Bank Charges Financial Hardship Disussion

bdtj1815

In May of this year I lost my job, very unexpectedly, was diagnosed with a chronic illness and finally realised that my very sick and housebound 85 year old mother needed my support. I am now her registered carer. I made a claim for £1400 and cited the "hardship" criteria. I enclosed copies proving my carer status and unemployment. Today I received a letter from them firstly telling me that they presume I am accusing them to be in contravention of the Social Security administration Act 1982 (which does not seem to exist, the only similarly named Act is 1992!) and that I could not make such a claim. Has anyone else had this response?

The ironic thing is that the worst financial pressure I am facing is from HSBC threatening me with court action over unpaid monthly payments on a loan I have with HSBC!!

alannakyle

Hi

I have had my claim against the banks charges denied as has everyone

A month ago i put in a claim for financial hardhip, lloyds wrote a letter back saying that someone would be in contact within 5 days (guess what) nobody did.
I rang the number on the letter only to be told that they didnt deal with this and gave me another number to ring when i rang the number the call centre in India would not answer my request they only wanted me to pay them money to pay off my overdraft they wouldnt even discuss my claim as im over my overdraft.

Im going around in circles dont know what to do ???? is this happening to anyone else ??? any advice from you guys.

Marl

Escapee_2

I have had 2 accounts with HSBC. The first from when I was married ( ex-husband in bigtime debt), claimed around £2500 of charges July '07 case on hold. Second account in my name only (now divorced) haven't claim charges as only started to seriously struggle the last 6 months. Have been charged £675 since march this year. Have £2000 OD with them, constantly over! HSBC financial difficulty team have taken the money to pay my loan arrears out of my HB payment that just went in this week. I have written in claiming hardship, they have agreed that i am in hardship. I have filled out income and expenditure and spoken on the phone twice for well over 2 hours. Today HSBC hardship team have come back saying they wont review my case. they wont give me access to the HB money that should be going to my landlord! The only lifeline they have offered is to give me a managed loan to cover OD and personal loan over 10 years but HERE IS THE CATCH...I have to add to the borrowing the charges due, the money to pay my rent!! This money was paid into my account from the local authority and they had no right to take it and now i have to borrow it back! HSBC will not, although they consider me a hardship case, consider refunding my charges and have told me that if i accept the managed loan then i waive my right to be considered as hardship caes and have to wait for court ruling decision..... I am not sure what to do....( sorry for the rant!) does anybody have a similar experience or any advice as to what decision i should come to?

Ps Good luck to you all

mehrtens

I called Lloyds TSB yesterday, I worked as long haul cabin crew and my airline was one of them that recently went into administration, so with no job I consider myself in financial hardship - not so Lloyds. I got passed from pillar to post and each time was told I could not be transferred so I had to re-call their number 5 times (upping the mobile bill which puts me in more financial hardship). At first I was given the number of their customer support unit, who swiftly told me I had called the wrong department (not very supportive), eventually I did speak to someone at Lloyds who informed me that she had spoken to her manager and that as far as she (and the manager) were concerned 'There is no FSA clause'. I argued that there was for people experiencing financial difficulty and she came back and said the department dealing with it all does not have a telephone number and that I have to put it in writing, which I have done today. For anyone else who needs this address it is:

Lloyds TSB Plc
PO Box 1
BX1 1LT

GirlRacer_2

Have finally got a result fromAbbey. My sister is currently in a DMP with CCCS and one of her creditors is an ABbey current account with an overdraft of £208 and an Abbey Loan. Have been months trying to reclaim her charges for her and today they have sent her a letter stating that they will refund £575 charges in full. They are not going to send her the money but they are going to pay it off her OD so she can close the account and also pay the remainder off her loan.

Abbey have not been the easiest to deal with, they have dragged their feet every step of the way but perseverence has finally paid off.

Jules1965_2

We have an ongoing claim for charges which is on stay.

Things have been pretty tight : - missed rent, council tax etc, etc. When we read that we could ask for the stay to be lifted we were keen to try this and wrote to LloydsTSB.

We got a response today from their sollicitors Sehiari, Clark and Mitchell advising us that their client (LloydsTSB) have looked at our account and do not believe there are any grounds for hardship (they wouldn't when they keep on banging more charges on would they?!) They then cite Judge Hickinbottom on 30 October 2007 and advise based on this from their experience the stay would not be lifted on the grounds of hardship. Then to rub salt into the wounds further citing Judge Hickinbottom they say "If, however, you are intent on issuing an application to have the stay lifted, we are instructed to vigorously oppose same and will seekan order for our Client's wasted costs in doing so. We trust you will note this particular point."

Has anybody else had this? Are they just sabre rattling and trying to frighten us off taking action or would they actually take this action.

:eek:

Rickee

Rickee wrote: »

Lloyds have seemingly ignored my claim for hardship and sent me a generic letter which doesn't make much sense. I've sent a stronger reply and given them till Thursday to make a decision before I refer to the FSA.

I'll probably take your advice and write to them again though as using the phone and speak to a go between who keeps me on hold for 20 minutes is pointless. I asked whether I could speak to them directly but he fobbed me off with excuses.

The FSA guidelines do say that as a minimum they would expect banks to stop outstanding charges while they decide on hardship cases so should help.

The loophole is that they could help me out so much so as to get me sorted financially and then claim I'm no longer in hardship and make me wait for the test case. Although when I wrote to them (Lloyds this is, by the way) I did say they wouldn't need to help me out with further lending, etc if they simply refund my charges, hopefully, they'll take this into account.

Okay, I've made a couple of posts above if anybody wants to cacth up with my story so far.

Firstly, with HSBC, I have been waiting for a call back promised to me from a member of their complaints department in Leeds. At this stage I am just trying to get them to agree that I am in financial hardship which I'm hoping will lead onto them dealing with my complaint and refunding my charges...

It's worth noting that I no longer have my account with HSBC and received the final answer regarding my hours of phone calls to HSBC, they're not prepared to evaluate my hardship as I no longer have an account with HSBC. This was the final word from the Head Office Complaints department (0800 88 11 55), I requested that they put that in writing for me so I'm just waiting for that. After getting off the phone to them I called FOS who advised me that they could send a letter to HSBC for me to investigate it for me and get a final written response from them but I said no, I'll give them a week to come back to me and see what happens and what they say in their final response.

With Lloyds, I'm still yet to receive a reply relating to my complaint so decided to call them, just missed the 5pm deadline so spoke to a load of undertrained morons who have no interest in helping before eventually being told I should wait until 9-5 and speak to them tomorrow. I was also told that someone is due to give me a call and asked for that persons name and the time they would be calling me. I was then told that information was unavailable...

More waiting unfortunately...

Anyone who wants the complaints numbers for HSBC;

0800 88 11 55 - Head Office Complaints (They'll usually speak to someone else before giving you any answers)

08456 028 006 - Based in Leeds, they can be helpful but may refer you back to the Financial Guidance Team to see if there's anything they can do to help your hardship.

Scotty501_2

I submitted a IvE expsense claim form - and was told I fitted the criteria - living on cards, overdrawn etc. My claim was £1400+

They have offered £150 and a reduced interest rate on my credit card and loan 1% above base rate - compared 4%. This is for 1 year -then they would review.

My card is around £3900 and a loan for £5000+

Bad offer???

Angel_A_2

Terrible!

Ask them to review their offer again! I say, but hey what do I know about your lifestyle......Think, think, then write to them again.....it's a terrible offer!! I SAY AGAIN

LovingYourWork

I have just sent a letter off to Abbey regarding a financial hardship claim, after reading some of these posts (not got through all of them yet!) I am not hoping for much to happen!