Mindzai & Lucid vs Lloyds TSB ***WON UNCONDITIONALLY WITH CONTRACTUAL INTEREST***

[Mindzai]

Hi. I'm sure you all know the story, We're fed up of being taken advantage of etc. Now it's time to do something about it. We (my girlfriend Lucid and I) will be claiming back what is rightfully ours.

I apologise in advance that this first post will be a little long, hopefully it won't put you off reading and offering advice! Here's the situation so far.

Prelim letters were received by Lloyds 10th August, one for each of our sole accounts and one for our joint. We received the standard "we have received your complaint and intend to do as little as possible, as slowly as possible blah blah blah" reply each.

Their 14 days are now up, so the letters before action have been drafted. We used the template LBA from this forum with the following two paragraphs added:

I calculate that you have applied £402.79 in levies and further, I also claim interest at a rate of 29.8% as set out in the attached list of charges. I believe this rate to be justified under the principle of mutuality and reciprocity, and is based on your Unauthorised Overdraft interest rate that would be applied under the terms of the above mentioned account. Therefore the total amount owed as of today’s date is £472.32.

My records show that you intend to take further charges of £30 and interest of £2.01 from the above account at the close of business on 11th September. These, and any other charges you apply to this account subsequent to receipt of this letter will be added to the claim along with any interest they incur.

As you may notice I'm charging them their own most expensive interest rate for the misappropriation of my funds, as described in BankFodder's thread, here. Although the extra £70 will be nice, my main motivation for doing this is to **** them off as much as possible. The worst case scenario is I will have to accept the 8% I am entitled to by law. If they want to settle without taking me to court, they will have to pay me the interest at their own rate. If they do want to take me to court, I'll enjoy seeing them attempt to prove that their charges are an accurate reflection of their costs, that would no doubt be a highly entertaining display. Especially since I've had a Lloyds rep from their collections dept admit that it is all handled by computers on the phone.

So that is where my claim is at right now. As an aside though, both my joint and sole accounts have been taken over their agreed overdraft limits due to charges taken out. I had previously moved everything, bills, wages direct debits etc to a new account with a whole other bank, and I have absolutely no intention of clearing this excess, unless it's with Lloyd's money. Since I filed my prelim letter they have started to get nasty about this (would love to hear what the FSA have to say about their retaliatory action), so I thought i'd fill you in on that too in case anyone has any advice or comments to offer.

The first thing I got was the following letter, dated 17th August (1 week after they recieved my prelim):

1200 Parkway
Solent Business Park
Whitely
FAREHAM
Hampshire
PO15 7AQ

Our ref: XXXXX/XXX

Date: 17th August 2006


Dear Mr Mindzai,

Your Account Details: XXXXX XXXXXXXX

As you know we have been trying to contact you for some time (they haven't). We wanted to help you to get your account running smoothly and we wrote to you a number of times about it, offering our help(they didn't). Because we have not been able to come to an agreement that we are both happy with we would now like you to repay the £120.63 you owe us(good luck).

We will add charges and interest of £32.45 to this every month, based on your present outstanding balance and interest rate (I'd especially love to see them justify this one as a legitimate charge and not a penalty!). This sum may change as your balance alters (e.g. by the charges we have added) or if interest rates are varied.

It is very important that you take this letter seriously.

We need you to pay back the money you owe us within 28 days. If you do not, the next thing we will do is register the details of your debt with the credit reference agencies, Experian Ltd, Equifax PLC and Callcredit PLC. This information will stay on your records for six years.

This could mean you will have trouble getting credit elsewhere because most businesses such as banks and building societies use these records to judge how you manage your money and if you are a good risk. Sometimes your credit rating can even affect members of your family or any business associates (more scare tactics - as they well know they can't do this as the debt is in dispute).

This is why it is so important that you pay us what you owe us within 28 days. This will stop us from contacting the credit reference agencies about you.

Let us reassure you that our aim has always been for you to be happy with your account and to help you run it smoothly. So please do call us if you think there is anything you could do which will mean we will not have to take the steps we’ve just explained. (how about reminding you that taking the steps would result in a breach of the banking code?)

Yours sincerely


Angela Raper
Business Manager

You won't be surprised to hear this annoyed me! Not least because section 13.6 of the banking code states that:

We may give information to credit reference agencies
about the personal debts you owe us if:
• you have fallen behind with your payments;
• the amount owed is not in dispute; and
• you have not made proposals we are satisfied with for repaying your debt, following our formal demand.

So here is my reply:

Customer Service Recovery Centre
Lloyds TSB
125 Colmore Row
Birmingham
B3 3SF.


21st August, 2006


RE: Letter Reference XXXXX/XXX

Dear Sir/Madam,

ACCOUNT NUMBERS: XXXXXXXX & XXXXXXXX


As you will be aware, I have recently disputed the balances of my two current accounts on the grounds of unfair and unlawful penalty charges which have been levied against me.

As these accounts are in dispute, I have stopped all payments going in or out of them until the issue is resolved. Section 13.6 of the Banking Code clearly states that you may only pass details of my debts to the credit reference agencies if the debts are not in dispute. As previously stated, I have disputed these debts in writing, and the letters were received by you on 10th August 2006. Furthermore, I spoke with a Lloyds representative in the collections department on 19th August who informed me that Lloyds would continue with legal proceedings after 10 days, despite the fact that I informed her of the disputes. As you are aware, this would constitute a further breach of section 13.6 of the Banking Code.

Due to the fact that you have chosen to contact me demanding payment seemingly upon receipt of my complaint, I can only conclude that this action is retaliatory. I have attached a copy of the FSA position regarding retaliatory actions due to customer complaints for your consideration.

You also state that you have written to me a number of times to offer help, which I have declined. I have received no correspondence concerning the debts in question other than two letters for each account demanding that I bring the accounts back into balance. I did however contact your customer services department concerning the unlawful charges which caused me to exceed my agreed overdraft limit before the charges were debited from my accounts, and was offered no help whatsoever. After being passed between various departments, I was eventually advised to find a higher paid job and to cut back on my living expenses, and what’s more was offered this advice in an extremely rude and offensive manner.

I would also like to mention that I am both shocked and appalled by the fact that you have decided to impose more unlawful charges on my account when it is in dispute and without informing me prior to doing so. As mentioned previously I spoke to a Lloyds representative two days after the date of the letter you have sent, and she did not inform me of any charges. In fact, she told me she would note the dispute and ensure I was not contacted regarding the matter for a further 10 days.

I would be grateful if you would stop any charges on my accounts until my dispute is fully resolved, at which point I will pay off any outstanding balance. If you persist in imposing any further punitive charges on these accounts, including charges for legal letters, they will be included in the amount I am claiming from you, and I will be forced to seek a court injunction to prevent you from taking any further action. I would also like you to take note that I will only correspond with you on these matters in writing and do not wish to be telephoned again.


Yours faithfully,




Mindzai

Then today, I recieved this little gem:

Collections Centre
Brighton BN1 4BE

Date: 18th August 2006

Our Ref: CHM0001

Dear Mr Mindzai,

According to our records your accounts as detailed below are in arrears. The administration of these accounts have therefore been passed to our Collections Centre.

Product A/C No Arrears

Cheque Account XXXXXXXX 254.78
Cheque Account XXXXXXXX 88.18

Total payment now due : £342.96

We would ask you to CONTACT us on the above telephone number, IF:

You have not already made payment or are unable to make payment within the next 48 hours.
OR
You anticipate a problem with future payments being paid on time.

However, we would ask you to ignore this letter, IF:

You have recently made payment in full.
OR
You intend making payment within the next 48 hours.

Important information is enclosed covering:

* The charges you have/will incur.

* Consequences of continued late payment.

* Making contact with us.

* Payment methods available including payment by debit/credit card.

* What to do if you have additional accounts/services with Lloyds TSB bank plc not
recorded above.

Yours sincerely


Manager, Collections Centre

So they send me a letter dated 17th giving me 28 days to repay their charges or face their (uninforcable) conseqences, and the very next day send another one giving me 48 hours! I did intend to write to them about this, basically telling them to get stuffed again, however I phoned them to inform them that I would be writing due to the 48 hour deadline (which had already passed by the time I got the letter by the way, another neat little scare tactic). However I ended up speaking to quite a helpful woman who told me ignore the letter for now as the debt was disputed, so I won't bother writing.

Anyway, if you've managed to read this far well done! I'll be quiet now unless anyone has any advice/comments/suggestions etc. I'll keep you posted as things happen.

[freebird]

WTG Mindzai & Lucid welcome to the Lloyds chasers gang lol
you seem to have it all in hand so I'll just say good luck and keep at it mate
Freebird x

[Mindzai]

cheers freebird, We will keep at it until we have our money back, don't worry

[dogs_nutz1]

Good luck with your claim, you will certainly have them on thier toes, perhaps they should read the banking code properly before they write to you again. Please keep us informed of how things progress

[lucid]

Hi. As Mindzai mentioned we are going to be posting our Letters Before Action today. Our standard responses finally arrived in the post today - one for each of us. I'm sure most people have seen the format of these, but I'll post it for anybody who hasn't:

Customer Service Recovery Centre
125 Colmore Road
Birmingham
B3 3SF

Date: 23rd August 2006

Dear Miss Lucid,

Thank you for getting in touch with us. I am sorry you are unhappy over your account charges.

Like any business, we do make a charge for some extra services. When a customer doesn’t have enough in their account to cover a payment, this always means additional work. We must either make the payment via an overdraft or send the payment request back. Either way, it has to happen speedily. We feel it’s only fair to charge for the extra work involved.

Of course, it’s only fair, too, that we’re completely open about any charged-for services before you take them up. That’s why we take care to provide every new customer with the latest guide to our charges. You can also get up-to-date details about fees and borrowing rates at all our branches, via our helpline and on our website.

Just as importantly, we do everything we can to help our customers avoid charges altogether.

I’m sure you’ll know how easy it is to keep a running check on how much is in your account. You’re free to get an up-to-date balance at any of our cash machines, over the phone, online and nowadays even by text to your mobile.

If you know a payment is going to take you over the limit, you’re welcome to see if we can raise your limit – and we can usually give you answer straightaway. You might know, too, that we don’t usually charge fees if it’s the first day in 12 months that you’ve gone overdrawn without agreeing it with is beforehand. And we never charge an overdraft excess fee more than three times in any one month, however many times you go over your limit.

You’ve mentioned the new guidelines from the Office of Fair Trading on credit card default charges. We don’t agree with the OFT’s thinking on this and we’re still talking it through with them. But the important point is that guidelines only concern ‘default’ charges. The fees we charge for going over an overdraft limit and for returned payments are not any kind of default penalty. They are fixed standard prices for the service we provide in these situations. So according to our legal experts, the OFT’s guidelines on credit card default charges do not in any way apply.

I do hope you can see that we make our charging system as fair as possible – and why I cannot agree to cancel your charges.

This letter is the bank’s final response, which means that if you remain dissatisfied you may refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. If you decide to pursue your complaint through the Financial Ombudsman Service you must do so within 6 months from the date of this letter. I have enclosed their leaflet that outlines how t contact them.

Thank you once again for taking the time to raise you concern with us.

Yours sincerely

Ms Musarat Siddique
Customer Service Officer

So we've got our LBAs prepared with 29.85% AER interest [at the contractual rate for unauthorised borrowing] now added to the total amount. We worked this out by using the advanced excel spreadsheet and changing the 8% to 29.8% [producing simple interest but at a higher rate], which has worked really well. Today the totals we're claiming for each account are:

Mindzai - £472.32
Lucid - £510.99
Joint - £1509.79

So the LBAs will be posted later and I'd imagine we probably won't get a response until the 14 days are up. We have also applied for our Statutory Credit Repots from Experian and Equifax which should arrive in 7 working days. We're interested to see how much damage has been done as a result of Lloyds charges - if there is a lot of damage then I believe I've read somewhere that we can get these details removed if we're successful with our claims.

We'll keep you updated with any repsonses as we hear them.

[Mindzai]

I think the best thing about adding conractual interest as it means Lloyds' tactic of dragging their heels as much as possible works completely in our favour

I don't know how they get away with abusing the court system like they do. They know they'll have to settle yet they waste the court's time over and over again by leaving it to the last minute.

[Mindzai]

OK assuming Lloyds are going to follow their usual route with us, our next step will be filling in N1 claim forms.

Can anybody advise on something suitable to put in the 'brief details of claim' section, particularly with regards to how we should word the claiming of contractual interest?

I'm also in the process of drafting the 'Particulars of Claim' section, which so far looks like this: (standard aside from one small addition)

1. The Claimant has an account [ACCOUNT NUMBER] ("the Account") with the Defendant which was opened on or around [DATE].

2. During the period in which the Account has been operating the Defendant debited numerous charges to the Account in respect of purported breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant and also charged interest on the charges once applied. The Claimant understands that the Defendant contends that the charges were debited in accordance with the terms of the contract between itself and the Claimant.

3. A list of the charges applied is attached to these particulars of claim.

4. The Claimant contends that:

a) The charges debited to the Account are punitive in nature; are not a genuine pre-estimate of cost incurred by the Defendant; exceed any alleged actual loss to the Defendant in respect of any breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant; and are not intended to represent or related to any alleged actual loss, but instead unduly enrich the Defendant which exercises the contractual term in respect of such charges with a view to profit. In the event that the charges are not a penalty, they are unreasonable under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 s.15. The Defendant has declined to justify the charges.

b) The contractual provision that permits the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable by virtue of the Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999), the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and the common law.

5. Accordingly the Claimant claims:

a) the return of the amounts debited in respect of charges in the sum of £SUM and any interest charged thereon;

c) Court costs;

d) Interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts Act as set out on the attached list of charges or at such rate and for such periods as the court deems just.

Obviously I also need to change "Interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts Act..." to relate to the contractual interest. Any advice on the wording for that? Is there anything else that people have included in their particulars that they feel were helpful?

One final question: I'm concerned that a few people have had sections in Lloyd's defence stating that the particulars do not demonstrate how the figure was arrived at, and are too vague. I'm assuming attaching a printout from the spreadsheet is sufficient in demonstrating how the figure was arrived at? Obviously as this is the first point at which the court are involved I want to get this 100% correct and give Lloyds no ammunition to use against me.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Mindzai]

*Bump*

Anyone have any thoughts?

[tim2718281]

I noticed one post where the claimant had used Moneyclaim On Line, and had failed to notice it truncated the details of their claim. If I recall correctly, they were having to resubmit the claim through the local court.

As for failing to show in sufficient detail - I guess in the text of your claim, you have to explain what the spreadsheet is showing, and how the judge is to check the details in the spreadsheet, and how the judge is to use the details in the spreadsheet to arrive at the total amount to award.

Bear in mind it's possible that the judge could strike out some of the things you are claiming; but you still want them to be able to calculate how much you are owed from the remaining items. (In your case, the judge might decide that 29.8% interest is not permissible; so you want the judge to be able to substitute an alternative figure and redo the calculations.)

Tim

[Glenn UK]

I dont agree that you have to explain the spreadsheet assuming you are using those provided in the spreadsheet.

The information they need at least at this stage is the date a charge was incurred, what it was for and the amount.

then the interest charged on those payments that you actually paid.

If you are claiming contrasctual interest then you change the value from 8% to your specific value.

If there are estimated charges a simple note say that these are estimated and will be amened in line with acutal charges when the defenandt supplies the correct data.

This is enough for them to work out what you want and what you think is unlawful.

when you go to court you can provide all the support for your methedology for making estimates, chargin interest etc.

I think that you should put in the form something along the lines of 'a)the claimant is applying the contractual rate of xx.x% which is the rate for exceeding the o/c - cash advance on the basis of mutuality and reciprocity (sp?).

In the event that the court deems this unsuitable then I would ask them to consider the rate b) xx.x% as the standard rate on an overdraft or in the alternate I ask that c) Sec 69 CCA interest is applied.

I further ask that the interest is calculated at a daily rate from the date of the application of each chagre at the rates of a)x.xxxx% b)x.xxxx% or c) x.xxxx%'

You migh tnot want to give the court the option personally i am not sure about giving choices, im not certain if the judge can strike out the claim on the basis of the claimant selecting thw wrong rate, i guess small claims and fast track may be different.

Anyway hope that helps

glenn

[Mindzai]

Thanks for the input, I'll draft something over the weekend and post it up for people to cast their eye over before filing it on Thursday.

[Balbadier]

Gosh, I am frightened already after reading all that.
Mindzai, who did you write to at the Subject Access Request stage? I wrote to the address that Lloyds are registered with for Data Protection. I wrote 29/08. They received AND wrote on 30/08 for me to receive on 31/08 giving me an entirely different address, and a different payee for the £10. I looked up this address they have given and it is not even listed on the DP site. The plot thickens, but I will not be put off.

[lucid]

Hi Balbadier,

We didn't need to do the Subject Access Request because we have all of our statements on online banking. Is the address you've been given either of these two here?

Mindzai has recently sent a Subject Access Request to Penny Barryman for a credit card that he had quite a while ago. I wonder if he'll get the same response as you did?

Good luck and keep at it. Lucid