A widow was held hostage by her bank manager after seeking help with crippling overdraft charges.............
Christopher Hicks locked Josephine Lewis, 59, in an interview room with him for half an hour despite her screams of ?let me out?.
The bank manager, who is still in charge of the HSBC branch, blocked her exit until she filled out a form detailing her spending. She was only released when other staff heard her cries.
HSBC then harassed her with hundreds of ?abusive and threatening? phone calls. She received up to eight a day over an 18-month period.
After going into the red in 2008, Miss Lewis tried to get on top of her debts, even taking on two jobs. But overdraft charges kept mounting up. She asked to have her account frozen, but HSBC ignored her.
Eventually she was paying ?279 a month in fees ? a third of her take-home pay ? and owed ?2,000. Desperate to put things right, she visited her local branch in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, on October 2, 2008. She was ushered into a small interview room by Mr Hicks, who closed the door behind them.
?I was locked in there for between 20 minutes and half an hour,? she said. ?It was scary ? he was a big man. I was only let out when two of his colleagues heard me shouting.?
Miss Lewis made a complaint about the incident, but it was investigated by Mr Hicks himself and CCTV footage was deleted.
This Manager should have been charged by the force and he should have been dismissed from the post???..
According to this she only owed ?2000, but had up to ?279 a month in charges.
She could pay ?300 off each month. I cannot see what problem the bank had.
They could have charged interest at the going rate, reduced their charges to a modest level - still making money and reducing the debt????..
Why was this such a big drama? Making all these phone calls only to retrieve ?2000. Either we are not getting all the facts or this bank is bonkers!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment