Northern Soul Vs Abbey Business

[Northern Soul]

Hi all, I have a few concerns with my claim for a refund of charges from my old Abbey Business account.

Initially I placed 3 claims (abbey, abbey business and Capital one) in what I thought were the capable hands of a 3rd party "Claims managment" company. This was I think in February 2007.

The main reason for this was that at the time I claimed I was very angry with Abbey Business in particular because their charges effectively crippled my business and caused us to have to close it down. I thought that using a "Claims management company" would have been the most effective way to seek revenge.

The whole process of reclaiming also seemed very daunting and i wasn't prepared to go through with it myself at the time. Although i know now that it is fairly straightforward.

Without naming them, my experience so far with the claims management company has not been great, however they must have done something as my Capital One statement appeared one month with a credit balance for a change and I soon found out that all charges ever received had been refunded in full.

A few months later of course, the OFT case came in and we thought that we wouldn't hear anything again until that had been resolved.

I was prepared to leave the matter in the hands of the 3rd party, however out of the blue on Saturday i received a full and final offer from Abbey business. I now have a dilemma as for all intents and purposes, I had written off these charges a long time ago, so the way I see it is that getting any of it back now is a bonus, not a necessity.

Although the offer is approximately £450 short of the total amount of charges, not including interest, that I have calculated. i am quite happy to accept their offer. I understand that they may have however bypassed the 3rd party by making their offer to me directly and that the offer was more than likely as a result of the 3rd party's work.

Essentially my question is, can i dump the 3rd party on the basis that I have not been able to get in touch with them by phone or email and haven't had any updates on the progress of my claims. Can i simply accept the bank's offer? Let's face it they have only really sent out a few letters, I called them numerous times before the test case and all i got was "we're waiting for statements". I think they have been fobbing me off deliberately because they simply have taken on too many cases to be able to deal with them all in a timely manner.


I suspect that the 3rd party will also be specifically pursuing a court hearing so that hey can add their fees, but this will take time to arrange and to be honest i don't want to have to wait months for the chance of another £450 if i can just have the majority of the claim now, particularly with the amount of court cases that may result after the OFT case, i may have to wait years!

How do i get out of the arrangement i have made with the 3rd party? they are not aware of the offer made by the bank are not seeming to be doing anything anyway. Can they seriously charge a fee for cancelling which may be higher than what the bank have offered in settlement even if all that they have done is sent a demand for payment letter?

Interestingly i have until 11th of July to accept the bank's offer, which will after the July 7th OFT date, so I could hold out for that if necessary.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm quite new to all this.

Also I am in Scotland, the 3rd party isn't, without them travelling up to a court in Scotland, do they even have the jurisdiction/legal experience to deal with this?

[zootscoot]

Hi NS,

Welcome to forums. Congratulations on getting an offer on a business claim!

The question of whether you can terminate the contract with the claims company will depend on whether they have commited a serious breach of contract. This may depend on the terms and conditions of the contract. There is also an implied term in all contracts for services that work will be carried out within a reasonable time. They can't be blamed for the stay, but if they have failed to get hold of statements or do other matters in a timely manner there may well be a breach of s.14 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act. If you feel that their conduct has amounted to a serious breach you can write to them informing them that you feel that their conduct has fallen below that what was presented and you feel that their has been a serious breach of contract and therefore you are going to treat the contract as terminated and no longer wish them to act for you in any proceedings. The chances are they will be relieved to have you off their books given the uncertainty surrounding business claims at the moment. However, if they disagree that they have breached the contract in a serious way they may refuse to treat the contract as at an end. In which case they may claim against you for breaching the contract by terminating it and bring a claim for any costs they have incurred in carrying out work to date.

Do you know if the contract between you and them is governed by English law or Scots law?

Do you know if they have actually submitted a claim in the courts?

KTF

Zoot

PS do you want that typo in your user name changing?

[Northern Soul]

Originally Posted by zootscoot

PS do you want that typo in your user name changing?

Yes please!

The 3rd party are lcated in wales, however all I have sent them is a "terms of instruction" it hasn't been confirmed to me in writing or otherwise what the basis of any specific terms are i.e . if it is governed by English law or not.

I would agree that they haven't provided the service I expected, certainly in terms of my business account claim. Apparently i am to recieve a call from them tomorrow morning, I'll ask whether or not a court case has been brought and if not i will be pushing to take on the claim myself.

Abbey have stated that my claim is subject to Scottish law and as the full amount of my claim is over £1500, i believe that going though the Scottish courts would be overly difficult not to mention risky in light of an offer i am prepared to accept anyway.

I don't want to just accept though and leave the claims company with a means of claiming more than the claim amount back as some kind of cancellation fee.

They have informed that they hadn't recieved statements all along, so i presume that all they did was sent a letter asking for any and all charges plus interest to be returned to them so that they could pay me the charges and keep the interest (which is what their fee is).

How much could it have cost them to write a letter though? £50 tops I would expect even at lawyers's rates.

Here is the "terms" i originally signed (I have omitted the name of the company":-

"I hereby appoint xxxxxxxxx to act on my behalf as my sole representatives in respect of my claim for such fees erroneously levied or applied to my bank account, credit card or store card as identified
in the enclosed/ forwarded “Form of Authority”
I shall provide all information required by xxxxxxxxx, as requested, by return and I shall not enter into any agreement relating to this claim with the Bank without first consulting xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in writing.
I will immediately forward to xxxxxxxxxxxxx copies of any correspondence that my bank may send me regarding this issue.
I further understand that though unlikely it may be necessary to attend the County Court.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx will endeavour to recover all such bank charges and undertake to forward any
payment from my bank to me within seven days from the date received, subject to the retention of such
interest deemed applicable to this action.
In consideration thereof xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx will:
· Draft, prepare and forward to the Bank any necessary correspondence.
· Undertake all necessary negotiations on my behalf.
· Review all information provided by my Bank.
· Calculate the sum of money owed.
· Pay the fee for the Data Subject Access Request, as applicable.
· Pay the Court fee, as applicable.
· Provide representation at Court, as applicable
I understand that accepting any deal whatsoever, offered by my bank without full consultation with
xxxxxxxxxxxx represents a breach of the above agreement and under such circumstances I accept
that xxxxxxxxxxxxxx would be entitled to pursue me for their costs including any interest which they would otherwise have won by pursuing the bank on my behalf (which in some circumstances may amount
to more then the offer that has been accepted). In the event that the client terminates the contract after 14
days the company reserves the right to make a cancellation charge which will reflect the work undertaken
by xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx in pursuit of the claim., which could be anything up to the full projected fee.
Cancellation of the agreement must be done in writing."


Any thoughts?

[zootscoot]

Under the Claims regulations rules they are obliged to keep you informed of all matters.

http://www.claimsregulation.gov.uk/_...%202006(1).pdf

It is a bit of a grey area as to whether this would amount to a serious breach in order to entitle you to terminate the contract. They are also obliged under SGSA to carry out the service with reasonable care and skill. There should be no reason why you should not have received your statements by now unless they have failed to pursue them.

[Northern Soul]

The claims company called me today, I spoke with a guy who I believe is a Director of the company, who was very helpful and he said that he wasn't aware that it was business account and that obviously this made all the difference. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt as to whether they actually knew it was a business account or not.

I didn't mention that I had received a full and final offer from the bank though.

Unfortunately i was at work when he called so I didn't have the opportunity to ask all the questions i wanted to, but I did ask that if the bank offered me a settlement that was less than the full amount, what should I expect them to do. They seemed confident that they could pursue the full amount though and i was impressed by their enthusiasm and the fact that they said that it was something they could pursue through the english courts on my behalf and they would expect to get the full amount back for me.

I'm now going to submit to them details of all the fees I have been charged on what dates and will also include the offer I have recieved from Abbey with this.

My only concerns now are how long it will take to get a payment now considering abbey have made me a full and final offer. Also, if I get the company to reject the offer on my behalf is it possible that I could lose out and end up with nothing at all?

For the meantime at least, I'm going to stick with the claims company and I'm quite prepared to waive the right to the interest (as their fee) if they can get me an extra £500 on top of an offer I'm happy to accept already.

[zootscoot]

The question of how long you have to wait will depend on what the court rules in relation to historic terms and penalties and whether there is any appeal in relation to that ruling. Business claims are quite vulnerable at the moment so it is possible that you could lose and end up with nothing. I would find their enthusiasm quite worrying. I also find it quite worrying that they did not know that this was a business claim as different laws are used for each. If they hadn't treated it as a business claim then it is almost impossible that you would have been given an offer as Abbey are bound by the waiver agreeement in which they agreed not to pay out any consumer claims. They still don't seem to have told you at what stage your claim is at as to whether they have submitted a court claim or not.

[Northern Soul]

As far as i see it I have 2 options now then:

1. Stick with claims company and reject Abbey's offer through them. Wait longer and possibly lose out altogether.

Or.

2. Take the full and final offer from Abbey now which isn't too bad and be prepared to defend myself from a possible claim from the claim company should they decide to do so. Wait seven days for payment.

Option 2 seems like the easiest.

Is it worth contacting the claims company again, by letter to let them know that I am pulling out and citing various reasons as to why i think there is no longer a contract? Or should I hope that they're too busy sorting out personal claims to even realise?

[Northern Soul]

Quick update. I called the clams company today to basically rant about the fact that they weren't doing enough and/or not putting my best interests at heart. I told them that I was going to accept Abbey's full and final offer and that I wasn't happy with the way they seemed not to have done much of anything.

Obviously they had done something for me to receive Abbey's offer, but when I asked exactly what, they said that they would not be prepared to itemise "every single letter and phonecall".

I told them I was aware that a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) and 2 letters would have been all they would have needed to get it to court stage and that i was prepared to pay for that as their fee, however they are looking for 15% of the 75% offer as their fee now! I accused them of hypocrisy calling this fee "disproportionate" and compared it to unauthorised overdraft fees!

I asked them why they wouldn't tell me exactly what they had done and they then confirmed that they didn't have my statements or put in place any court proceedings! Yesterday they weren't even aware that it was a business account!

I've now sent my acceptance to Abbey though and, as far as I'm concerned, this part of it at least is finished and I have won.

However I'm going to speak to Abbey and inform them that I no longer allow the claims company to act on my behalf and while I'm there, I'm going to hopefully find out if they can tell me exactly what correspondence they have received from the claims company.

If I can glean any information from Abbey as to what their offer represents other than a "goodwill payment" I'll let you all know.

With regards to the claims company I'm going to push for a termination of the contract on several grounds, so I'm going to start another thread about that. What part of the forums should I post this to?

Also, should I name the claims company involved?

Finally, although I'm not suffering financial hardship as a result of being charged over the years now like some people, I will be able to get my beloved Vespa on the road and start going to scooter rallies again so I thought it was more than a coincidence that someone going by the name of "ZootScoot" came to my aid, thanks very much for your help so far and once the cheque clears i will make a donation to help this great site continue to help others in similar situations.

[zootscoot]

That sounds like a good plan

You could start off by doing a Subject Access Request which will oblige them to send all the info they have on you which should help determine exactly what they have or haven't done. The template Subject Access Request would need to be adapted for your specific circumstances. If you need any help with this just shout.

We don't have a forum specific for claims management companies so it would probably be best to start a thread here and may be if there is enough claims we can start a new forum.

Nice to know the money is being put to good use . Mines a GS160 whats yours?

I'm off to a rally tomorrow but will drop by your thread sometime Sunday.

All the best

Zoot

[Northern Soul]

Nice, I like GS's. I have a Sprint which needs a new carb and it's done and I can get out and about again

My thread about the claims company can be found here:

Northern Soul Vs Robertson Holbrook