HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

[Kafka]

An amazing case here at PCF where the DJ was scathing about HSBC's behaviour and found for the Claimant in a bank charges claim. The judgment is quite unbelievable, even for a bank!

We're trying to get publicity for this at the moment, but there is a summary on the home page here:
Penalty Charges Forum - HSBC Bank found Guilty of Harassment False Imprisonment

[Kafka]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

I have just posted fuller details of the case at PC here, including extensive extracts from the incredible judgment, which runs to 31 pages. We are looking for maximum publicity for this case.

Court finds HSBC guilty of Harassment and False Imprisonment

[Celestine]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

Excellent! When are the banks and DCAs going to realise that these incessant phonecalls do NOT work and only alienate the customer further?

Great result to add to the likes of Harrison v Link

[Guest]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

Excellent! When are the banks and DCAs going to realise that these incessant phonecalls do NOT work and only alienate the customer further?

Great result to add to the likes of Harrison v Link

And Ferguson v British Gas Trading Ltd [2009]

[Kafka]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

I have just heard indirectly that the Mail intends to run this story on Wednesday, so lets hope that they do.

[TUTTSI]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

I cant get on PC to post, but several years ago my husband's account with HSBC got closed because he dared to ask for his bank charges back.

Looking forward to seeing them suffer.

I have just posted fuller details of the case at PC here, including extensive extracts from the incredible judgment, which runs to 31 pages. We are looking for maximum publicity for this case.

Court finds HSBC guilty of Harassment and False Imprisonment

[Kafka]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

Court finds HSBC guilty of Harassment and False Imprisonment

The ‘world’s local bank’ certainly deserves global publicity for the way it treated one of its customers in Swindon over the last few years.

On 23 May judgment was handed down by District Judge Cronin at Swindon County Court. The Claimant was Josephine Lewis, a member of Penalty Charges Forum who successfully defeated HSBC in Court, where she was disputing unlawful bank charges. Miss Lewis had gone to the bank to complain about these charges, but to her horror, the bank manger refused to allow her to leave the interview room by physically blocking the doorway. Despite the fact that HSBC had instructed council to defend the claim, DJ Cronin found that Miss Lewis was prevented from leaving the interview room and that she was intimidated, causing her alarm and distress.

The Judge also found that an excessive number of phone calls (several hundred) were made to Miss Lewis, many of which were abusive and threatening. As the bank had control of these calls and failed to stop them, the Court found that the bank must have known that the calls would amount to Harassment.

The Judge said that at first reading he thought it likely that the facts could amount to a criminal offence under the section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act (1970). He also ruled that the bank had breached its contractual obligation in respect of the number of bank charges and awarded £2000 in damages. The Judge was also scathing about HSBC’s general incompetence and their diabolical treatment of a customer. Miss Lewis is now considering making a criminal complaint against the bank as well as looking to recover her costs.

Please don’t just take our word for this though. Below are some extracts from the 31-page judgment that are very revealing.

If you bank with HSBC, you might like to write and ask them some questions along these lines:

1. What have they done since this judgment to improve their customer and complaints handling nationally in the light of this case?
2. What action have they taken against their Branch Manager – Mr Hicks – for his unlawful behaviour, incompetence and disgraceful treatment of customers?
3. What reassurances can the bank give that you (as a customer) will never be treated in such a disgraceful manner as was the case in Swindon.
4. Any more that you want to!

EXTRACTS FROM THE JUDGMENT

20. … I therefore find that an excessive number of phone calls (several hundred) were made to Miss Lewis, by automated dialling systems (and some with telephone operators ready to speak to her), that the content of many phone calls received by her was abusive and threatening, that the bank had control of these phone calls and failed to stop them from being made, even after indicating that it would do so, and that this conduct amounts to what the man in the street would describe as harassment. That is not the same as the criminal offence of harassment. The argument on behalf of the Defendant that this was a proactive and sensible approach for the bank fails; it was an excessive and oppressive approach for the bank to take and was therefore in breach of the bank’s entitlement to contact its own customer and her right to respect for her private and family life.

22. In my judgment the concerted campaign of telephone calls amounted to harassment. It was not justified. The comparison with the order of conduct which will sustain criminal liability cannot avail the bank in circumstances in which it produces itself a spreadsheet showing phone calls amounting to 157 calls over a period of approximately 18 months, most of them made after the bank says that instructions were given for the telephone number to be removed from the dialling system.

23. Many of the bank’s arguments here were weak; not least its failure to admit that it had the use of the telephone number. I am unimpressed by the argument that because the Claimant goes to work she cannot rely on calls made whilst she is out at work: how does the bank know when she is at work? And why does it phone if it thinks she is at work? I am satisfied from the call log provided by the bank that these calls were made and that many of them would have been heard by the Claimant and that she answered many of them to find that there was nobody there to speak to her. Miss X (Defence Counsel) again presumably on instructions, refers at paragraph 52 of her written submission to the call log “purportedly” obtained from the Claimant. The implication here is that Miss Lewis has manufactured the call log. If that is what the bank intends, it is a very serious allegation to make.

26. …I accept Miss Lewis’ submission that the effect of the harassment was made worse because the calls persisted even when the case was being handled by the Ombudsman and was with the debt management company.

28 (2). …The bank not only failed to act on her instructions, failed to know whether it was acting on its own initiative or on instructions and insisted in asking her for financial information, but it has failed to record the payments which were made from the external source that the bank recommends, although it was clear to me that since there was a reduction in the amount sought to be collected by Metropolitan Debt Services, instructed by the bank, that payments must have continued being made to that account…
…In the same seven month period four different charges are shown as “overdraft fees”, £27.50, £36, £54 and £10. I cannot find that these fees were outside the contract, but I do regard the bank’s failure to be clear and consistent as to its charges deplorable...

The bank’s conduct

29. The bank also clearly failed to train staff, including Mr Hicks, to deal sensibly and courteously with customers….

33. …However, the bank’s failure to allocate the payments made by Chiltern was a failure to act with due care and provide a proper service…

Summary of findings

35. I find that the bank manager, Mr Hicks, prevented Miss Lewis from leaving the interview room on 2 October 2008 and caused her significant distress.

36. I have already found that the phone calls amounted to harassment and that none of the defences under the act availed the Bank.

37. I recorded at paragraph 38 my finding that the failure to action the instruction to freeze the account was a breach of the Bank’s contractual obligation.

How do these findings trigger a remedy?

43 (f) Miss Lewis’s criticism of the bank’s failure to secure and preserve the CCTV footage which would have demonstrated to the court what occurred in the interview room on 2.10.08 was justified. She was making a very serious allegation the day after the alleged incident occurred when it would have been within the bank’s powers to preserve the video tape footage: this would have been a sensible step to take. She continues to seek the CCTV footage but the bank responds that it is only preserved for 30 days and then the tapes are reused. This exactly parallels the bank’s failure to grasp how inappropriate it was for Mr Hicks to investigate the complaint against him himself…

43 (i) Miss Lewis made a point about the bank failing to contact her which I recorded at point 11 in my note. There is a real irony in the letter at p107 dated 6.2.09 in which the bank refers to being unable to contact Miss Lewis, given the large number of unwanted phone calls she was receiving daily on behalf of the bank, and then refers to carrying out her instructions accurately. This exemplifies the bank’s inability to provide sensitive customer services or to connect its own departments with each other.

[CleverClogs]

Re: HSBC exposed for criminal behaviour

Perhaps the "government" should now force HSBC (UK) to merge with The News of the World?