Skycard/Barclaycard/Mercers

[Mitch524]

Received letter from Barclaycard threatening to pass debt to Mercers last week.
In response I will send the following letter thoughts ?

ACCOUNT IN DISPUTE

Date: *th February 2010

Ref: **************

Dear ****,

Re letter dated **th January 2010 – Request for payment.
I will direct you to previous correspondence that you have received and failed to respond to.
I sent the information detailed below on **th November 2009 this was signed for as delivered on **th November 2009 and has not been responded to within the time lines that are legally set out.
In regard to the relentless phone calls that I receive from yourselves they are all being logged and recorded for a complaint of harassment. All correspondence regarding this matter will be conducted in writing if the telephone calls do not cease I will raise a Harassment Complaint with the relevant bodies.
In regard to calls to my place of work I want you to provide me of detail on how this information was obtained. This will also be included in the harassment complaint as personal phone calls to my place of work will only be passed if they are of an emergency nature. These must cease immediately.
In your letter dated you threaten to instruct Mercers Debt Collections Ltd to send a default notice. As the account is in dispute you are fully aware that you can not legally take this action. Further more I am also aware that Mercers Debt Collections Ltd are an in-house collection agency.
In your letter you detail your rights under section 87(i) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. What about my rights detailed below in the Consumer Credit Act 1974 ?

You have failed to respond to my legal request to supply me a true copy of the original Consumer Credit Agreement for the above account.

On *th November 2009 I made a formal request for a true signed agreement for the alleged account under consumer credit Act 1974 s77/8. This was signed for as delivered on the *th November 2009 .
You have failed to comply with my request, and as such the account entered default on **th November 2009.

The document that you are obliged to send me is a true copy of the executed agreement that contained all of the prescribed terms, all other required terms and statutory notices and was signed by both your company and myself as defined in section 61(1) of CCA 74 and subsequent Statutory Instruments. If the executed agreement contained any reference to any other document, you are also obliged to send me a copy of that document. In addition a full statement of this account should have been sent to me detailing all debits and credits to the account.

Furthermore, you are aware that the Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for a request for a true copy of a credit agreement to be carried out before you enter into a default situation.

This limit has expired.

As you are no doubt aware section 78(6) states:

If the creditor fails to comply with Subsection (1)

(a) He is not entitled , while the default continues, to enforce the agreement.

Therefore this account has become unenforceable at law.

As you have failed to comply with a lawful request for a true, signed copy of the said agreement and other relevant documents mentioned in it, Failed to send a full statement of the account and Failed to provide any of the documentation requested. You will also be aware of the CPUTR 2008 and the OFT's guidelines on dept collection which state under the title Deceptive and/or unfair methods - Examples of unfair practices are as follows - 2.8

(i) - 'Failing to investigate and/or provide details as appropriate, when a debt is queried or disputed, possibly resulting in debtors being wrongly pursued'

(k) - 'Not ceasing collection activity whilst investigating a reasonable queried or disputed debt'

Consequentially any legal action you pursue will be averred as both UNLAWFUL and VEXATIOUS.

Furthermore I shall counter claim that any such action constitutes unlawful harassment.

Please note you may also consider this letter as a statutory notice under section 10 of the Data Protection Act to cease processing any data in relation to this account with immediate effect.

This means you must remove all information regarding this account from your own internal records and from my records with any credit reference agencies.

Should you refuse to comply, you must within 21 days provide me with a detailed breakdown of your reasoning behind continuing to process my data.

It is not sufficient to simply state that you have a ‘legal right’; You must outline your reasoning in this matter and state upon which legislation this reasoning depends.

Should you not respond within 14 days I expect that this means you agree to remove all such data.

Furthermore you should be aware that a creditor is not permitted to take ANY
Action against an account whilst it remains in dispute.

The lack of a credit agreement is a very clear dispute and as such the following applies.

* You may not demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.
* You may not add further interest or any charges to the account.
* You may not pass the account to a third party.
* You may not register any information in respect of the account with any credit reference agency.
* You may not issue a default notice related to the account.

I reserve the right to report your actions to any such regulatory authorities as I see fit.
You have 14 days from receiving this letter to contact me with your intentions to resolve this matter which is now a formal complaint.

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

I look forward to hearing from you in writing.

Yours faithfully

[slick132]

Hi Mitch,

I suggest you send 2 letters (use the same Rec'd Del'y envelope) to deal with the phone harassment separately from the CCA issue.

Re phone calls at works, you can include:-

I must refer you to the OFT debt collection Guidelines, Sections 2.6(a) and 2.6(j) which apply to calls made to my place of work. If any further calls are made to me at work, formal complaints will be made to the OFT, Trading Standards and the fos without further notice.

Adapt to suit your own case.

Have they sent you anything in reply to your CCA request?

[Mitch524]

Nothing other than letters requesting payment.

[slick132]

Then go ahead but with the 2 separate letters.

[Mitch524]

Sent the letters as suggested thanks slick.
They were sent Friday should reach destination by tuesday will check to see if signed for and we will see if phone calls stop.
Then it's same tactic with MBNA.

[oilyrag]

Hi Mitch,

Sorry to say that Barclaycard and their raft of inhouse collections people (mercers/calders et al) will totally ignore any correspondence from you about phone calls and threatening letters and the like. They are probably the most difficult of all to handle. In our own case we have recently logged the 500th call from Mercers. They have ignored our letters and letters from our solicitors. The professional advice from our sols is to just put the phone down and ignore them. They have no standing in law whatsoever, in fact they are a dormant company and anything they do may shortly be classified as illegal anyway under the Companies Act 2006.

It is wise to follow Slick's advice and send the letters. It probably will not stop the calls altogether but you will have a paper trail to use against them should it come to that at a later date in your defence. There will come a point after the letters have been sent that you can report them to Trading Standards and the OFT. Unfortunately your local TS people will probably know less about Consumer Law than you do and the OFT will not deal with individual cases but it would seem as the complaints stack up against a certain company they then issue reprimands and threats over their fitness to hols a credit licence.

Always carefully log the tiimes and dates of the calls and keep all correspondence from them including envelopes. In general it can safely be ignored until and unless proceedings are issued. Keep a copy of the doorstep collections letter from here by the door and hand it to any unfortunate who actually calls which in itself is highly unlikely.

Hope that this helps and best of luck.

Best regards
oilyrag.

[Mitch524]

Thanks Oilyrag,
If you don't mind me asking how long has your dispute with BC been going and have you received any paperwork from them and how did you obtain it as they have totally ignored my CCA request and not returned the payment I sent with it.
Cheers Mitch.

[oilyrag]

Hi Mitch,

The timeframe is the best part of three years (for several accounts of mine and OH). CCA s78 requests from us and our sols produced basically drivel, just T&C's for the wrong years which had been hand written on. Subject access requests enabled a bit to be returned with interest on unlawful charges and one Subject access request which they refused to fulfill on the grounds that "they did not have to provide this information" "Reason given under the criminal law they do not have to voluntarily supply incriminating evidence of unlawful activity". It is up to us to prove beyond reasonable doubt which we already have in the statements and bank account statements.

Forgot to mention it earlier but do not under any circumstances discuss your affairs with them over the telephone. Anything that cannot be put into writing must logically be unlawful and once requested it is also against OFT guidelines to refuse to comunicate in writing. This crowd are the most persistent and will continue to harass you. Just get to know how to deal with them, they have no standing whatsoever.

Finally open an account with another bank because Barclays/Barclaycard WILL exercise their right to "SETOFF" and will raid your account without your knowledge until it is too late.

regards
oilyrag.

[slick132]

Hi Mitch,

I see you made your CCA request a while back and have received nothing from it - not even a set of BC's T&C's.

If you get no response to the "a/c in dispute" letter within 14 days of sending it, I would then complain to the fos. They are getting agreements sent out, when the likes of BC refuse to.

Read more here about the threat of a home visit. http://www.consumerforums.com/resour...doorstep-visit-

[Mitch524]

Oilyrag,
Have joint account with savings account attached cleared them out and I'm going to put in writing to be removed from the account hopefully won't take longer than 2 weeks for them to do this as my partners wages are due to be paid into that account.
Tried to open another account with HSBC but was refused due to credit rating.
Can anyone confirm if more than 1 account held with the same lender do I sent £10 for each account when I submit a Subject access request or just one single payment ?

[slick132]

One Subject access request covers all data held by that bank concening you.

However, it may help the bank to supply what you want if you specify the a/c nos. for which you require data.

Be very carefull if you want to avoid the bank using their Right to Set-Off and take money to pay any BC arrears.

I know they don't have as big a network but have you tried the Alliance and Liecester (Santander). They operate through the post office system as well which helps with the shortage of branches.

Your wages, or those of your partner, will be at risk until you open and start using a parachute a/c.

[oilyrag]

Hi Mitch,

Slick is absolutely right about the "parachute" account. It really is a good thing to put some effort into getting something in place. BC stripped our business account right up to the agreed overdraft limit. We did get the money back after creating a scene in the local branch one very busy Saturday morning. As well as the A & L at the Post Office as Slick has suggested, some banks, and I believe NatWest is one, have a system of what they call "cash only accounts". This basically means that you can run your day to day affairs, pay money in and pay bills use cheques etc. but you agree not to ask for credit like OD at all as a condition of opening the account. Perhaps someone else on here will spot this and give some more detail.

We were lucky in that we had another account elsewhere and it was relatively easy for us to get the very necessary new account into place.

regards
oilyrag.

[Mitch524]

Originally Posted by slick132

Your wages, or those of your partner, will be at risk until you open and start using a parachute a/c.

Even after my name is removed from the Barclays account ?

[slick132]

I honestly wouldn't put anything past them.

And the problem is, even if you are in the right and they take money they shouldn't, you'll have the Devil's own job getting it back.

[Mitch524]

Unfortunately my partner won't listen and the only course of action to try and protect the account as best I can is to have my name removed from the account will keep you posted. Account empty at moment. Funds due in 23rd.

[slick132]

Understood.

As an alternative, does your partner have a non-Barclays a/c into which her salary could go.

Also, if there's a chance your name is not removed in time for the credit going in, you can write to the bank with right of appropriation Letter.

See this thread for details - Is the bank taking your Benefits ?

Although it refers to Benefits, the letter can be used to notify the bank of priority debts which must be paid from monies going in to the a/c.

[MDK]

oily rag, can you give me some more information about Mercers and shortly to be classified as illegal anyway under the Companies Act 2006, please?

Thank you

[oilyrag]

Hi MDK

Mercers Debt Collections are a dormant company. To all intents and purposes they are owned by Barclays Bank plc. Much has been made of this here before but we decided to take a better look at what was going on. Firstly you will find that Mercers are registered with Companies House as a dormant company. Also please note that the other strong arm units of Barclays are registered as part of Mercers, i.e. Calders Financial. This is actually in very tiny print at the bottom of their paperwork.

Anyway, Companies House have published very specific guidelines as to the conduct of dormant companies and this is available on the CH website as a .pdf. It is covered by the statutes of the Companies Act 2006. This has been enacted in stages but the relevant bit came into force in October 2008. This essentially is very specific that any dormant company which is part of or has a business, or projected future business in the financial sector then they CANNOT avoid the requirement to publish and file FULL AUDITED ACCOUNTS. If they fail to do so then the directors HAVE committed a criminal offence. So far Mercers have continued to file "short form" documents which do not conform to the Law as embodied in the Act. We complained to the authorities at Companies House and we were informed that Mercers were already the subject of an investigation into failing to comply. They have not filed as required therefore their directors HAVE committed a criminal offence. That is what the law states.

I do not have much faith in any of the regulatory authorities actually moving against Barclays Bank and leading John Varley away in handcuffs but it may be useful to bring up in court at the appropriate time. As I am sure John Story will tell you, there is a premise in English Law regardless of what type of law in that you must go to court with "clean hands" if you bring any form of claim or action. Barclays-- I do not think so and this is just another nail.

regards
oilyrag.

[MDK]

oilyrag, your reply is very much appreciated!

[Mitch524]

After BC receiving my letter re Harassment on Tuesday there calls have subside but now getting them from Mercers they will receive same letter shortly and I think I will follow it up with the bemused template also.