HSBC customer claims these signatures were forged by jailed fraudster - but bank won't budge
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hsbc-customer-claims-signatures-were-5732694
A desperate bank customer claims these signatures are all forgeries carried out by his financial adviser behind his back. But the bank, HSBC, says they are all genuine. The dispute has turned into a prolonged battle for compensation. The account holder is a 39-year-old Londoner who wants to be identified only by his first name, Greg.
He says: “The only good thing my financial adviser did was to not even make an effort to make the forgeries look good. “They’re different, not just to my real signature but to each other.” The documents that were signed set up pensions, earning commission payments for supposed money expert Christopher Bladen. “The money is there in these pensions, but I can’t touch it until I’m 55,” Greg told me.
“It’s about £65,000 and I need it now. “That money should never have left my account. It’s left me unable to pay bills. “All this was done without my permission.” Greg complained to HSBC, demanding to know why the signatures on the forms were not checked or why the discrepancies weren’t spotted. He says: “My branch manager said there was no dispute the signatures were different and promised to look into it.”
While a series of branch managers and then HSBC head office investigated the case, Greg suddenly found that he was the one accused of being a criminal. He had convinced Bladen to return the money, and had got £10,000 back when Bladen’s solicitors at law firm Mishcon de Reya intervened. “Mishcon accused me of blackmailing Bladen and threatening to ruin his career unless he repaid the money,” says Greg. “They told me to hand back the £10,000 and said, ‘If this goes to court it will be the worst mistake of your life’.”
Fishy: Some of Greg’s ‘signatures’ used to open pension savings accounts
Greg employed his own legal team, and says Mishcon withdrew the blackmail allegation but he now has a legal bill of £38,000. Then he was in for a shock from the bank. HSBC declared that the signatures weren’t forgeries and offered him just £250 compensation for the delay in looking into them.
Greg says: “After pushing it, they offered to pay my bank and credit card charges which were quite high because of this, about £9,000, which is interesting if they really think that the signatures are mine and I am trying to defraud them.” A statement from HSBC said: “When there is clear evidence of fraud by a third party and with no actions by the customer that enable the fraud to occur, we will always seek to refund our customers.”
The bank called this case “very complex” and insisted that although the signatures are different “each has close similarities”. It added: “These include signatures that Greg himself provided to us on signature cards, which have to be signed in person in a branch.”
Last June, Christopher Bladen was jailed for 45 months after admitting 16 counts of fraud. The previous year the crook, from Kings Hill, Kent, was made bankrupt – the Official Receiver ruling that he chose “to exploit the trust his clients placed in him for his own gain”. This doesn’t prove that he forged Greg’s signature because Greg’s case did not form part of the prosecution. But it has been proved that Bladen and forgery go hand in hand – yet HSBC isn’t budging on the issue. Mishcon de Reya declined comment.