Quisitrix Vs The Abbey

Quisitrix · 20th June 2006, 15:27

We ran out of money on Sunday. We very nearly ran out of food yesterday. All because Abbey charged me over £120 on Saturday. I've been charged every month this year and practically all the charges were incured either as a result of previous charges or because my benefit is paid weekly but my direct debits are monthly.

I've been reading this site for a few months now and looking forward to filing my own claim but now I realise that I may never have enough money to file. At the moment I can't afford to feed myself if I want my kids to eat too. I definately can't afford to pay £10 so I can have the pleasure of Abbey dicking me around for 40 days just on the off chance that the might decide to let me know how much they owe me.

I don't know what to do. Abbey aren't just taking my money they're stealing my health. I have Credit Cards with Egg, Morgan Stanley and Captial One. Should I try to get refunds from them first? Maybe if I offer to settle for reducing all the charges to £12 I'll get enough back to fund legal action against Abbey?

Can anyone help me?

Q

Jane Austen · 20th June 2006, 16:15

You could try with one of the cards first. Some of them - I'm sorry I don't know which provide the info without the £10. My credit card (Halifax T/A Aqua) did for me. However, you still need to pay to get it to court.

Good luck

Janeyh · 20th June 2006, 16:23

Hello Quisitrix,

I don't think you need worry. As I understand it, you may be exempt from court fees if:

you or your partner receive Income Support, you or your partner receive Pension Credit guarantee credit, you receive Income based Job Seeker’s Allowance, your gross annual income is below a set limit and you receive Working Tax Credit with a ‘disability element’ your gross annual income is below a set limit and you or your partner receive Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit between you

If you show that a payment of a court fee would involve undue hardship to you, the Court Manager may remit (say you do not have to pay) the fee.

This is taken from the HMCS website (Moneyclaim).

With regard to the £10 for the Data Protection Act request, you could try just asking for copies of your statements. When I began my claim, I had most of my last 6 years statements except for the first 2 years (if that makes sense). I requested copy statements via their online banking system and when they didn't arrive as promised (they said in a couple of weeks), I kept phoning and phoning them and being a right nuisance. I the end I got my missing statements in just over 3 weeks and I didn't pay a penny.

I don't have any credit cards so I am not sure how hard they play ball but I think I have read on here somewhere from someone who works for Capital One and they said that are generally offering to reduce peoples charges to £12 instead of £20 but that doesn't really put more money in your pocket, just makes the money you already owe a bit less.

Quisitrix · 20th June 2006, 16:28

Thanks for your posts. Does anyone know if the exemption from court fees applies in Scotland too?

Q

20th June 2006, 16:36

Bst thing to do is call the local court andf find out!

Good Luck

Lou xxx

20th June 2006, 16:42

Your jewellery is nice! Just checked your website out. Im guessing you make it yourself?

Quisitrix · 20th June 2006, 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lueeze

Your jewellery is nice! Just checked your website out. Im guessing you make it yourself?

Thank you. Yes I do.

Though I don't make as much as I'd like to. It's impossible to make anything with beads while the kids are around. They both take after their Mum - facinated by anything shiny. I've been doing some more conventional crochet but I haven't been able to get it up on the site.

Q

24th June 2006, 17:49

Post you thing on the ebay forum under the beer garden!

Quisitrix · 25th June 2006, 23:27

Probably not worth posting it on the E-bay forum because I've had to close the e-bay shop cause I can't afford the fees at the moment.

maverik1979 · 25th June 2006, 23:47

you're not the first person or the last to be stung in this way by the banks, i too have had the absolute nightmare of trying to figure out how to feed my daughter and myself/wife, because when i go to pay for the shopping on my switch card it gets refused because of a bank charge i didnt know about (they stopped sending me letters about them a long time ago)

take heart from the fact that this may be an opportunity to get some of your life back, from them,
btw i'm pretty sure that the banks cant touch your benefit money, not sure about scotland but im pretty damn sure thats the case down here

Quisitrix · 26th June 2006, 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverik1979

you're not the first person or the last to be stung in this way by the banks, i too have had the absolute nightmare of trying to figure out how to feed my daughter and myself/wife, because when i go to pay for the shopping on my switch card it gets refused because of a bank charge i didnt know about (they stopped sending me letters about them a long time ago)

take heart from the fact that this may be an opportunity to get some of your life back, from them,
btw i'm pretty sure that the banks cant touch your benefit money, not sure about scotland but im pretty damn sure thats the case down here

Thanks for your comments. I'm not sure what you mean about the banks not touching my benefit money. This week it got paid into the bank and disapeared into the black hole of charges.

Hopefully next week I shall have some money.

Q

Karnevil · 26th June 2006, 09:07

have a read of this - if you're concerned not having enough to live on if the banks are taking your benefits money -

Tina V Abbey *** WON ***

re Appropriation - from Jonni2bad

I thought this was very interesting (especially as the banks took all my child benefit and tax credits for two months to pay their flipping charges)

Quisitrix · 26th June 2006, 23:48

Thanks for that. Very useful.

Quisitrix · 27th June 2006, 14:34

I thought I'd try to avoid the Data Protection Act troubles and request the back statements online. I got a microfiche letter and Have filled in a form allowing them to debit £10 from my account. As soon as the money comes out of my account I shall start bugging them for my statements. It doesn't matter too much if they take their time over it. I'm in Scotland so I can only claim up to £750 in the small claims court. The statements I already have show charges above that.

Q

maverik1979 · 27th June 2006, 19:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quisitrix

I thought I'd try to avoid the Data Protection Act troubles and request the back statements online. I got a microfiche letter and Have filled in a form allowing them to debit £10 from my account. As soon as the money comes out of my account I shall start bugging them for my statements. It doesn't matter too much if they take their time over it. I'm in Scotland so I can only claim up to £750 in the small claims court. The statements I already have show charges above that.

Q

if that is the case you could do several claims (non concurrently of course) say one for each year, that way the individual claim amount should be below the threshold amount for small claims track, and eventually you should get all that is owed to you

Quisitrix · 27th June 2006, 20:07

Yeah that's my plan. I just need to get some time on the computer so I can fill in my spreadsheet.

Q

Quisitrix · 5th July 2006, 23:02

Right that's the spreadsheet done and the letter printed off. It turns out they owe me £1656 plus interest of £16.34.

I'll be posting the letter tomorrow.

Q

Quisitrix · 9th August 2006, 15:40

Well it turned out I couldn't afford to post the letter. Now I can. I've adjusted the letter so I thought I'd post the adjusted form here so you guys can check it out before I make a fool of myself.

Dear Sir/Madam,

ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXX

My request:
I am writing to ask you to refund to me the charges which you have levied from my account over the last 3 years

I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. If you say that they are not then will you please demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs.

Additionally it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT who reported on the 5th April 2006 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.

These charges are causing me considerable discomfort. The benefits that are paid into this account are my only source of income and in paying these charges I find that I am running out of money. Last month we very nearly ran out of food and when this month’s charges are paid I expect to have difficulty feeding my children and I will probably have to go without food myself for a couple of days.

Your responsibilities:
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I consider that your repeated representations that your charges are fair and reasonable are deceptive and that they have deceived me into agreeing to pay them. You concealment of the true nature of your charges has prevented me from asserting my right until now.

What I require:
I calculate that you have taken £1,981.00 plus interest of £19.75 that you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. The total is £2,000.75 and I request full payment of that amount. This includes the charges that will be taken from my account on the 17th of August.

My targets to resolve this matter:
I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting unconditionally my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment.

If you do not respond or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

After that will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.

Yours faithfully,

Karnevil · 9th August 2006, 16:08

Hi Quistrix - just a quickie as I'm supposed to be doing other stuff LOL

Re

Quote:

These charges are causing me considerable discomfort. The benefits that are paid into this account are my only source of income and in paying these charges I find that I am running out of money. Last month we very nearly ran out of food and when this month’s charges are paid I expect to have difficulty feeding my children and I will probably have to go without food myself for a couple of days.

If this is true and you are finding it difficult to manage you could try the letter of appropriation which is useful in an emergency - do a search on it using the search tool. Tina&Gaz and Freebird have used it recently to good effect.

It basically formally requests the bank leave you some money to live on rather than taking all your benefits money to pay their charges.

hope thathelps.

Karne
x

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