Ash Vs Abbey........

[Suprash]

Hi guys, well I have filled out my spreadsheet detailing my charges that I want to claim back for, and have filled out the prelim letter, am I ready to send it off to Abbey now, and where do I send it to, should it be a customer service address or my local branch ??

Also reading some of the other posts here, I have an agreed O/D on my account of £1100, when Abbey receive my claim it seems from previous people they may try and close my account, could this be the case ? And what would happen regarding my agreed O/D ??

Also I read somewhere on here about Abbey might set a default notice against you, I presume this is basically a bad credit rating of some sort, sorry I dont really understand all this wordy stuff so if someone could explain

Is there anything I should be aware of from your own experiences....??

[Suprash]

Well guys I sent of my premilary letter to Abbey for total amount of £2,600 and I got a reply back from them. I just want to double check with you guys that this letter is all standard stuff and that I should continue with the claim for the full amount.

It goes something like this........

Thank you for you letter dated, blah, blah, blah.....

Having carried out a full investigation, I can assure you the charges do not contravene those regulations and therefore I cannot agree to refund them all. However as a good gesture I am happy to cancel charges amounting to £1,200.

The regulations say that we must explain our charges in plain language and that we have to act in good faith, which, according to the office of fair trading, means dealing fairly and openly with customers.

I therefore reviewed the literature and information you recieved when you opened your account, including the terms and conditions. This explains that charges will be applied if you do not keep to the terms of the account. Becuase of this, I believe we have been fair and open in telling you about them. The charges were correct, becuase you did not have enough money in your account to cover payments requested from it. When I look at the history for your account I found that, unfortunatly, this was not the first time this has happened.

And then the trailing blah, blah, blah of the letter, nothing worth reading....

So just wanna confirm that I can a) accept this amount as part payment, or should I refuse it completely, and that b) I can continue with the letter before action ??

Cheers guys

[Karnevil]

yes accept it as part payment - they may already have refunded it to your account -0 or they may withdraw the offer -0 in any case in you lba you will be proceeding for a FULL refund

[Suprash]

Ok was just sorting out my LBA, but the begging of the letter doenst make sense with what they have responsed to as it starts "Im very disappointed you havent responded". Should I just change it to reflect their response, and hope I can make is sound as "companified" as the reast of the letter........

[Suprash]

Originally Posted by Suprash

Having carried out a full investigation, I can assure you the charges do not contravene those regulations and therefore I cannot agree to refund them all.

Is it just me or is this totally laughable, how can they still claim that their charges do not contravene the regulations ??

I mean if it didnt then surely we all wouldnt be here now...........

Also on a side note, Im aware Barclays have now lowered their DD charges to £12, but has any other bank that people know of followed yet. And arent the banks supposed to be conforming to the standard £12 charge set out by the OFTEL or whoever it is lol..... Otherwise they face being fined ??

So anyone know what the banks are supposed to be doing at the moment or are they still free to charge what they like ?

[Pandapa]

Hi
when it comes to charges Abbey still insist that the charges are not unlawful.
I was speaking to some Abbey bloke some minutes ago and he was trying to explain to me why they are lawful. Can someone tell me whether the OFT have not made it clear that to charge more than £12.00 does not reflect the costs incurred following a transaction ?

[Suprash]

Originally Posted by Pandapa

Hi
when it comes to charges Abbey still insist that the charges are not unlawful.
I was speaking to some Abbey bloke some minutes ago and he was trying to explain to me why they are lawful. Can someone tell me whether the OFT have not made it clear that to charge more than £12.00 does not reflect the costs incurred following a transaction ?

Head + brickwall = Abbey lol.......

[Suprash]

Hi guys, quick update on my progress so far, and I just need some clarification......

I have sent Abbey a 'letter before action' after they offered me half of the money Im trying to reclaim, and they have replied with the following letter. I just want to know if it sounds like the standard type stuff they send out and whether its worth me still continuing with the next step on obtaining my N1 forms for small claims.........

Letter from Abbey:

Dear Mr Willis,

Thank you for your letter dated 17/10/2006, about your bank charges. I am sorry you are unhappy with my response dated 10/10/2006.

Having carried out a full investigation, I can assure you the charges do not contravene those regulations and therefore I cannot agree to refund anything more in the addition to the £1,273 already credited to your account.

The regulations say that we must explain our charges in plain language and that we have t o act in good faith, which, according to the office of fair trading, means dealing fairly and openly with customers.

I therefore reviewed the litrature and information you received when you opened your accountm, including the terms and conditions. This explains that charges will be applied if you do not keep to the terms of the account. Because of this, I believe we have been and open in telling you about them. The charges were correct, because you did not have enough money in your account to cover payments requested from it. When I looked at the history for your account I found that, unfortunately, this was not the first time this has happened. We have done our best to make you aware of the importance of managing your aco**** to prevent the situation happenign again.

I am sorry we have not been able to reach a final agreement. As explained in my previous letter, if you remain unhappy, you could refer your complaint to the financial Ombudsman Service. I genuinely believe my decision is fair and reasonable. I appreciate your concern that the financial Ombudsman Service is an inappropriate forum, however, the service is there to look at complaints impartially. They will make what they believe to be a fair and balanced decision, based on the facts of each individual case.

So is the standard reply after making a partial offer, should I now continue with the small claims for the other half of my money ??

Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated guys......

Ash

[EKAS]

Hi, just wondered if someone could give a quick reply if were doing things right. As you can read from before we're currently obtaining the small claims papers, just wanted to make sure the letter posted before is of standard context and that we should proceed to the next step

[carolann62]

I received £260 from Abbey after orginally trying to claim back £752. I wrote back to say this was not acceptable and I gave them 28 days to reply with the remaining £492. That was nearly 2 months ago. I could not proceed any further as I did not have access to the internet at the time and was unsure what the next step was. I am now on-line again and am wondering should I write to them again or just go ahead with a court claim?

Can anyone advise?

[Pandapa]

Hi,
I'm at the stage of sending the letter claiming payment.Charges total £1842 minus what Abbey charged in overdraft interest.
Its taken almost a month to get my statements dating back to the year 2000.
This includes the ones they kept on microfiche. Seems Abbey have truly been beaten on the microfiche issue.
Now,I was just wondering whether at this stage I should include the 8 percent interest to these charges.

Pandapa

[tamadus]

I'll try and deal with everybody in 1 post so keep alert folks

Firstly start a thread of your own rather than hijack somebody elses, that way your claim stays in 1 place and its a lot easier to follow and offer advice and support.

Pandapa the 8% is allowed under s69 of the courts act at the discretion of the court do NOT add it on until you actually issue a court claim.

Carolann, have you sent a letter before action yet ? if not send one modified to suit your claim from the templates library allowing 14 days after which issue at moneyclaim. If you have already sent an LBA then issue anytime you feel like it.

Ekas I dont see any letter unless its in your own thread please post a link if it is.

Suprash, if they have credited a part payment to your account and you have issued an LBA then issue a claim when the 14 days LBA expires

[tamadus]

Originally Posted by EKAS

Hi, just wondered if someone could give a quick reply if were doing things right. As you can read from before we're currently obtaining the small claims papers, just wanted to make sure the letter posted before is of standard context and that we should proceed to the next step

Ooops sorry misread your post, Yes the letter quoted by Suprash looks like a standard FOB letter so proceed to the next stage.

[Suprash]

Tamadus, Thanks mate for the reply, appreciate it...........although Im having a few issues filling out the N1 form, so if you or someone could help I would really appreciate it.

On the section for 'Brief Details of Claim' section, the step-by-step guid says to copy/paste from 'particualrs of claim text, which when I do, the text is too big for the area. Now when using the online N1 form, when I paste the text for 'Brief details of claim' it doesnt all fit on and in the .pdf format it produced a slider bar to view all of the text. This is obvioulsy fine when using the form online but as soon as I print it out, it will only show the top of the text. I hope someone udnerstands what Im trying to say ?? Should the details of claim use all points 1 - 5, or should it broken down into seperate sections somewhere else............if anyone is having trouble understanding what I mean I could email someone my N1 form that I have filled out so far........



EDIT: Ok, I think I figured it out, I was pasting the 'particulars of claim text into the wrong area, this should be used on page 2 of N1 form. So my question now is what do I fill out on the 'Brief details of claim' section on the N1 form ???

[tamadus]

Originally Posted by Suprash

Tamadus, Thanks mate for the reply, appreciate it...........although Im having a few issues filling out the N1 form, so if you or someone could help I would really appreciate it.

On the section for 'Brief Details of Claim' section, the step-by-step guid says to copy/paste from 'particualrs of claim text, which when I do, the text is too big for the area. Now when using the online N1 form, when I paste the text for 'Brief details of claim' it doesnt all fit on and in the .pdf format it produced a slider bar to view all of the text. This is obvioulsy fine when using the form online but as soon as I print it out, it will only show the top of the text. I hope someone udnerstands what Im trying to say ?? Should the details of claim use all points 1 - 5, or should it broken down into seperate sections somewhere else............if anyone is having trouble understanding what I mean I could email someone my N1 form that I have filled out so far........



EDIT: Ok, I think I figured it out, I was pasting the 'particulars of claim text into the wrong area, this should be used on page 2 of N1 form. So my question now is what do I fill out on the 'Brief details of claim' section on the N1 form ???

This is for very brief details so something along the lines of Claimant is reclaiming fees and charges applied to an account held by the claimant.

That should be more than adequate.

[Suprash]

Right I have filled out my N1 form, please could I email a copy to someone so that they could have a quick eye ball over it to make sure everything looks ok, just that I dont want to get something wrong at this stage and courts really aint my bag

[Suprash]

Ok one last question, when calculating the 8% interest on the amount to be reclamined, how exactly is it worked out, is is 8% total, or 8% per day ? Does the spreadsheet provided in the step-by-step guide work this %'age out correctly in this manner.....?