and continue with my claim I could potentially stand to reclaim all my charges, plus interest and get my court fee refunded.

 

I'd like to ask the advice of the group. What is the likelihood of being able to get the charges back past the 6 years.

 

Cheers,

 

ebod

[ebod_files]

After spending hours of reading threads I will be rejecting the HSBC offer and continue with the claim I'd already issued and see what happens.

 

Is it worth responding to HSBC's half-arsed offer detailing my argument? even though this has now gone to the courts and is going to be handed over to their solicitors?

 

Cheers,

 

ebod

[pinkduchess]

yes send a rejection letter Rejecting Offers

[ebod_files]

excellent, thanks again pinkdutchess

[ebod_files]

Alright peeps,

 

Today I received notice from my local court (Newport, IOW) that the defendant filed an acknowledgement of Service on 9 July.

 

So DG now have 28 days as from when my claim form was filed (27/6) so they've got untill the 25th to file their defence.

 

Please would anyone advise me what I should be doing now, while waiting for the next step?

[pinkduchess]

they have 28 days from the date deemed served - did you get a notice of issue - this has the deemed served date on it.

 

did you file directly at your court? if so they will already have copies of your schedule of charges.

 

have you sent DG copies of your schedule? if not use the template below

 

the following 2 links tell you what can happen after the 28 days.When you have filed your AQ................

New---after 28 Days - Maybe No Aq!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Wait until you receive the Notice of Acknowledgement (not the Notice of Issue) from the court and then send a copy to the bank’s solicitors, since they are the ones who will now be dealing with your claim

DG's details will be on page 2 of the acknowl.

 

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

(Your Name) -v- (Bank)

Claim No: ********

Date Issued: xx/xx/xx

 

Please find enclosed a copy of my schedule of charges relating to the above claim.

 

(If, and only if, you are claiming overdraft interest on your penalties, also include this paragraph)

 

 

I understand you have a policy of initially rejecting claims for overdraft interest. However, should this be the case after you have reviewed my claim, you should be aware that my claim for overdraft interest has been meticulously calculated and double checked. It only ever relates to the cumulative charges within the overdrawn balance of the account at the point that the overdraft interest was debited

 

If it is that in your view the interest is not claimable, I am prepared to discuss this with yourseves and the judge in court.

 

Yours sincerely,

[ebod_files]

they have 28 days from the date deemed served - did you get a notice of issue - this has the deemed served date on it.

 

did you file directly at your court? if so they will already have copies of your schedule of charges.

 

have you sent DG copies of your schedule? if not use the template below

 

the following 2 links tell you what can happen after the 28 days.When you have filed your AQ................

New---after 28 Days - Maybe No Aq!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Wait until you receive the Notice of Acknowledgement (not the Notice of Issue) from the court and then send a copy to the bank’s solicitors, since they are the ones who will now be dealing with your claim

DG's details will be on page 2 of the acknowl.

 

 

 

Ah, my notice of issue states the claim is deemed to be served on the 29 June so the 28 days that DH can file a defence starts from then.

 

I do have the Notice of Acknowledgement of service so will now contact DG for the first time with my schedule of charges.

 

Thanks for holding my hand

[ebod_files]

 

Date Issued: xx/xx/xx

 

 

Just a quick one pd, should I be putting here the date the claim was issued (27 June) or the date that the court deems it to be served (29 June)

 

ta

[pinkduchess]

dont think it really matters - i used the date i actually submitted my mcol

[Castlebest]

as long as you have your claim number listed you should be fine

 

pete

[ebod_files]

Great.

 

Just looking at my schedule of charges that I submitted to court, compared to the one I am going to be sending to DG. The 8% interest rate has increased because of the time lapsed from 358.73 at the time of the claim to 364.41 now.

 

Before I panic I'm just wanting to check if this is okay to send this schedule of charges with the updated 8% interest calculated?

 

ta

[jowalshy]

what I did was use the original spreadsheet that agrees with your court claim and then added at the bottom the number of days since the claim was filed and multiplied this by the daily interest amount. I then added this to the original claim figure and called it "Claim To Date"

[ebod_files]

cool, thanks

[ebod_files]

Alright peeps,

 

I called my local court today to find out what was happening and DG filed a defense on the day of their deadline.

 

It's now been referred to the district judge (who visits the county court here in Newport, IOW on a Tuesday and Thursday) to decide on the course of action, so I wait with trepidation for the directions...

[ebod_files]

Got this through from my court.

UPON reading the file

AND upon it appearing that the issues in this case are to be considered in litigation commenced by the Office of Fair Trading against certain banks in the High Court of Justice, Commercial Court, 2007 Folio 1186, to be heard during January and/or February 2008 ("the OFT test case")

AND upon the court of its own initiative pusuant to CPR Part 3.3

 

IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. The claim be stayed forthwith pending the final determination of the OFT test case. Such final determination shall include any appeal.

2. Permission to apply to lift the stay or to set aside or vary this order within 28 days of the service of the same. Any application shall be on notice to all other parties and shall be supported by a statement setting out why this claim should proceed before the final determination of the OFT test case. Any such application shall be listed before the Designated Civil Judge sitting at Winchester unless specifically released by him.

3. Unless the court has already given directions, any party may and the defendant shall, within three months of the final determination of the OFT test case, apply for directions for the future conduct of this action. Such directions shall be sought from a District or Deputy District Judge sitting at the County Court where the claim is proceeding.

 

I don't want to wait until Feb for a decision, so will probably request for this to be lifted. Please would somebody advise what is likely to happen next if I request a lift, and what would happen from there?

[freakyleaky]

You must apply for the removal of stay, Use the links in my sig. You must give the reasons why you think the stay should be removed. You can state any facts that might show your case to be one of hardship if the case is not resolved sooner rather than later. There is a template letter to use in the links but you can add you own reasons aswell. I will post some more useful links for you in just a mo!

[freakyleaky]

Also see post 197 of pete's thread Castelbest II - Return To The Claims

[ebod_files]

Right then, I've applied to lift the stay.

Fingers crossed!

[jowalshy]

and toes and eyes and legs.

 

 

Good luck..

[ebod_files]

No response from the court yet about my application to lift the stay, but yesterday received a letter from DG Solicitors from Jason Newbold.

 

Dear Madam, (lol)

 

We refer to the above matter. You have referred your complaint about bank charges for determination in Court.

 

We are confident that HSBC's charges are fair, transparent and lawful.

 

Since you filed your claim in Court HSBC (along with a number of other banks) has become involved in legal proceedings with the Office of Fair Trading ("OFT") in relation to bank charges which we believe will resolve the legal issues regarding the fairness and legality of your bank charges.

 

If it has not already been stayed, we will be applying to the Court for an order to stay your action until resolution of the bank's proceedings with the OFT.

 

Given the court case our client has also asked for Financial Ombudsman Service ("FOS") not to proceed with any other case they are hearing until the test case is resolved. FOS has indicated that as a general proposition it will indeed not proceed with cases which rely on the legal issues being considered in the test case.

 

Our client asked the Financial Services Authority ("FSA") to suspend the normal timetable for dealing with bank charges complaints, and the FSA has agreed to this request subject to conditions that protect your rights.

 

We will keep you updated appropriately about the proceedings with the OFT. You can also check the latest position on our client's web site at hsbc.co.uk

 

We have registered and stored your complaint. Please retain your bank records, as this will make it easier for you to support your complaint on resolution of the test case. Once the legal proceedings between the OFT and the banks finish, our client will resolve your complaint as quickly as possible.

 

We will ensure that your claim will not be adversely affected by the stay of your court proceedings.

 

Yours faithfully

DG

 

Should I respond to DG or just wait for the court to respond?

[ebod_files]

Blast,

 

Received a letter from the court,

 

I am writing to inform you that your application was referred to a Judge who has stated that as per paragraph 2 of the stay order of 14th august if you the claimant wish to make an application to lift the stay then you must make an application to the designated civil judge.

 

 

Blast I sent my application to the wrong judge - and now the date limit has passed,

 

Is there any chance now to still apply for a lift, or will I have to wait??

Experiencing real financial hardship...

[Castlebest]

Got this through from my court.

 

UPON reading the file

AND upon it appearing that the issues in this case are to be considered in litigation commenced by the Office of Fair Trading against certain banks in the High Court of Justice, Commercial Court, 2007 Folio 1186, to be heard during January and/or February 2008 ("the OFT test case")

AND upon the court of its own initiative pursuant to CPR Part 3.3

 

IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. The claim be stayed forthwith pending the final determination of the OFT test case. Such final determination shall include any appeal.

 

2. Permission to apply to lift the stay or to set aside or vary this order within 28 days of the service of the same. Any application shall be on notice to all other parties and shall be supported by a statement setting out why this claim should proceed before the final determination of the OFT test case. Any such application shall be listed before the Designated Civil Judge sitting at Winchester unless specifically released by him.

 

Where does it state that? it says they will list it before the Designated Civil Judge sitting at Winchester for him to consider it not you have to address it to him.

 

3. Unless the court has already given directions, any party may and the defendant shall, within three months of the final determination of the OFT test case, apply for directions for the future conduct of this action. Such directions shall be sought from a District or Deputy District Judge sitting at the County Court where the claim is proceeding.

 

 

I would query why they have said that

 

pete

[ebod_files]

In my N244 I think I put DISTRICT instead of CIVIL on part 5 Level of Judge...