HSBC (merged)

Dragon_Lady_3

Maidstone. The counters are not open unfortunately. The area where all the cash machines are open and they also open for appointments to discuss how they can take more money from you.......:-(

barsiem_2

Hi there all victims of HSBC greed,

I am just about to start the ball rolling and although I have read a lot of the posts here I do need clarity on some issues.
1. My plan is to download statements from the Personal Banking pages and collate charges on a word document. Will this be adequate? They have access to all the data so I assume this will suffice.
2. About charging interest. I estimate at the moment that excluding interest the amount will be in the region of £2,800. Do I add interest per charge using the calculator at this stage or wait till the letter before action. I had thought it might be a good idea also to lessen my demand to 25% less from the total including interest at that stage and see if they comply. What do you think?

Any advice welcome!

monkeymonkeyrarara

Hello all,

Does anybody have any deakings with First Direct regards bank charges? They are part of HSBC but operate seperately.

Any successes out there?

lmeehan67

monkeymonkeyrarara wrote:

Hello all,

Does anybody have any deakings with First Direct regards bank charges? They are part of HSBC but operate seperately.

Any successes out there?

Hi, there is a seperate thread for First Direct, youll find there are a few of us claiming from them !!!There has been loads of success stories with them too so fingers crossed for the rest of us !

jooge_2

Have a problem! I'm in the process of claiming £1993.65 of charges from HSBC. Sent my first letter asking for repayment, received a response basically fobbing me off by telling me my claim is still being investigated, so went ahead and sent the next letter threatening court action dated 09/01/07.
Only problem is, i didn't send them by recorded delivery and am now panicking! By the sounds of it I will probably end up claiming through the court and HSBC could just deny they recieved my second letter! have i mucked things up?! This is alot of money to us and am anxious enough about this process in the first place! I just have my fingers crossed that it is settled before court proceedings as the more I read to try and understand it a bit better, the more confused I get! Think it must be my pregnancy hormones affecting my brain power!!!!!

leannie_2

leannie wrote:

Update:
I called HSBC today, they said they are not adhering to the times being prescribed by claimants in letters, as the banking ombudsman allows them 8 weeks (as long as they contact the complainant on receipt of the initial complaint), and they have an increasing number of people claiming charges back.
They have said that they will contact me within the next 7 days with an offer on my claim, and would ask me to delay court proceedings until I have received the offer and responded, as they are investigating the claim, but had a volume of claims to investigate, they could not tell me what the offer would be, but said in the majority of cases under £1000, they are making good offers.
They have received both letters I took into branches and said that they acknowledged letters delivered by hand to be as 'thingy' (sorry can't think of the word) as those delivered by recorded. Branches are under instruction to forward letters received in branch immediately and forward an electronic copy of the letter to the team in Leeds within 24hrs of receipt.
So watch this space!

2nd Update - I called them today, they said they have investigated and have written to me, but there is a backlog in the processing and posting of the letters. The girl on the phone was able to tell me they have offered me £453, which is £20 less than my original claim, however I did add interest totalling £166 which they have ignored.
The girl said she couldn't tell me the content of the letter but should explain the offer and how they reached that amount. She promised my offer letter would be posted first class today....

Edinburghlass_2

leannie wrote:

2nd Update - I called them today, they said they have investigated and have written to me, but there is a backlog in the processing and posting of the letters. The girl on the phone was able to tell me they have offered me £453, which is £20 less than my original claim, however I did add interest totalling £166 which they have ignored.
The girl said she couldn't tell me the content of the letter but should explain the offer and how they reached that amount. She promised my offer letter would be posted first class today....

They will ignore the interest if they are making you an offer, please read this section of Martin's article.

Charge interest on top
If you won via the courts, you would be entitled to add 8% interest (not compounded) on top from the date you were ‘first deprived’ of the money (i.e. the date of each charge). Therefore you may want to ask for the interest as part of the initial claim. It's important to understand that you are not legally entitled to interest unless you win in court, yet all prior letters are a tool of negotiation; think of it a bit like haggling.

You may get lucky and get the interest on top, but even if not, the legal feedback I've had is that it’s one route to pushing the bank to settle quickly so it can offer to pay you without the interest. Of course there is a risk that asking for too much makes them less likely to settle too - sadly this is an art not a science. This isn't an easy concept so I've recorded a quick audio file which may help explain it.
For those who do want to ask for interest, I’ve had the calculator below specially built to work it out for you and included it as an option in the template letters later. However, if you'd prefer to play safe simply ask for the charges without interest in the early stages.

leannie_2

Hi,
I didn't expect to receive the interest to be honest, but people claiming the interest seem to have got an offer of the full amount of the charges they are owed.
When I asked the girl at HSBC on the phone about the difference in amounts her understanding was they may have disputed one of the charges of £30 thus the difference, plus they are likely to refuse to pay me interest as I was in an overdraft when the charges were applied therefore would not be accruing interest but would be having to pay interest on the overdraft. If I had been in credit at the time of the charges then they would reconsider the interest. However, she said they were only responses she had seen for other people’s claims and therefore could not guarantee they were the reasons in my case, but that the letter should explain further.

I have to write to them on receipt of the offer to tell them whether I will accept or not, and if not the reason for this. If I do not accept, they will withdraw the offer and wait for me to take the matter to court.

Ambernectar_2

Hi,
Has anyone out there tried reclaiming charges on an HSBC MasterCard? Also are you entitled to interest on such a card?

tiptoptony

Hi,

Ive sent out the first 2 letters, got a standard response from the 1st and nothing from the 2nd. I was wondering, can I recalculate the interest from today, as the original calculations were made over a month ago. Also I have an extra £50 coming out on the 30th of this month, can I add that in as well?