Steve vs. HSBC - offer received, please help

[stephen81]

I'm currently at the AQ stage and have returned mine by the deadline of 18 June. I received a notice from the court saying the bank have until 10 July to return their's (see http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/31019-steve-hsbc.html#post965849)

 

This morning I received an offer from DG of my £260 charges plus 8% statutory interest and my £50 court fee coming to £357.10. The offer doesn't include overdraft interest.

 

Dear Sir

We are instucted by HSBC Bank plc in respect of the claim you have recently issued in relation to charges levied on your account in the period from 7 January 2005 to 30 April 2007.

HSBC is entirely confident that its charges are reasonable, are properly and fully disclosed in its terms and conditions and published price list and you must have been aware that you would incur such charges depending on how you managed your financial affairs. HSBC is confident that it was entitled to apply these charges and that it would successfully resist your claim in the Courts.

We note that you are seeking on your Claim Form to claim overdraft interest in addition to the refund of charges. You should be aware that even without the charges being applied you would still have incurred overdraft interest and it is a basic condition of borrowing that you should pay interest on monies borrowed. Should you wish to pursue this avenue of your claim, please confirm to us the legal basis, together with supporting case law, of your claim recovery of debit interest applied to your account whilst it was in a state of overdraft. For the avoidance of doubt, no offer will be made in relation to such interest charges.

We also note that you are seeking on your Claim Form to recover interest at 18.3%. It is unclear upon what basis you seek to recover interest at this rate. Please provide us with the legal basis of your claim in this respect together with the supporting case law. For the avoidance of doubt, our client will not entertain a claim in this respect, and your claim for interest at this rate is noted and denied.

HSBC is, however, mindful of the management time and irrecoverable legal costs associated with litigation in the small claims regime. For those commercial reasons alone, and without any admission of liability whatsoever, HSBC is prepared to make an ex gratia payment to you in the sum of £357.10. This payment includes any court fees you have paid as well as statutory interest at a rate of 8% per annum. It is our opinion that the statutory interest rate of 8% per annum pursuant to s69 County Court Act 1984, is adequate recompense in respect of the charges from the date they were applied to the date of your claim. We do not believe that you are entitled to any interest over and above the Court statutory rate. If you believe this to be the case then please confirm to us the relevant legislation which you intend to rely on.

Payment is made in full and final settlement of your claims arising from the charges applied to your accout in the period referred to above and by accepting this payment you agree not to make any other claims relating to charges for the period stipulated above. HSBC also, reasonably, requires your confirmation that you will treat this payment as confidential.

If you accept this propsal please sign and return the enclosed copy of this letter to us and we will arrange for a refund to be made to you.

 

After reading the more recent developments on contractual interest I would accept an offer with just the 8% statutory interest instead of the 18.3% I've requested but I obviously will not be accepting an offer unless it includes the overdraft interest too and will not accept the confidentiality clause. What should my next move be?

 

I'm thinking I could maybe phone them, explain I will not be accepting the offer they've made but that if they make an offer including my overdraft interest then I will settle for the 8% statutory interest instead of the 18.3% I've requested? Does that seem like a sensible way forward to start with? Obviously I won't formally accept an offer unless it's made in writing but it may move things along a bit quicker?

 

Or should I just reply in writing? If so is e-mail acceptable and does anyone have an e-mail address for them as there isn't one on the letter?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Castlebest]

Hiya Steve, you are in exactly the same situation that Maangov was in last week, have a look at this from post #78 onwards

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/hsbc-bank/54032-maangov-hsbc.html

 

pete

[stephen81]

Looking at that thread it appears the phone call to discuss their offer did the trick. I think I'll give that a try first and see what DG say.

[Castlebest]

Hiya Steve, try email and fax too, DG being DG you will probably have problems talking to an actual human unless they phone you.

 

pete

[chunkylinc]

Hi Steve,

 

Hope it all goes Ok for you, im virtually in the same position as you, and are trying to get DG to agree to pay the overdraft interest, I'll watch with baited breath to see how you get on... Good luck contacting them...

 

Dan

[stephen81]

Hi Steve,

 

Hope it all goes Ok for you, im virtually in the same position as you, and are trying to get DG to agree to pay the overdraft interest, I'll watch with baited breath to see how you get on... Good luck contacting them...

 

Dan

 

I e-mailed them last week asking them to phone me so I could discuss their letter. They did actually phone me back the next morning. Once I explained to the girl that the o/d interest I was claiming was only the interest on the charges part of my overdraft, not the interest on my genuine overdraft, she said she would go back to HSBC and get back in touch with me. I've heard nothing more though. Today was the deadline for them submitting their AQ so I will ring the court tomorrow if I get a chance to check if they have done so.

[Castlebest]

Confirm your discussion with DG back to DG in writing too, did you gat the name of the person you spoke to ?

 

pete

[stephen81]

Confirm your discussion with DG back to DG in writing too, did you gat the name of the person you spoke to ?

 

pete

 

I've today received an e-mail from [email protected] (the girl that phoned me last week) saying her client has "confirmed they are unwilling to refund the portion of your [my] claim that relates to interest on penalties. They consider that the statutory interest rate of 8% (which is higher than the interest rate under normal savings accounts [how generous of them!!!!]) is adequate recompense in respect of the charges. They do not believe that you [me] are entitled to any further interest."

 

I can't decide if they are just trying to drag it out or if they genuinely don't understand where we get the figure for the interest from despite having it spelt out to them several times.

 

I'm just trying to get hold of the court to find out if they met their AQ deadline but no-one is answering at the moment!!!

[stephen81]

OK, finally got through to County Court and have been advised that HSBC have now filed their AQ. I guess I'll just have to wait now for the court date to come through.

[Castlebest]

I've today received an e-mail from [email protected] (the girl that phoned me last week) saying her client has "confirmed they are unwilling to refund the portion of your [my] claim that relates to interest on penalties. They consider that the statutory interest rate of 8% (which is higher than the interest rate under normal savings accounts [how generous of them!!!!]) is adequate recompense in respect of the charges. They do not believe that you [me] are entitled to any further interest."

 

These are two different things, the Overdraft interest is money they have taken from you relating to the unlawfull charges, they deducted £x this added to your overdraft which they charged you interest on so ita actualy a part of the charge.

 

The statutory interest is an allowance the court make in recompence for HSBC having use of your money since they deducted it and no its not higher then a savings account interest rate becuase its not compounded.

 

I can't decide if they are just trying to drag it out or if they genuinely don't understand where we get the figure for the interest from despite having it spelt out to them several times.

 

They are Bankers, accountants if they dont understand they would have gone broke years ago, they are just playing silly buggers.

 

 

pete

[stephen81]

These are two different things, the Overdraft interest is money they have taken from you relating to the unlawfull charges, they deducted £x this added to your overdraft which they charged you interest on so ita actualy a part of the charge.

 

The statutory interest is an allowance the court make in recompence for HSBC having use of your money since they deducted it and no its not higher then a savings account interest rate becuase its not compounded.

 

Yes, I realise that. I understand the difference between the two different interests.

Before I reject their offer outright, I thought I would e-mail to give it one last shot at explaining to them what I am claiming.

 

How does this sound?

 

Dear Amelia

Thank you for getting back to me. I am sorry your client is still unwilling to negotiate. From what you have said though, it looks as though your client is still confused as to what I am claiming.

Perhaps if I could break it down with an example this may help?

e.g.

If I was overdrawn then I would expect to be charged interest on my overdrawn balance - for the purposes of this example I'll use a rate of 20%.

If I was £100 overdrawn then I would therefore expect to be charged £20 interest over the course of the year. This is NOT the interest I am claiming.

If, however, I had incurred a penalty charge of £30 for exceeding my overdraft limit for example, my balance then becomes £130 overdrawn. At the same rate of 20% interest, I then incur an interest charge of £26, £6 of which is purely down to the penalty charge that has been made to my account.

That £6 is the "Interest on penalties" you refer to that is shown on my Schedule of Claim for Charges. The "Interest on penalties" on that Schedule is NOT an attempt for me to charge your client on the money owed to me. It is purely me claiming back the additional interest I have already paid out as a direct result of the unfair charges.

I hope that example makes my claim a bit clearer for you and your client. Please bear in mind that the figures used in my example were only for the purposes of the example and are in no way intended to reflect the figures used in my claim.

My claim is therefore made up of charges as follows...

£260 Charges - i.e. the ACTUAL charges made to my account.

£80.69 interest on those charges - i.e. the ADDITIONAL interest I have incurred already due to the charges increasing my overdrawn balance (like the £6 in the example above).

£116.29 interest under s.29 County Courts Act - based on your clients current rate of interest charged to me for owing them money - 18.3%

£50 court fee.

These total the £506.98 on my Court Claim, to which daily interest is being added since the date of issue.

With my hopefully clearer explanation of the interest I am claiming, would you please consider making a more realistic offer?

[Castlebest]

Looks good Steve, even a fully qualified accountant working for HSBC could understand that

 

pete

[chunkylinc]

yer, that should do the trick, you could always send them an abacus should they really not be able to work it out !!

 

Im sending off my letter tomorrow, so lets both stick to our guns and nail them for the od interest... I'll let you know what the outcome is...

 

Dan

[lateralus]

it's the first time i've read that post 11 -steve -

i'm notorious for pinching things around here - hope you don't mind if i pinch your slightly tongue-in-cheek explanation to dg about o/d interest - i think it's hilarious. kind of like telling a doctor how to take out tonsils!

 

just yesterday jo, the nanny was having to discuss a last minute offer over the phone three times and the guy was dragging his feet - saying they can't understand.....

it is most definitely to stall and make you think it is their last offer.....

or whatever - just keep with it. you'll get there.

[Castlebest]

Lattie, I call it the play school explanation of interest, I love it couldnt find it for the life of me yesterday when we were posting to Jo.

 

pete

[stephen81]

it's the first time i've read that post 11 -steve -

i'm notorious for pinching things around here - hope you don't mind if i pinch your slightly tongue-in-cheek explanation to dg about o/d interest

 

Of course I don't mind. I hope it helps. I've not heard anything back from them yet, but I'll drop them a line tonight to chivy them along as that'll be a week since I sent it.

 

Does anyone know how long it usually takes for the judge to issue a court date after the AQs have both been filed?

[Castlebest]

It really depends on the court, some of them are pretty snowed under with all of this.

 

pete

[stephen81]

Still heard nothing back from the court, but did send another e-mail to DG on Wednesday night to chivy them along. Today I got back from work to find (along with my front and back gardens flooded!!) an e-mail from DG offering to settle for the full amount (although just the 8% statutory instead of the 18.3% I had asked for). I'm going to accept this as I don't think it's worth going to court just to try and fight for the extra statutory interest. Sounds like perhaps my explanation did the trick.

 

Just have to wait for the paperwork to arrive now.

[pinkduchess]

excellent - well done

[Castlebest]

Well done steve, excellent result you deserved the lot for your explanation of overdraft interest but I guess they didnt see the funny side

 

pete

[lateralus]

great - i'm glad...and you are doing right as the contractual is so iffy -

do you want the acceptance letter we use - -

 

Date

Dear Whoever

Ref: Your Offer of Settlement

 

Account: xxxxxxxx

Sort Code xx-xx-xx

Claim No: XXXXX in XXXX County Court

 

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)

 

I accept this offer without prejudice and I reserve the right to make any further claims should you apply future charges that may be considered unlawful under common law or in violation of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 or Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

 

I will be willing to withdraw my claim upon receipt of unconditional full settlement of my claim.

 

I am also not prepared to agree to any confidentially clauses you try to impose, unless of course your client wishes 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

 

 

 

 

again, well done and i'm keeping a copy of that letter above for future reference!

[chunkylinc]

not been able to log on for a while, so sorry about my somewhat belated 'Well Done' It must have been your OD letter that swayed them lol....