jade vs HSBC

[thunderpuss2k]

Hi Jade. Just doing my MCOL for HSBC in preparation for pushing the button tomorrow. Which bit are you stuck with? For address, I'd use their 8 Canada Square address, which is the registered address for HSBC Bank plc. Just pop in E14 5HQ into the postcode lookup thingy on Moneyclaim and it should do the rest.

[thunderpuss2k]

Hi there guys,

I sent the LBA off as i had not heard anything from HSBC and i know they received it on the 12th.

The reply i got from them was a reply to the prelim letter and it was dated the 13th July the day after they received LBA so...... do i start the claim now or wait the full 14days until the LBA is up???

Jade

 

If you sent the LBA off and it was delivered on 12th, then you need to give them 14 days from 12th (ie 26th). However, if they reply to your LBA and say 'this is our final response on the matter', or words to that effect, you could just carry on and start the claim straight away. Up to you..

[thunderpuss2k]

Hi Jade

 

Are you using Moneyclaim to issue your claim? If so, here's the info you'll need:

 

Claimant details:

 

Type of claimant: Individual

Surname, Forename: self explanatory

Organisations Name: leave blank

Address details: Your address

Service address: leave this blank under most circumstances

 

Defendant details:

 

Type of defendant: Organisation

Surname, Forename: leave blank

Organisation Name: HSBC Bank plc

 

Address details: HSBC, 8 Canada Square, London E14 5HQ

 

Particulars of Claim: (change the stuff in red)

 

I had/have a bank account with HSBC (SORT CODE/ACCOUNT NUMBER) conducted on their standard terms and conditions. I am claiming return of money taken by the defendant in way of charges between (MONTH/YEAR OF FIRST CHARGE) and (MONTH/YEAR OF LAST CHARGE), total £(TOTAL). These charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforcable as they are contrary to common law. Further, as a disproportionate penalty they are invalid under the Unfair (Contracts) Terms Act 1977 s4 and under the Unfair Terms in Consumer

Contracts Regulations 1999 para 8 and sch2(1)e. In the event the charges are not a penalty then they are unreasonable within the meaning of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 s15. I have repeatedly asked the bank to justify their charges but they have declined to do so. I also claim interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from (DATE OF FIRST CHARGE) to (DATE OF YOUR CLAIM) of £(TOTAL INTEREST FIGURE FROM YOUR SPREADSHEET) and also interest at the same rate up to the

date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of £(TOTAL CHARGES FIGURE FROM YOUR SPREADSHEET MULTIPLIED BY 0.00022)

 

 

Does or will your claim include any issues under the Human Rights Act 1998?

NO

 

Do you want to reserve the right to claim interest?

YES

 

 

 

Amount claimed: TOTAL CHARGES + INTEREST FIGURE FROM YOUR SPREADSHEET

 

 

 

Court fee: (hit calculate)

 

 

 

Solicitor's costs: LEAVE BLANK

 

Total amount: (hit calculate)

 

Statement of truth:

 

 

 

I am the claimant, etc

 

 

 

Signed: (Your initials and surname)

[thunderpuss2k]

 

Me too.. if the postman would deliver before 11am then I could get the MCOL done now and issued today, but hey ho. Maybe I should sue Royal Mail for crap service?

[thunderpuss2k]

I've started a petition to close down my local sub post office, in response to the sub postmasters one to save it. Does that count?

[thunderpuss2k]

wow thank you thunderpuss that really helps.

just a note on the statement of truth thing. what do i put. I am the claimant... jade is that it?? or is there a specific text for that bit??

 

thanks again for helping make it clearer.

 

 

Jade

 

No worries. It's a radio button thingy where you can select either you're the claimant or the claimants solicitor. Just click on 'I'm the claimant' circle button thingy and then in the box where it asks you to sign put your initials and surname. Simple as

[thunderpuss2k]

another questions... im about to fill out the spreadsheet for 8% interest and for some reason it says you need to know your actually balance at the point of each charge

 

Depends what spreadsheet you're using. The one I've got just asks for item, date, amount - then it calculates the interest and days since charge automagically.

 

I used the one here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/182-interest-calculation-spreadsheets.html

[thunderpuss2k]

Hi Jade,

 

When you wrote your preliminary letter and letter before action, did you attach a spreadsheet? If so, what did it contain? Your charge descriptions are very non-descript as you said, within your statements you should see inidividual figures that make up that 'charges to xxx date'. You'll need to use those, as opposed to the total charges each month.

[thunderpuss2k]

8th is fine. Have you got all your figures in order and ready for making the claim?

[thunderpuss2k]

No you don't cut and paste it in to the little box, it wouldn't fit anyway

[thunderpuss2k]

Sorry, got cut short by an emergency trip to feed someones cat

 

Will post properly after I've had some food and stuff, back in a bit

[thunderpuss2k]

Right then.

 

You know that post I made a while back with what you should put in your 'particulars of claim'? That's what needs to go in the box.

 

The purpose of your spreadsheet is to detail every single charge transaction, the date it occured, how much it was for, and then it'll automatically work out the days since the money was debited and how much interest at 8% you're owed under the County Courts Act.

 

also the spreadsheet has a long example of figures etc if i delete these will it still calculate correctly??

 

You shouldn't have had these in there in the first place Lets go back a few steps here.. what did you send with your preliminary letter and LBA? It should have been a copy of said spreadsheet. The total interest you're claiming is the total of the interest column between the date of the first charge and the date you put the claim in, then a daily rate of whatever your claim is (not including the court fees and the interest!) multiplied by 0.00022. Round that up or down to something sensible so you have xx pence or xx.xx pounds, and that goes into the bit about interest at the end.

 

I think that should help. Hopefully! Been a long day so sorry if it's not too clear - but just shout if you need it explained a bit more.

[thunderpuss2k]

the rate of interest x 0.00022 =0.0342254 how am i supposed to put this in there. 34p??

 

??????

There's four figures you need to work out for your claim.

 

[1] Total of all your bank charges.

[2] Interest at 8% from the date they began to today on 1. (your spreadsheet should have worked that out).

[3] Court fee

[4] Daily interest rate

 

The total claim amount is [1]+[2]. Put that on your particulars of claim. Then the interest [4] is [1] x 0.00022. If it's come out at 0.0342254 then [4] is 3.42p a day, but round it down for simplicity. [edit: I can't count this evening, have fixed it now!]

 

The grand total will work itself out automatically as [1]+[2]+[3]. [4] isn't included in the claim itself as it will increase day by day, and thus won't be a fixed claim. That causes untold trouble, and confuses the hell out of Court staff (especially if you work in Brentford County Court, where I had the pleasure of being today sorting something else out).

[thunderpuss2k]

Tidy up the formatting, and pull it all together so it looks like one whole paragraph. The site is particularly fussy about number of lines as well. Also I've shortened your claim slightly, see below..

 

I had a bank account with HSBC xxxxxxx conducted on their standard terms and conditions.I am claiming return of money taken by the defendant in way of charges between Feb 02 and Apr 03, total £510.

These charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforcable as they are contrary to a common law. Further,as a disproportionate penalty they are invalid under the unfair(contracts) terms Act 1977 s4 and under the Unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations 1999 para8 and sch2(1)e.In the event the charges are not a penalty then they are unreasonable within the meaning of the supply of goods and services act 1982 s15. I have repeatedly asked the bank to justify their charges but they have declined to do so. I also claim interest under section 69 of the county courts act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 7/2/02 until 8/8/06 of £155.57 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of 11p

[thunderpuss2k]

thanks for that. everything done and ive taken the charges without interest and multiplied them gave me 0.1122 so is that 11p per day then??

 

Yep.

[thunderpuss2k]

"been a long day" i hear on that one

 

It's only Tuesday, but feels like Friday.. which means tomorrow will feel like Monday, and so it goes on!

[thunderpuss2k]

wooohooo my first claim of many down, completed...almost.... can someone please direct me where to look for what to do next??

 

oh and do i put my claim no on the site somewhere dont i??

 

 

jade ;-) ;-)

 

Here's what happens next.

 

MCOL will issue your claim from Northampton County Court, if all goes according to plan, tomorrow morning. They'll post it, and then five days later it'll be 'deemed to be served' - ie the defendent would have received it. It's supposed to be less than that (it's actually set down in black and white), but MCOL can't count apparently. No really.

 

Once that five days is up, they have 14 days to file either a defence, or an acknowledgement of service. That AOS gives them a further 14 days before they have to enter a defence. Whatever happens, the maximum time they have is 28 days from the date of service to file a defence.

 

Hopefully by that time you'll get a letter from DG Solicitors offering you the full amount in return for your silence forever more. Tell them to sod off on the confidentiality (unless you want to take it), and if the offer is right take it. Then you should contact MCOL and withdraw the claim (assuming you've got your money and it's cleared).

 

That's the gist of it..

[thunderpuss2k]

PS: and to get your claim listed (you don't have to, but it's nice to see it up in lights so to speak) on the site, just PM a moderator.

[thunderpuss2k]

It's not too difficult to change the service address with Moneyclaim, just give them a call. Then call them again 24 hours later just in case they forgot to do it. Also might be worth calling 3-4 days later to make sure they remembered what you said about reminding them when you called the second time. They can be a bit forgetful sometimes, from previous experience.

 

Also I'd recommend Royal Mail redirection. Takes a little while to get going, but worth having - plus not hugely expensive.

[thunderpuss2k]

Don't panic it's a standard thing. Buys them a little more time, nothing more.

[thunderpuss2k]

Try this:

 

DG Solicitors

12 Calthorpe Road

Edgbaston

Birmingham B15 1QZ

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

[DATE]

Dear Sirs

Re: [YOUR NAME] –v- HSBC BANK PLC

[COURT NAME] County Court, Claim No. [CLAIM NUMBER]

Your reference: [THEIR REFERENCE FROM THE LETTER]

Thank you for your letter dated [DATE], offering an ex-gratia payment of £[AMOUNT] in full and final settlement of the above claim.

I am willing to accept the above offer in exchange for terminating this action, however this is subject to the following conditions:

1. I do not accept your request for confidentiality. Such a request would require a separate contract between both parties, which would, in turn, require irrecoverable time and legal costs to be incurred. In addition, I am mindful of the fact that certain information may be made available by the County Court to third parties, either under standard disclosure procedures, or the Freedom of Information Act, so therefore I would not be able to guarantee the confidentiality of information contained in this case.

2. Payment must be made, by way of cheque or bank transfer, in cleared funds, within 14 days of the date of this letter.

I trust that this is acceptable to both you and your client, and look forward to your confirmation that payment has been arranged.

Yours sincerely

etc