Old bank account + credit card debt may be resurfaced after years

[Roger]

Silence is GOLDEN, practice the AAD art of sitting on your hands!

[Infinity]

Hi,

I've looked at the letter and it would be unusual for a scammer to use an 0345 telephone number.

I'm not sure an employee at a branch is going to be able to, or qualified to, advise you if the letter is a scam.

Given the letter is apparently seeking to confirm your whereabouts and makes no reference to any further action if you don't get in touch, why not just play it safe and not respond.

I'm not sure exactly what positives will arise out of you responding.

In the end, its your call, and this isn't legal advice, just opinion.

Thank you Colin for taking the time, I respect and appreciate your opinion. Those are good points.

I think I will take the weekend to think things over, may be try to make progress with other pressing matters.

[Infinity]

1 October 1989
First Direct was formed on 1 October 1989 by Midland Bank, one of the 'big four' banks in the United Kingdom. It became a part of HSBC in June 1992, when that business acquired Midland Bank.

• . Midland was renamed HSBC Bank plc in 1999. It transferred its head office ...

I remember First Direct being a "big deal" at the time because they did banking in a different and accessible way that differentiated it from other banks. Nowadays every bank does business the same way, they have online banking but that may be a bad thing because branches are being closed.

[Colin G Quinn]

Hi,

I've looked at the letter and it would be unusual for a scammer to use an 0345 telephone number.

I'm not sure an employee at a branch is going to be able to, or qualified to, advise you if the letter is a scam.

Given the letter is apparently seeking to confirm your whereabouts and makes no reference to any further action if you don't get in touch, why not just play it safe and not respond.

I'm not sure exactly what positives will arise out of you responding.

In the end, its your call, and this isn't legal advice, just opinion.

[Infinity]

I have an idea to drop off the letter with a covering letter at a local branch of HSBC that has actual people instead of a "digital service" to ask them to verify the letter is from their bank. The cover letter is prepared.

(Off topic I found some details for one of the credit cards. It defaulted between 2007-2008 and a letter found me at my new home address in 2017. I asked for the CCA which they did not send. They still put in a claim at NCC, I asked for copies of the documents mentioned in their statement of case and never received them. I submitted a defence via MCOL and the claim was dropped. MCOL only keeps login details for three years and deletes them. I also start to think I had just one credit card in my name that had debt apart from the bank one that is the subject of this thread).

[The Tech Clerk]

Yes, now you mention it in 1994 I remember First Direct being associated with the brand Midland Bank. Checking wikipedia Midland Bank were owned by HSBC from 1991 and eventually in 1999 Midland Bank was re-branded to HSBC.

I looked up who Iron Mountain are - enterprise information management services including information destruction. I expect that includes shredding paper work, if UK companies were shredding CCAs that seems silly to me.

The letter is allegedly sent by HSBC Bank from an address beginning "Litigation Department, HSBC Repayment Services" the rest is HSBC's legitimate 120 Edmund Street address in Birmingham right down to the post code B3 2QZ.

Under the signature squiggle no individual's name or title just "Litigation Team, HSBC Repayment Services".

The adviser sounded like someone in an off-shore call centre. No they made no reference to the fraud team, not that they said so to me. For the moment I don't know how to advance this detail further. I know it's often the case you call the same number, get a different adviser and get a different response.

(The off-topic part: that is worrying but I have not heard anything from either of those credit cards since 2014. But if they had written to me after 2017 at my old address I would not have received those letters. Would it take them more than 5 years for them to figure out a new address, if they wanted to reach me?).

1 October 1989
First Direct was formed on 1 October 1989 by Midland Bank, one of the 'big four' banks in the United Kingdom. It became a part of HSBC in June 1992, when that business acquired Midland Bank.

• . Midland was renamed HSBC Bank plc in 1999. It transferred its head office ...

[Colin G Quinn]

Hi,

I have received your email and the letter attached. I'll review it when I get a chance and get back to you.

[The Tech Clerk]

about 2007/8? but do not mention to HSBC. we tell you as a member and can change some cases later down the line.

[Infinity]

Thanks Colin, I will get on to scanning the letter and forwarding it to you for a look-see.

Today I have caught up with sleep at the end of a period that lead to exhaustion induced by stress and irregular sleep patterns. I am starting to catch up with doing a few things I was not able to do the past few days to try to make myself feel a little better. It is an inevitable and repeating pattern for me.

I think I will have to make an appointment at the local branch of HSBC, take the letter to them in order to validate it for me.

I agree the letter could be of real importance.

The letter itself does not contain any threat of legal action nor is it a "letter before action". It simply asks me to call a number with a deadline which ends middle of next week. Today I received another copy of the same letter, with a minor address error that slowed arrival. Apparently it was sent the same day as the other letter it also seems via bulk mail likely in the same batch of documents as the other letter. The other letter took 10-days to arrive from "sent date", the second one 12-days.

That is very interesting information about the Iron Mountain facility catching fire that housed HSBC documents. What year did that happen? Was that already mentioned? Edit: after a search, 2006 is that right?

Thank you all for your comments they have been very helpful.

[julian]

Iron Mountain was thought to be a safe place used by many companies to store records and computer back ups.

There was a fire. They did not destroy the records on purpose. I do wish more had been

[Colin G Quinn]

Hi,

If you would like to email me a copy of the letter to take a look at I'd be happy to do so. My email address is in my legal disclaimer below.

If I had been told by my bank that correspondence I had received purporting to be sent by my bank was suspicious and that I should not call the number specified within the same, I would expect my bank to raise a fraud investigation and I would want to be kept informed, and I would want an explanation as to why such correspondence had been sent to me.

To that extent I'm tempted to say you should contact the bank's fraud department. However, I haven't seen the letter and do not wish to advise you do something which ignores a legitimate letter which may or may not be of any real importance. That being said, if the letter was legitimate you would expect a bank's fraud department to cease any further action on its own in-house actions until such a time that the investigation is over.

Then again, what we expect of banks and what we actually are served up with are two very very different things.

You say there is a deadline within the letter. Is there any further actioned threatened for not responding within that timeframe?

[The Tech Clerk]

credit card headed midland bank up until 1998/9 still have copies old account

[Infinity]

Yes, now you mention it in 1994 I remember First Direct being associated with the brand Midland Bank. Checking wikipedia Midland Bank were owned by HSBC from 1991 and eventually in 1999 Midland Bank was re-branded to HSBC.

I looked up who Iron Mountain are - enterprise information management services including information destruction. I expect that includes shredding paper work, if UK companies were shredding CCAs that seems silly to me.

The letter is allegedly sent by HSBC Bank from an address beginning "Litigation Department, HSBC Repayment Services" the rest is HSBC's legitimate 120 Edmund Street address in Birmingham right down to the post code B3 2QZ.

Under the signature squiggle no individual's name or title just "Litigation Team, HSBC Repayment Services".

The adviser sounded like someone in an off-shore call centre. No they made no reference to the fraud team, not that they said so to me. For the moment I don't know how to advance this detail further. I know it's often the case you call the same number, get a different adviser and get a different response.

(The off-topic part: that is worrying but I have not heard anything from either of those credit cards since 2014. But if they had written to me after 2017 at my old address I would not have received those letters. Would it take them more than 5 years for them to figure out a new address, if they wanted to reach me?).

[Colin G Quinn]

Hi,

Who is the letter allegedly sent by?

I think you are confusing a CCJ and a claim form. If a claim is issued in respect of a debt which is not statute barred, but then placed on hold to deal with a CCA request, no amount of a delay would make the debt statute barred.

It has been known for some claimants to have issued legal proceedings just to prevent a debt becoming statute barred. That is an abuse.

THat is me going off topic.

If you have spoken to the bank and been told not to call the number did the advisor not say they would be referring the matter to their fraud team?

[The Tech Clerk]

1994 not HSBC = Midland bank? no agreement to sign just a white headed paper name address apply credit card? type document? if Midland do not mention to HSBC for now as they can be caught out later if they try to say HSBC originator

Iron Mountain fore destroyed many so called CCAas and substitutes?