fivelaws v The GM Card (HFC Bank)

[fivelaws]

Data Protection Act Letter sent 16-May with £10 cheque.

Reply received 26-May with copy statements for previous 6-years. Data Protection Act requests are free, so the £10 fee credited to account (bit cheeky - but I don't mind).

Contact that replied;

Becky Rawlinson
The GM Card
120 Edmund Street
Birmingham
B3 2QZ


Preliminary request letter sent to same 27-May asking for £855 in late charges to be refunded. (Account balance is only £400)

Response required by 10-June.

Going quite well so far....

[fivelaws]

Having re-read their Data Protection Act response, it looks like the template letter other boarders have received. In response to the manual intervention questions, the response is;

Although many of our systems are automated, a "manual intervention" by HFC staff may be required in a variety of situations including; account opening, dealing with correspondence or telephone calls and account administration.

There is a delicious irony in a question designed to disclose the level of automated responses being answered by an ... er ... automated reponse!

I wanted to know if you asked "what is my account balance?" if they would reply "it's a monetary value associated with the credit/debit situation of your account"... Bloody idiots. Anyway, I somehow managed to curb my sarcasm (I wanted to say, "you've let yourself down, you've let your parents down and you've let your school down...") and just send the LBA demanding an actual answer using the template in the library. Sent today by recorded delivery.

So far, I am enjoying this far more than I probably should.

Am I a bad person?

Arf!

[fivelaws]

Well, poke me in the eye with a sharp stick...

Sent me prelim letter nearly two weeks ago after receiving 72 statements in the post, but also sent a Data Protection Act chase letter because they didn't reply to the manual intervention question.

Just had a reply this morning to the Data Protection Act letter, asking me to fill in a form and to provide a copy of either my divers licence or passport... Presumably, this is because they are happy to send *ANYBODY* the details of my credit card and everything I've ever used it for, but the record of interventions is so sensitive, they have to be 100% certain it was me asking for it...? I've lived at the same address for 12-years, I'm not asking them to send the info somewhere different.

So, just a delaying tactic, but a totally pointless one - it's not delaying me because I sent the prelim. without the MA info. According to the banks, this stupid letter just cost them £25...

Passport & suitably wry letter in the post today.

[fivelaws]

It's all go on the HFC front; reply to the prelim. letter received today (12-day delay).

I'd like to say that they've carefully considered all the facts and acknowledge they are in the wrong and enclosed a cheque for the full amount. Believe me, I'd really love to say that ... but of course what I got was a "bog off and die you scumbucket" letter.

In summary; "fees are fair and reasonable", "terms and conditions", "thank you for bringing it to my attention", "I regret we can't refund", "internal complaints leaflet", "financial ombudsman service". *yawn*

The second paragraph says;

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has been investigating the level of credit card charges.

... and that's it. They never refer again to the OFT and they certainly don't mention what the OFTs decision was!


LBA drafted and ready to roll. D-Day is now 22-June.

[fivelaws]

Out of the blue, and kinda unexpected, HFC have offered £600 in full & final settlement... I'm going to try to negotiate that up a bit closer to the £855 I'm claiming, but this is a right result!

Total time from Data Protection Act to £600 offer - 1 month!

[fivelaws]

(Although I feel like I'm holding a one-person conversation...)

Spoke to HFC Complaints Dept. today and explained that we needed to get a bit closer to the claim amount. The very nice lady asked what would be reasonable (and because I was feeling especially lovely) I said that £800 would do the job.

Agreed without batting an eyelid! I can't believe how easy this whole process had been. Expect cheque next week. I *will* complete the survey and I *will* (promise) be ponying up my 5%.

[HSBCrusher]

Not a one person conversation, I am here laughing at you, in a very villainous manner.
Mwooohaaaa!

Seriously though, well done bud.
Crusher

[claire x]

Hopefully my claim will turn out as well

Do you think it's going to be a problem that my debt was sold to a debt collector and I settled it with them at a settlement figure? I just want my name cleared more than getting the money back. I can't get credit for anything!

[fivelaws]

Claire,

1) I hope your claim works out OK.

2) No issue as far as I'm aware about the debt being sold. You are only asking for the unfair penalty charges back from HFC and these are a seperate (but contributing factor) to the debt itself.

3) Have you got a recent copy of your credit file from Experian? You would need to find out what is on there that is causing the "I can't get credit for anything!". If HFC have you listed as being in "default", you should add this to your claim and force the issue through the courts if that's what it takes (it won't!). If it's the debt collection agency (DCA) there are various threads on here talking about them; search for "DCA" or the name of the agency HFC used.

Good luck!

[claire x]

Yeah it says default but then satisfied or something (not got it with me).

(satisfied to them.... not to me or my credit score! grrrr!!)

I'm worried that I'm going to get snowed under with their jargon and get confused. Reading through this website (which I am now addicted to) seems to confuse me even more! There seems to be so much to do and so many different responses! Hopefully I will get through it though!!!

[claire x]

Anyway, first steps have been taken. I've sent a letter recorded delivery to get the info i need! I havent included £10 but I expect they might send me a letter back asking me for more information or maybe send me a form... anyway we'll see!

[fivelaws]

A post-settlement update
-------------------------


Just when I thought it was all over two things happened;


1. The settlement cheque arrived as promised, was paid into my bank account and a few days later, when it had cleared, I started spending the money. A couple of days after that, the A&L returned the HFC cheque as "not honoured", in the process taking me WAY over the overdraft limit and incurring about £50 of charges... Spoke to HFC and it turns out they had ballsed up rather badly - they had raised the cheques but forgotten to key the details into their computer. You couldn't make this up! Replacement cheque received more than a week later. Not happy.

2. Yesterday, a parcel arrived from HFC. Bearing in mind this was settled more than a month ago, the parcel contained all my Manual Intervention details.... When I had complained (all those weeks ago now) that the Data Protection Act letter hadn't been satisified, they actuall carried on processing the complaint! The parcel contained about 200 pages of screenshots from their computer system which somebody had gone through and annotated by hand! (including blocking out any "user name" fields on the screens). Must have taken days to produce!

All's well that ends well...

[HSBCrusher]

Hello mate, long time no see. Like the avatar? Poofy enough for you?
Well,
What a balls up!
Anyway, you can rest in peace knowing that all that work somebody did is effectivley in vain.

[fivelaws]

The avatar is teh gayest.

100% of FACT.

[HSBCrusher]

yes indeed, but for a good cause.

still have the pooh I see.

Weebls Stuff - The Poo And Wee Song