Banks win Supreme Court case on overdraft charges

Well thanks to a DD that i tried to cancel but for some odd reason it didnt...im £50 out of pocket this month...i cannot believe HSBC have now jacked their charges up to something silly:eek:...im pretty sure a few mths ago i had a DD bounce and it was only £20 or something...not freakin £50!!!.

Anyhow HSBC say its my fault that i didnt cancel the DD...ermmm i did so have written to the dept dealing with it and told them in no uncertain terms that they best reverse that charge as i asked for that DD to be cancelled but obviously they didnt action it till it was too late.

I havent a got problem paying charges but when its £50+ then i have a massive issue with it...i could swallow it if it was £20-£30 max but geezus this court case has now given banks the ammo to charge whatever they like :/

EDIT: after ringing them up they told me it was 2 charges of £25 each that made it £50 in total...anyhow they decided out of goodwill to reverse the charges so thats pretty much pleased me...i guess they realised that it was their mistake that caused the 2 charges.
 
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Another good victory for personal responsibility from the courts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8435867.stm

Banks have won a partial victory against some credit card customers who have been trying to avoid their debts.

A judge at the High Court in Manchester has upheld that card companies need only provide a "reconstituted" copy of the original loan agreement.

It confirms that banks can still enforce debts even if the original agreement has been lost or destroyed.

The ruling may affect thousands of potential cases gathered by claims management companies.

"It seems to me to be likely that the number of challenges... will diminish significantly hereafter," said Judge David Waksman.
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Should put pay to all those who decided to try and scam the credit card companies by challenging them to produce the original loan agreement or write off their debts.
 
Dolph said:
Another good victory for personal responsibility from the courts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8435867.stm



Should put pay to all those who decided to try and scam the credit card companies by challenging them to produce the original loan agreement or write off their debts.
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Now hang about.

A debt is non-enforceable if a signed copy of the credit agreement is not produced on demand. Surely it is the banks corporate responsibility to keep it's business agreements/contracts safe?

If I lost such a valuable document in my business, I'd be sure to get the boot.
 
Pez said:
Now hang about.

A debt is non-enforceable if a signed copy of the credit agreement is not produced on demand. Surely it is the banks corporate responsibility to keep it's business agreements/contracts safe?

If I lost such a valuable document in my business, I'd be sure to get the boot.
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No, it isn't, that is just the point of the above judgement.

He (Judge Waksman) said that the purpose of obliging lenders to provide a copy of the loan agreement, when asked, was not to prove that the agreement had been properly struck in the first place, but to provide the borrowers with information about the state of their account.
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Expecting banks to keep signed paper copies for decades is not a reasonable position to take.
 
branddaly said:
Surely it is? Otherwise what is to stop the bank claiming you had a loan when you never did if they don't need paperwork to prove it anymore.
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That was covered as well.

Judge Waksman did point out that the banks could not simply invent the loan agreement retrospectively to comply with the law.

"It must - of necessity - be based upon records held as to the debtor and the agreement he made," the judge said.

"That a creditor needs to take care when providing the copy is highlighted by the fact that it is implicit in its duty that it is an 'honest and accurate' copy," he added.

Judge Waksman rejected some arguments put forward by the banks, and supported some of those put forward of the claims management firms and their clients.

He ruled that:

• a copy of the loan agreement must contain the name and address of the borrower as it was at the time it was signed

• if an agreement has been subsequently varied by the lender, then the lender is obliged to supply a copy of both the original agreement as well as the current one.
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There is also an argument that (in many cases) the fact that people have been using and paying these accounts for a long time means that they must know they have agreed to them (especially for credit cards). You can't use a credit card for 10 years, rack up debts, then claim you never agreed to it...
 
Dolph - Understood, but...

Dolph said:
That was covered as well.

He ruled that:

• a copy of the loan agreement must contain the name and address of the borrower as it was at the time it was signed
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How can the bank be made to comply with this ruling, if they cannot provide said signed copy which must specify the name and address of the borrower?
 
Pez said:
Dolph - Understood, but...



How can the bank be made to comply with this ruling, if they cannot provide said signed copy which must specify the name and address of the borrower?
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All they need to do is hold past addresses and dates of change on file, along with the date the agreement was made :confused:
 
From what I read, it says that that the loan agreement must contain that information. If they can't provide the agreement, they can't demonstrate they have complied?
 
Pez said:
From what I read, it says that that the loan agreement must contain that information. If they can't provide the agreement, they can't demonstrate they have complied?
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From earlier in the same link.

"The debtor has a legitimate interest in seeing a copy of the agreement he signed, not in the sense of proof of execution but as information," he said.

As such, he ruled that a reconstituted version of the agreement was perfectly acceptable.

The information in it could be drawn from other data held by the bank about their customers, and it could be recreated by drawing on the standard terms and conditions that the bank applied at the time.
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So in other words, they don't need to hold the original, signed agreement, they do need to be able to reconstruct the agreement based on data they hold.

The reconstructed loan agreement has to have the correct information present on it for it to be valid, but it does not have to be the original agreement.
 
The bank fees were never going to win in favour of the customers, it was all smoke and mirrors, i did say when the results were in a few months ago that this is it, OFT will stop, this goes for all the other office of ...

These regulators arnt here to help the public, they are there to make it look like they are on big matters, making out they are doing their best, but how many big cases have these regulators won, or stood by, the answer is zero.
When its a small case ie of an individual then they win, if it involves the masses then they'll lose, this goes for water telecoms etc...
 
mattheman said:
The bank fees were never going to win in favour of the customers, it was all smoke and mirrors, i did say when the results were in a few months ago that this is it, OFT will stop, this goes for all the other office of ...

These regulators arnt here to help the public, they are there to make it look like they are on big matters, making out they are doing their best, but how many big cases have these regulators won, or stood by, the answer is zero.
When its a small case ie of an individual then they win, if it involves the masses then they'll lose, this goes for water telecoms etc...
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Don't confuse the vocal minority of the public being wrong with some grand conspiracy.
 
This means nowt.

The banks will never get away with overcharging and they know it.

The BBC will not go to court over a simalar situation because they know they wont win in the Europeon courts.
 
mattheman said:
name one big case they have won, that had a direct effect on the consumer.
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Like I said, don't confuse the consumer being wrong or wanting unfair treatment with a grand conspiracy. The failure of the OFT (or other similar groups) to win cases is more of a case of an irrational public and a politically motivated OFT (hence afraid to politely and honestly tell the consumer pressure group they are wrong) than any giant anti-consumer conspiracy.
 
The Consumer credit act states that a Court cannot enforce an agreement that doesn't have the prescribed terms etc. Surely the Judge in this case cannot overrule something that is written in law :confused:
 
lee32uk said:
The Consumer credit act states that a Court cannot enforce an agreement that doesn't have the prescribed terms etc. Surely the Judge in this case cannot overrule something that is written in law :confused:
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The judge hasn't, in any way, done that.
 
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