Help me work out the legal basis for my claim please

[HarryJackson]

So...

A UK based finance company that opens currency bank accounts for people emailed me and told me my account was successfully opened! I was working in the USA at the time, and very alarmed to get this email. I made sure it was not spam, and it wasn't. It had all my information inside. This company was evidently legit and had opened an account in my name.

I immediately called them. I thought I was the victim of fraud.

I was on the first call for 32 minutes, before hanging up. Was on hold that long.

The second call I got through to a lady and she told me lines were crazy busy because of this issue. Told me that I had had an account with her company five years ago, since closed four and a half years ago. No other accounts were open.

So I later discovered that the email was sent in their customers in error. I contacted them asking for payment for my call costs, and my time. They ignored my request.

I wish to litigate, can anyone advise me what would be the legal grounds? Call costs are almost £100, and my time I put at £25 per hour (spent an hour dealing with this at the crack of dawn on my day off).

I know there is meant to be a contract in place, but the issue here is precisely that there was on contract, but that I was advised there was.

[HarryJackson]

*BUMP*

[pt2537]

So...

A UK based finance company that opens currency bank accounts for people emailed me and told me my account was successfully opened! I was working in the USA at the time, and very alarmed to get this email. I made sure it was not spam, and it wasn't. It had all my information inside. This company was evidently legit and had opened an account in my name.

I immediately called them. I thought I was the victim of fraud.

I was on the first call for 32 minutes, before hanging up. Was on hold that long.

The second call I got through to a lady and she told me lines were crazy busy because of this issue. Told me that I had had an account with her company five years ago, since closed four and a half years ago. No other accounts were open.

So I later discovered that the email was sent in their customers in error. I contacted them asking for payment for my call costs, and my time. They ignored my request.

I wish to litigate, can anyone advise me what would be the legal grounds? Call costs are almost £100, and my time I put at £25 per hour (spent an hour dealing with this at the crack of dawn on my day off).

I know there is meant to be a contract in place, but the issue here is precisely that there was on contract, but that I was advised there was.

My first thoughts were no. I cant see how you would hope to recover those sums.

[R0b]

As there was no contract you would probably have to rely on a claim in tort. Negligent misrepresentation or negligent misstatement are ones that spring to mind, and possibly a data protection issue.

However, I think any one of these claims looks a bit weak in terms of prospects of success. Like PT said, you certainly wouldn't be able to recover £25 per hour because for that sum you would be looking at the claim being allocated to the small claims track and costs are extremely limited to application fees and limited witness/travel costs.

Only way you would be able to get that is if there's a settlement, and you could chance it on the point that it's not worth them defending the claim for such a small amount as it won't be commercially viable unless they defend it on principle.