** WON ** About to start any advice offered is much appreciated

[dzaster]

Now its getting silly, I have started a claim with MCOL against Barclays and received a copy of the claim form today. The one problem I see with it is they have actually cited myself as the defendant and also Barclays as the Claimant.

Before I submitted the claim I checked and double checked everything and also had a colleague of mine check it. What do I do now as I cant afford to resubmit and spend another £80 for the privilege

[dzaster]

Oh and before anyone has a good laugh at me for entering the details in the wrong boxes, My colleague at work (lawyer) checked before I submitted the claim and also has a printout of the forms before I paid to submit them

[Nightstar]

have you contacted MCOL Helpdesk? to inform them

[dzaster]

Unfortunately by the time I got back from work they were closed, will contact them tomorrow and see what they say

[Nightstar]

Good Luck.

[dzaster]

Have today received back from the courts an Acknowledgement of Service for my claim

28 days to go from the 29/09/06

[dzaster]

Barclays have filed a defence against my claim, I am now busy trying to fill out the allocation questionnaire

Nothings easy is it

	County Court guidebook by Judge Patricia Pearl Follow this link to read the review of this excellent Small Claims Guidebook. This comprehensive and very accessible guide will take you through the process of suing or defending a claim. This guide will help you take control of your litigation and make you more confident about doing it yourself. Applies to England and Wales

[Welshman]

It is easy to complete if you follow the link here and in section G you put the following:

"I am respectfully requesting my claim be heard via the small claims
track. This issue is not a complicated one; it is an issue of fact and
not of law. The issue is only whether the money levied by the
defendant in respect of its customer’s contractual breaches exceed
or even reflect their actual costs incurred. I am happy to pay their
actual costs and I am surprised the defendant did not counterclaim
for these, as I would have paid them without argument. However,
the continuing problem is (in common with the hundreds of other
cases currently being brought by other bank customers) that the
banks are refusing to reveal the details of their penalty-charging
regime, and that the charges they apply to accounts for exceeding
overdraft limits and so on are entirely disproportionate to the
actual costs the banks incur. As the banks have a fiduciary duty
towards their customers, they have a duty to deal straightforwardly
and in utmost good faith. Accordingly, I would respectfully ask that
the court in this case, not withstanding allocations to the small
claims track, order standard disclosure. I understand that it is in
the courts discretion to do so. I believe this would bring a rapid
end to this litigation. I have attached the schedule of the charges
I am claiming for to this allocation questionnaire to show a
breakdown of the amounts for the courts perusal".

Good Luck

[jamiesmum]

ok, at the risk of seemng really dim, do you put this on section G on form N149 AQ for small claims track (given its allready for small claims track) so confused..........

	County Court guidebook by Judge Patricia Pearl Follow this link to read the review of this excellent Small Claims Guidebook. This comprehensive and very accessible guide will take you through the process of suing or defending a claim. This guide will help you take control of your litigation and make you more confident about doing it yourself. Applies to England and Wales

[dzaster]

Just so everyone knows the defence Barclays have offer is 10 points in total please see below

1. The Particulars of Claim do not provide details or particulars of the account in question and/or the precise charges alleged to have been unlawful, or the date thereof - I thought that was in schedule of charges, which the court have also received

2. To the extent it is alleged that the Claimant incurred bank charges on his unathourised borrowings (whether unpaid fees for returned cheques, 'Paid Referral fees' or any other such fees), the Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof of each charge and the date thereof - again schedule of charges

3. The Defendant's standard terms and conditions give the Claimant a fair and transparent veiw of the terms and the charges applicable for unauthorised borrowings (including where the account is overdrawn without an overdraft limit or where the Claimant exceeds his authorised overdraft limit)

4. If and to the extent it is the Claimants case that the failure to make necessary payments and/or failure to remain within authorised overdraft limits, failure to to arrange an authorised overdraft constitued a breach of the terms and conditions applying to the account and that the contractual entitlement to debit charges from the Claimants account constitutes a liquidated damages clause, the same is denied. The charges constitute payments the Claimant agreed to make by reason of the terms and conditions of his account and were consideration for the Defendant advancing credit to the claimant, which the Defendant was under no obligation to advance. The Defendant was entitled to impse such charges and intrest when the Claimant incurred the overdraft.

5. Accordingly, it is denied the the legal principles relating to liquidated damages clauses and penalty charges are relevant or applicable to the facts set out above. Further or alternatively it is denied that any such charges constitute unlawful penalty charges or are in breach of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 or are in breach of th Unfair (Contracts) Terms Act 1977, or are unreasonable within the meaning of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (or indeed any other provision).

6. Therefore, it is denied that the charges were unlawfully debited from the account.

7. If and to the extent the Claimant incurred charges on his account, this was caused by the Claimant having gone into overdraft without having agreed with the Defendant an authorised overdraft facility or to increase the overdraft facilty and/or his failure to make payments to bring the balance of the account back into credit.

8. It is averred that the said charges and intgrest remain lawful and enforceable and the Defendant was entitled to debit the same. Accordingly, the Claimant is not entitled to a declaration by the Court as to the enforcability of the said charges

9. The Defendant denies that it is liable to the Claimant for the sums claimed and interest as pleaded by the Claimant or at all. In the alternative, which is denied, if the said charges amount to summs payable on breach of contract, it is averred that the charges asserted by the Claimant to have been applied to the account prior to 12 September 2000 would not be recoverable for reason of exhaustion of time in bringing contractual claims from the date of accrual, pursuant to the Limitation Act 1980.

10. In the alternative, and without prejudice to paragraph 6 above, if (which is denied) the said charges and interest or any part thereof are unlawful or unenforcable as alleged by the Claimant or at all, the Defendant has nonetheless suffered loss and damage as a consequence of the Claimants breach of contract in allowing that accountto go into unauthorised overdraft. Accordingly, in the event that the Defendant is unable to rely on its express entitlement to enforce the charges set out at paragraphs 2 and 3 above, it will seek to recover to the extent necessary such loss and damage as it actually suffered, which will not necessarily be limited to the value of the said charges, and the defendant seeKs to set off such sums against any liability owed hereunder to the Claimant.

Adrian Ruffhead
Litigation and Disputes

	Are you letting your bank keep your money Are you giving away thousands of pounds?? Many people aren't claiming all of the money they are entitled to when they make their bank charges claims. You have been forced to pay unfair bank charges. Have you forgotten that your bank has charged you inteest on those charges? If you are overdrawn and the bank owes you charges - then your overdraft is made up of charges - money which you bank owes you. Yet you are paying interest to the bank - on your own money!!! Follow this link to see the discussions on this. You might even double th size of your claim.

[dzaster]

oh and just in case you need it claim number is

6qz62753

[victimnomore]

Yes, welshman's quote goes in section G.

The final decision of which track the case will be allocated to is down to the judge, so the first part is to underline your wish to use the small claims track.

The rest is to explain that although the case is suitable for the small claims court, you would like the Judge to order "standard disclosure", (you have to request it since it is not normal in small claims cases). Standard disclosure would mean that Barclays would be required to explain in court exactly how they make up their charges - that's the bit that scares them most!

[dzaster]

Thanks Welshman, I have read through other posts and sent my AQ recorded delivery today.

And now we wait

	County Court guidebook by Judge Patricia Pearl Follow this link to read the review of this excellent Small Claims Guidebook. This comprehensive and very accessible guide will take you through the process of suing or defending a claim. This guide will help you take control of your litigation and make you more confident about doing it yourself. Applies to England and Wales

[dzaster]

Just been in touch with the court dealing with this case, and have found out that yet again, Barclays have submitted the documents late.

I know this is standard practice by them but surely they should be held in contempt of court for doing this. The documents required from them were due on 31/10/06 as were mine, they did not arrive until 01/11/06. Now I can appreciate it is only a day, however if I was to do this my case would have been rejected.

Anyone care to answer why the banks can get away with this and yet we cant

[hels bells]

Hi, new to this site and forum, i have read hours and hours of info but i do believe my claim will seriously exceed £5,000 perhaps near 15k as i am in business and the banks have had lots of fun with me. I under stand the multi link track but where do i find the relevant info, is the procedure the same as with the small claims court ect.
Help!!!!!!
football

[dzaster]

Originally Posted by helen Burrows

Hi, new to this site and forum, i have read hours and hours of info but i do believe my claim will seriously exceed £5,000 perhaps near 15k as i am in business and the banks have had lots of fun with me. I under stand the multi link track but where do i find the relevant info, is the procedure the same as with the small claims court ect.
Help!!!!!!
football

Hi Helen

Welcome to the forum, I honestly could not tell you any more than this site does although I understand where you are coming from. It may be a good idea to speak with one of the mods who may be able to tell you more.

Dz

[dzaster]

Just received a letter from my local court giving me a date, 14/02/07, just now got to get the documents required sorted.

[austenpowers]

Looks like it's going to be a Valentine's Day massacre for Barclays!

[dzaster]

I hope so, just wish it could have been sooner

[scooby doo]

Originally Posted by dzaster

Just received my Data Protection Act back from Barclays and they seem to have changed the wording

I have pasted the text in below from a scan I did of the letter

Please be aware that the Bank is not under an obligation to present information according to any particular format. Therefore, your request to assemble a schedule of charges is turned aside. You may of course obtain this data from copy statements and these will be supplied to you shortly without charge on this occasion. As the Bank is providing the copy statements on a complimentary basis, no payment will be will debited from your account.
As regards your mention of “manual intervention”, the Data Protection Act does not oblige the Bank to comment about internal policies and procedures. Furthermore, in the context of managing day to day transactions arising from out of order accounts, the Bank does not hold the information you have requested in a form that would be covered by the Data Protection Act. Whilst aggregated information is retained for statistical purposes, this would not constitute “personal data” under the Data Protection Act and therefore would not be covered by a s.7 Data Protection Act subject access request. For the avoidance of doubt, the fact that we do not generally record information in a way that is caught by the provisions of the Data Protection Act, is in no way an admission that there was no such manual intervention.

Any comments??

I had exactly the same reply from Barclays and apparently this normal.