Nikki vs Monument (Barclays)

[Nikki1234]

Hi,

I am well on my way on my adventure against Monument to get back my unfair charges, so I thought I would start up a thread here after reading loads of your posts.

So far I sent the prelim back on the 22nd February, and received a 50% offer today (not including interest and contractual interest. Was quite surprised as I am at the court stage of a claim with HSBC and they took a good few weeks to give a first partial offer! Monument (Barclays) seem to be using different tactics...

I will be sending an acceptance only as part payment letter tomorrow, but wanted to address a few paragraphs in their letter. I was wondering if anyone would mind casting their eyes over it and see if there are any glaring mistakes??

I would really appreciate it!

Thanks
Nikki.

Dear Ms O'Neill,

Thank you for your letter dated 27th February 2007.

I respectfully decline your goodwill offer and request, once again, that you return to me all charges imposed on this account, now totalling £620.64. I will accept the sum offered only as part settlement and on the clear understanding that I will pursue recovery of the remainder, with a County Court claim if necessary.

I would like refer to the following paragraph from your letter dated 27th February 2007:

“I can confirm that in accordance with the Office of Fair Trading suggestions, our charges have been decreased to £12.00 in relation to the fees in question.”

The £12.00 threshold as described in the statement from the Office of Fair Trading is not a suggestion of a fair charge; it is a “simple monetary threshold for intervention by OFT on default charges.”

The OFT statement goes on to state “We are not proposing that default fees should be equivalent to the threshold, and a court will certainly not consider that a default fee is fair just because it is below the threshold.”

I also would like to refer to the following paragraph from your letter dated 27th February 2007:

“At Monument, we believe it is fair that when a customer pays us late or the balance on the account exceeds the agreed credit limit, the costs we incur are borne by the customer.”

To support your statement, I request that you send me a complete breakdown of the actual costs you incur as a result of a customer exceeding their agreed overdraft limit or failing to make the minimum payment. In addition to this, I would like all notes on my record of any manual intervention on my account in relation to any default charges. This was previously requested in my original Subject Access Request letter but has not been received to date.

For your information, to quote from section 3.27 in the OFT statement:

In our view a fair default charge should:

• be calculated on the basis of a reasonable pre-estimate of the net limited additional administrative costs which occur as a result of the specific breaches of contract and can be identified with reasonable precision.

• reflect a fair attribution of those cost between defaulting consumers.

• be based on genuine estimate of the total numbers of expected instances of default in the relevant period, and

• treat costs other than those net limited additional administrative costs as a general overhead of the credit card business and disregard them for them purpose of calculating a default fee.

My letter dated 22nd February 2007 indicates that you have until 8th March 2007 to respond before I proceed to the next stage of my request, which will be a letter to give notice of court action. My deadline remains the same despite this offer.

I trust this clarifies my position.

Yours sincerely,

[Advoc8]

Nice letter but to be honest you're wasting your ink/toner, the first paragraph is all you need. They'll have their policy on refunds that they'll stick to as long as you go through all the right steps.

[Nikki1234]

Hehe, was just hoping to scare them into paying me earlier by looking as if I knew what I was talking about! But I hear you - it's more likely they'll stick to their own policies.

Thanks for the comments ,
Nikki.

[dar£n]

Originally Posted by Nikki1234

was just hoping to scare them into paying me earlier by looking as if I knew what I was talking about!

Once again I agree with 'Advoc8' a lot of work for nowt.
Nikki, I doubt they even read it to be honest.

[Nikki1234]

Thanks guys,

I agree totally. I don't know why I even bothered to be honest - it just seemed like a good idea at the time and I had a few hours to spare! I think it just threw me that they offered so quickly. All the others are tending to drag it out till after the LBA to make a partial offer.

I had to send it anyway as I spent ages on it... you never know I suppose.

Good luck with your claim - you're a lot further ahead then me so I'm gonna watch with interest

[Nikki1234]

Just a quick update:

Sent in my AQ a while ago with the Draft Directions... and they were used! Fantastic!!!

So now for the court bundle - my deadline is 4th June, so theirs will be 18th June. So all things going right - payment should be right in time for my well-earned holiday in July!!

Hope everyone else's is going ok,
Nikki

[saintly_1]

Try phoning B's litigation team and ask if they could inform you who is dealing with your claim so that you can send all documents to the right person ...... you never know they might want to settle

[Nikki1234]

Fantastic idea! I'll do it on Tuesday.

One quick question about the Court Bundle if anyone can help.

I'm putting as much as I can into my bundle and seem to have got everything after triple-checking.

Not sure about the Competition Commission report though? Some people think it's a good idea to put it in... but are people putting in the ENTIRE 192 page report (not even including appendices!), or are they just putting in the press release which is a more manageable 4 pages.

Would appreciate it if anyone can advise - this is the first court bundle I've done so want to get it right...

Thanks,
Nik

[dar£n]

Nikki,
same advice as post #4.

Just prepare the std bundle for now.
Have you been given a court date yet, normally if youve got a deadline for your bundle, the hearing is about 14 to 28 days later.

As Saintly suggests, which is becoming a regular pice of advice now is to contact Krysta or Kate at teh Litigations Dept, and ask if they have received your court bundle as you sent it recorded delivery but after checking the internet it hasnt been signed for.
Then while youve got them on the phone ask them if they are prepared to settle out of court as the amount in question is nominal in comparison and you feel it would be more cost effective to reach a settlement without involving the courts.

[Nikki1234]

Thanks dar£n, yeah I'll do that after I send my bundle off on Tuesday.

And no I don't have a court date yet - is this unusual then? The judge ordered the directions I asked for (the 14 + 14 days), but didn't advise a court date with the order. I think he's cottoned on that the banks don't actually going to court, so isn't wasting his time allocating a court date yet! Good for him!

[dar£n]

Nikki, you misunderstood me, I meant prepare it, just in case you need it. dont send it yet, you might not need it, we might be able to get to sorted by the end of the week.

Follow the instructions on contacting the Litigation Team and hopefully they will decide to settle now rather than later.

[Nikki1234]

Ahhh - I get it now! Duh!

Ok, I'll ring Krysta Tuesday, but to be honest I have to send off the bundle by Friday/Saturday anyway (it's due Mon 4th), so they've only got a couple of days to think about it!

Thanks for your help,
Nik

[dar£n]

If you phone them Tues, they will tell you then when they will settle, you then come back instructing them that you MUST have CLEARED funds in your account BEFORE the deadline for submitting the documents.

[Nikki1234]

Just a little update:

I rang Krysta and she passed me onto Tom who is dealing with my claim. After a bit of toing and froing I got a settlement offer via email for the full amount on Friday and sent it back on the same day.

From what I can gather about their process is that the legal team have to advise Barclays when a settlement is required, then if Barclays agree they send back with an offer. Then once the offer is signed and sent back, it goes back to Barclays to pay. Now this is the bit that is taking the time (if this is actually what is happening). I haven't heard anything since last Friday. Dum de dum de dum..... I am not the most patient of people!!

How long has it taken everyone else?

I had to send in my bundle in the end anyway and mentioned that I would be requesting a wasted costs order and did they want to consider accounting for this in the settlement to prevent this coming in later.? The answer was pretty much a no - but it was worth a try!

Thanks to everyone for advising me to phone them up - it's definitely worth doing.

Nikki.

[saintly_1]

Congratulations
However dont inform the court until you have the cleared funds in your account