about to start a claim against hsbc

[fish77]

my partner is about to start a claim against hsbc, i've printed the data protection subject access request letter and sent it off today along with a cheque for £10

 

to cut a long story short, she gets paid fortnightly and occassionly goes overdrawn for a few days before payday, the bank won't agree to an overdraft and the charges have been making things worse, on her last payday they took £150 in charges so she's had to go around 12 days with no money

 

she's opened a new bank account (with yorkshire bank) and had her wages and direct debits switched over, today she recieved this letter from hsbc

 

14 June 2007

 

Dear Miss Carr

 

Account Details ****** ********

 

I regret to inform you that we have today declined your informal overdraft request(s) detailed below:

 

Direct Debit £11.71 Payee - ***********

Direct Debit £5.17 Payee - ***********

 

An imformal overdraft occurs when you authorise a payment from your account that, if made by us, would take you overdrawn.

 

Direct Debits are usually claimed within a fortnight by the payees.

 

We have also charged you a fee of £10.00 for the service we have provided in considering and declining your informal overdraft request.

 

We require your proposals for the repayment of £42.11. Please contact us immediately so that we can discuss your repayment options.

 

In the absence of funds being paid in to your account, we are likely to decline any further overdraft requests you make by issuing cheques, standing orders or Direct Debits or attempting to pay for goods or services using your debit card. We may charge a service fee for considering and declining each of these requests and cannot guarantee that we will contact you on every occasion.

 

If you do nothing we may take further action, which may include:

 

Cancellation of your debit card and chequebok

Issuing of a Formal Demand notice for full repayment of your borrowing

 

at the moment she is leaving the account open until the claim is sorted out and then it will be closed but is there anything she can do about this demand for £42.11 which has only occured because of the unfair £150 in charges they took two weeks ago?

 

thanks for any help

[PPMAN159]

Has she phoned HSBC to explain the situation and to see if they are prepared to refund all or any of the above charges?

[Guest ConsumersRevenge]

I am saddened to hear this account. However, sadly, HSBC is a dreadful organisation and as many of the large banks, are in the practise of adding 'ILLEGAL' charges to the accounts of customers which do result in financial difficulties. Advise HSBC (The world's local bank, assuming you are in india) that this charge is directly resultant of thier illegal penalty charges, and your claim will be ammended to include the £42.11.

[jowalshy]

How did they get the figure of £42.11? Is your friend able to pay anything into the account in order to leave a small balance there until she is ready to close the account. Also I noticed that she has sent a SAR letter. Is she able to go online and get her statements that way. If she hasn't registered already, get her to do it now. It may save some time. Once you have all the statements, as ConsumersRevenge has said, just add the charge to your claim.

[Castlebest]

Ignore the overdraft as it is a direct result of HSBC's unlawful (not illegal) charges. Write a letter to HSBC stating this and telling them you will clear the overdraft when they pay back your charges.

pete

[fish77]

my partner was at work all morning and didn't have chance to phone them, anyway she's just been to see a friend who's an independant financial advisor and he's spoken to someone at HSBC on her behalf and let them know that we're starting proceedings to claim back the unfair charges and that she wants the account freezing until everything is sorted so no more charges are incurred which they've agreed to

 

the majority of the £42 will be wiped out tomorrow as my partner was too late changing the account our child benefit is paid in to, so i think the account will be frozen at around £12 overdrawn once the child benefit has gone in

 

the woman he spoke to has also arranged to have a complete set of bank charges on the account sent out within the next 40 days but has said they may not all be sent out at once, she also gave us an address for the HSBC service quality team in leeds plus an email address to contact once she's got the list of charges, i still have the S.A.R letter and cheque as i was going to send them recorded delivery and haven't had time to go to the post office yet, is it still worth me posting it or should we trust their word and wait for them to send the details out like they've said they will? (we have details of the phone conversation, date, time and person spoken to)

 

hopefully everything is settled for now, i'll post back once we've sent them the preliminary letter

[Guest ConsumersRevenge]

Glad to hear you're sorted. And yes, charges UNLAWFUL NOT ILLEGAL (I was pulled up on this again) and I do sometimes get on my high horse, and just let language run away with me. Banks make me really mad, especially when they are arrogent and useless. Upset nobody liked my joke about HSBC being the local bank though.

[freakyleaky]

Don't be upset! It just wasn't funny! LOL

[Guest ConsumersRevenge]

Damn - my jokes are bad... I guess i'll have to find 'Another Way' to make people laugh... Perhaps by not using the banks' tag lines in (un)amusing ways.... Now there's a thought

[jowalshy]

I thought it was amusing CR. . But that is my sense of humour.

[fish77]

she's recieved another letter this morning saying there's gonna be another charge of £125 on the account

 

i've not seen it yet so don't know if it's dated before her financial advisor spoke to them on the phone and got the account frozen, they spoke to them around 2.00pm on monday so is there any chance it could've been printed off monday morning? like the letter she recieved monday was dated 4 days previous

 

anyhow i'm not too bothered as it'll hopefully all be claimed back

[fish77]

we've sent off the preliminary request and recieved a reply yesterday saying basically all claims are on hold due to the test case

 

i take it i still need to send the letter before action now then file the court claim after 14 days to keep to my timetable?

[Castlebest]

Yes the recomendation here is stick to your timetable all the info you need is in this thread (leads to a new forum)

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/111130-new-forum-stays.html

 

You could also add something along the following lines to your letter

 

"as you are waiting for the result of the test case to clarify the lawfulness of these bank charges I trust that all future charges are also now suspended untill their lawfullness is established"

 

pete

[vandermerwe]

Hi Fish 77. My scene exactly, so appreciate the note of your experiences.

 

I'm a bit mystified as to the difference between 'unlawful' and 'illegal', but then, as they say IANAL.

 

No single person I have ever spoken to at HSBC seems to have any authority. I got through once to my local branch - I think more by luck than judgement - and got £250 refunded but the letter you quote in your first post is what is termed a 'template' letter and will undoubtedly continue to suggest seeking advice from various sources including the local library, (patronising schmucks)

 

I called one of the sources and they told me, in no uncertain terms, to get a parachute account for all incoming monies and sue them.

 

Quite good advice I thought as I mentally envisaged that highly regarded body being deleted from their list of recommendations.

 

You also mention 'child benefit'. That's a state benefit and supposedly subject to rights of first appropriation under the Social Security Act 1962.

 

Suggest you search the site for 'banks taking state benefits' or similar.

 

And, finally, Pete - of course they'll suspend all further charges until the whole can of worms is sorted out....won't they?

 

Good luck to all.

 

Vandermerwe