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magictorch1976

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  1. In a nutshell: Old T-Mobile debt. Horrendous service in home location, numerous handsets, loads of calls to customer relations, stopped paying, escalated to CEO office after 5 or 6 months of pain. They admitted they couldn't provide service, arranged termination of account and a refund. Job done. Years later, Lowell purchased "debt" as something clearly had gone wrong. Took me to court for just over £1200. Somehow managed to find documentation from T-Mobile confirming they had done me disservice, apologising, arranging refund, hope to see me back as a customer one day, (email from CEO's office.) All this sent as part of "pre-hearing pack." Day before court hearing, BW Legal contact me advising they were withdrawing court action based upon my evidence and there was no need to attend. Secretly thought I had "won." Default remains on credit files. After numerous emails to them to get rid , finally receive a call from "customer services." who explain yes they won't ever chase me for the money again or sell the "debt" on, they aren't removing the default because despite all the issues I had and evidence of T-Mobile's admittance of that, even down to them agreeing early termination of the contract because of those issues, they must "report my account as it was run and unfortunately, you defaulted and didn't make payments." At a loss. Yes I did stop paying because that was the only way I was getting them to acknowledge the problem but surely their admittance of fault, which I have provided overrides that? Or not? Lowell have said I need to go back to T-Mobile but they don't exist anymore and the contract was terminated in early 2011 before they became part of EE. Are Lowell fobbing me off, or are they right? (I don't mind being corrected!) but would rather hear from experts. Cheers
  2. I was recently being taken to court by Lowell for an alleged credit card debt and good old Bryan Carter got involved. The hearing was held and the judge made an order that as I had stated the original documents hadn't been provided and the copies were so illegible they couldn't be read without a microscope, that Lowell were to provide a "clear and legible copy," and a new hearing date would be set. As the new date approached, nothing had been heard and a notice of discontinuance in full was filed by Bryan Carter. I immediately started a war with Lowell, trying to make them understand that if they were unwilling to prove the debt existed in court, and couldn't prove it, the debt doesn't exist and they should amend my credit file accordingly. They point-blank refuse stating I am still liable and that the notice of discontinuance does not apply "as a whole." Appreciate help with my next move Any advice I am thankful for. Many thanks
  3. Hi all Please can I seek some advice? My bank account has been cleared by Capital Finance One, (worst ever people to deal with,) and this has left me in a case of hardship i.e. no money for rent, bills etc. During August 2010, I applied for a PDL with CFO. This was in addition to a number of other debts I had and on reflection, it was a stupid thing to do. However, when faced with the choice of eating or not, I felt I had little choice, having already explored other options. As the end of September 2010 approached, when the loan was due for repayment, I realised that I was not going to be able to meet the repayment and after years of struggling financially, I conceded to a debt management plan with debt-line.org.uk. Whilst going through the process of setting up the DMP, I switched banks from Barclays to RBS with a view to starting with a clean slate. This meant that the card details held by CFO were now invalid. I received a few emails from CFO advising that I was in arrears and the total debt owning ended up at £762.19. They were contacted by Debt Line and advised of my position and in December 2010, cashed the token payment cheque from Debt Line to the value of £1. I was also aware that they cashed the first real payment of £22 on the 25th January 2011. By all accounts, this points to the fact that they accepted the DMP. During early January 2011, I had to pay out some vet bills, totalling just over £200. This was a total and unexpected nightmare but the pet being insured, I thought I could handle the situation by applying for a further small loan, with the intention of paying it back as soon as the insurance cheque arrived. I tried a number of websites, most of which declined. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to whom I was applying through because I was trying to do it in my lunch hours at work and speed was required rather than doing what I would normally do and check these things out carefully. Again, in hindsight stupid idea, but I was desperate and probably not thinking too clearly. I came across payday credit dot co dot uk which on the face of it, appeared to be a “lender” not a “broker” and I entered all the usual details, (including debit card,) and submitted my application. This came back as “approved” and up came Capital Finance One’s “approval” page asking for more details. I clicked out of the website at that point thinking firstly I already owed them money and it would be irresponsible to proceed on that basis. As it happens I never got the money from anywhere else and my vet has been rather more than understanding. Proper payday, (rather than payday loan,) was 28th January and I logged onto internet banking, (I bank with RBS) in the morning just to confirm, as I guess we all do, that I had been paid. There was a debit card payment pending for £400. I called the bank immediately asking what this was for and they advised it was to Capital Finance One, whom had been trying to take payments since 24th January, which had all been declined. After coming off the phone to them, I noticed another payment had arrived on the screen, this time for £362.19! In essence, having been paid just 8 hours before, I was now overdrawn by £250, with no overdraft limit. Phone calls to CFO for the next few hours proved fruitless. They never answer the phone. I tried to escalate this within the bank by speaking to their Fraud department who in essence have been useless. They tow the line that because I have an outstanding loan with the them that they are well within their rights to do this, despite me trying to impress upon them that they obtained my card details deceptively, (remember that they never had my card details originally because I my banking relationship with RBS began after entering into the DMP and CFO were never given my new card details.) Also, they accepted the fact that I was on a DMP because they cashed the cheques. I finally got through to CFO and considering this was the first time I had spoken to them, their vision of customer service is not worth writing on toilet paper, i.e. they have none. I won’t go into details other than I found the “call centre” operative I spoke to the most common and useless girl in the whole world and her supervisor even worse. They insisted the loan was settled in full and that they would not consider refunding any part of it to me. I tried to impress the whole DMP thing on them and that I had never proceeded with my application but because I had “applied for more credit,” this obviously gave them the right to clear my account because it’s in their terms and conditions! I can’t pay for anything. My regular payments are all going to bounce and RBS will no doubt charge me for the privilege. My questions really I guess are: 1. Is the fact that they can apparently do this and it’s in their “terms and conditions” an unfair contract term and; 2. Seeing as RBS Fraud won’t help me, they have suggested I speak to the VISA Debit Chargeback team, (which I can’t do until the pending transaction is claimed in full by CFO.) Do you think this is a good route to go down? I am extremely concerned that they have deceptively obtained my card details and debited my account with no prior authorisation or warning. Surely they should not be allowed to do this? They had accepted my DMP. What I am doing outside of my DMP is none of their business and quite frankly, I am appalled at their business practices. I understand I owe them money, (with extortionate charges,) and I explained I was paying back at a rate I could currently afford. This could have changed this year with me being able to clear it at a faster rate. On another note, my card payment to my DMP has declined now which means my other creditors won’t get their fair share and I am now breaking my agreement with them. I am so angry! Advice, pointers etc. are much appreciated. Thank you in advance. Have a good day.
  4. Hi everyone I wonder if you can help me with this nightmare. Two payday loans – one to Wonga, one to LendingStream. On the payday loan roundabout – rollover after rollover – nightmare to try and clear with other priority debts at the moment. Emailed Wonga and LendingStream on 22nd September 2010 instructing them I was revoking their permission to use my card details to collect any form of payment in relation to my account. I advised that by the end of October I would have reviewed my situation, (DMP most likely) and I would contact them then. I of course received nothing back from them. The loans were due on the 28th September so on the 27th September, I spoke to my bank, in a branch and asked what I could do. I was advised the only option to stop a CAT transaction was to cancel my card which I promptly did that evening via telephone banking. The next day, authorisations were pending on my account to the sum of around £700, which I went nuts about because I couldn’t access any cash for 5 days until these pending transactions dropped off. Once I was back in the black, things I thought were OK. For some unknown reason, I then received a letter from the Debit Card Fraud Operations department at Barclays, listing the transactions to Wonga and Lending Stream asking me to mark them as genuine or fraudulent. The letter said if I marked them as genuine they would be debited to my account within 14 days or if I didn’t respond, they would also be debited within 14 days so I marked them F for Fraud and sent it back with a letter enclosing copies of the emails I had sent to lending stream and wonga, revoking permission, believing that Wonga and LS had committed fraud by attempting to process my debit card when I had told them not to – surely this is theft? Barclays, in their wisdom have overlooked completely the fact that I had revoked this permission and said that as I had made payments before to these merchants, that the transactions were “within the normal operating parameters of my account” and therefore, they are unable to do anything other than debit the money. The day before I received the letter advising of such, £395 was debited from my account by Barclays and given to Wonga and Lending Stream. I am now £400 overdrawn (with no overdraft facility.) This beggars belief. I control who has access to my money and when and I am fuming that these cowboys ignored the initial emails from me revoking permission to process the payments but that my bank clearly operates in the favour of the merchant and not the customer by opening a fraud case, when I never requested this and then pushing me into a corner which I now cannot get out of. How should I pursue this? I am overdrawn at the bank my hundreds of unauthorised pounds thanks to these transaction however this is by their own doing. I was in the process of closing my account with them anyway but this now just compounds the issue. Any advice appreciated. Thanks J
  5. OK cool. Thanks very much. I have unfortunately already sent the info to them but however, if they don't play ball i'll use the £1 a month for life proposal and then start demanding to see the legally correct stuff via the SAR that I'll send ;-)
  6. Hmmmm OK, points taken - esp the one you make about if they don't remove the negative info then there is no point. The I/E shows a minus figure available to pay them LOL. I was acting on the advice of National Debtline........any pointers of where I should go from here instead ? Cheers J
  7. Thanks both for coming back to me. Much appreciated. I spoke with Lowell Group today - I know, I know - don't kill me - I should deal in writing but I wanted to here what they had to say. Have a debt with them for £611 which was passed by O2. Suggested £300 in FnF settlement but she would only give 15%. My debt list is as follows - total £1533 Quick Quid 459 225 Gothia Orange 146 72 Mac Hall O2 611 300 Lowell Vanquis 317 156 CARS Left to right - Creditor - Amount owed - FnF Offer - Debt agency Now interestingly enough, Lowell wrote to me in July last year and offered me £305 in FnF of the £611 so why she told me today "only 15%" is beyond me. I have written nice letters with an income and expenditure statement. Anything else I should be doing ? I'll keep this thread updated. J
  8. Hi all I am in the next couple of weeks finally going to be able to make some payments to creditors - some in "full and final settlement" and others completely in full. Has anyone had any luck in the same situation and getting adverse information removed from their credit file as part of the "deal?" If so, how is best to go about this? I presume getting something in writing before handing over the money is a good starting point? Cheers J
  9. Hi all I would appreciate some advice. A number of years ago - at least 7 or 8 - I can't recall without going into an archive box, Nationwide debited my account with an unpaid direct debit fee, which took the account £3 into an unauthorised overdraft. I was in the process of leaving them anyway for another monster financial institution so I wrote to them closing the account. I then exhausted their internal complaints procedure, by which time the charges amounted to £298.80 and this has been passed to a debt collection agent. I think it is absoutely disgusting that a bank can charge this amount of money on a)an account that went £3 into an unauthorised overdraft, and only upon the application of one of their extortionate charges and b) how they can continue to add charge upon charge on an account that is quite obviously dormant. I have no idea how to proceed now since the unfair bank charges case was blown out the water last year. Fredricksons are threatning court action and Nationwide's final response a couple of years ago was f-off dear customer, our charges are fair blah blah blah. This is a morally corrupt situation. I wasn't in any unauthorised overdraft until they applied the charge and it was a basic Flexaccount, which was never supposed to be allowed to go into an overdraft, authorised or not anyway! Any advice appreciated. Fredricksons are refusing to hold the action and I am being told they cannot go back to Nationwide with anything other than "a payment." Thanks very much. J.
  10. Hmmm interesting but the latest flashing would only bring it up to T-Mobile's latest branded firmware which is 2 releases behind Nokia's and even Nokia's latest firmware does not fix that problem. So in effect, if you bought a television and a bug prevented it receiving channel 4 but it received 1,2,3 and 5 OK, you would be expected to live with this ? I am not trying to be released from the contract but the goods have been supplied as part of the contract and therefore, it's not just sim-based service that is covered. The goods supplied by the service contract provider in order to receive or use the service are covered under the SOGA, which specifies satisfactory quality and "as described." By describing in the manual that the phone should perform a function and does not do so, surely this is against the SOGA. Does anyone else have an opinion please ? Thanks very much
  11. Hi all I would welcome some advice on this please. In September, I upgraded my phone with T Mobile and entered into another 18 month contract. Had a nightmare with the first handset that 2 T Mobile stores were not interested in despite quoting the usual sale of goods act etc. and me taking the handset back on the 10th day after having received it. Eventually, Customer Services on 150 relented and replaced it as a swap out the next day. I got round to reading the manual last weekend to see what exciting things I was missing out on and I decided to download some new screensavers to make the phone a bit more "funky." I then discovered that despite changing all the settings that the screensaver would never activate. The phone display switches over to power save mode, i.e. goes blank instead of displaying the screensaver. I undertook some research into the issue on both T-Mobile's user forums and Nokia's own support discussion forums and it turns out that this is a known software bug in the N79 handset. It also appears that the manufacturer knows about it but has failed to fix it in subsequent firmware releases. It is also unlikely that Nokia will now release any further firmware for the handset as technically, or rather in the technical world, it is now quite an "outdated model." I have emailed T Mobile Customer Relations about this and they have contacted me to say that if the manufacturer is not going to fix it there is nothing that can be done. I however am not happy with this. Surely the goods are not functioning "as described," i.e. the manual states that you can change the screensaver and although you can, the end result is that it doesn't work. I know that a non-functioning screensaver is not a life or death situation i.e. the phone makes calls, sends texts, browses the web but am I the only consumer that is getting a bit sick and tired of companies that earn millions of pounds from their customers getting away with everything? At the end of the day, my contract is subsidising the cost of the handset in a large capacity. If I had purchased this phone directly, it would have cost me a few hundred pounds at least. The crux of it is that I used Nokia phones for years previously and every handset I have had has always had "some problem" of one thing or another. Back around 2003, I had Orange replace 15 handsets, one after the other and each one exhibited the same problem as the last. It was a nightmare. I thought that 6 or so years later, with the advancement in technology that Nokia may have improved it's standards and the first phone I pick up in this 7 year period manufactured by them exhibits yet another fault. I have contacted Nokia, although I am under the impression that it is not down to them to sort the problem out and they have suggested that I send the phone "for repair," which judging by other users on their support forums, does not resolve the problem anyway and just leaves you without a phone for 2 weeks. I was wondering if I could glean some opinions please ? Am I right that the phone is not "functioning as described" and therefore breaches the sale goods act ? Thanks very much J
  12. I have just sent this via the BBA website, addressed personally to Ms Knight. Good evening Ms Knight I read with interest your statement to the BBC today concerning the Supreme Court ruling on bank charges and note that you advise that customers can avoid bank charges by arranging authorised overdraft facilities in the first place. I was wondering if you could also make a statement to the BBC advising what customers should do whereby the bank refuses to give an overdraft facility due to past credit history? Your statement infuriated me, as has the results of the test case. Whilst I appreciate that as part of the BBA your statements reflect that of the organisation but I was incensed at your rose-tinted glasses outlook on the whole situation. It is completely unacceptable to make such a blase and reckless comment. If this is the banking systems answer to the problem then kindly supply me with your email address so I may forward you my sort code and account number and you may get in touch with the relevant people within Barclays Bank PLC whom I bank with and arrange an overdraft facility on my account so that I may no longer be a victim of these disgusting and inflated charges. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely
  13. Angela Knight, from the BBA, was asked whether they would continue to make unauthorised overdraft charges. "The banks are mindful of their customers, they know the concerns of those who have paid the unauthorised overdraft fees and those who have not," she said. "Individuals can avoid any charge by putting their overdraft arrangements in place first." Thoughts ? Angela Knight appears to be EXTREMELY out of touch. Fine if your bank will give you an overdraft Ms. Knight !!!!!
  14. Here here ! My intention was to come home tonight and write exactly the same thing. Anne "whatsherface" (surname escapes me now) of the BBA apparently pointed out today that consumers can avoid charges by putting overdraft facilities into place first. What a joke! As you say, easy if you can get an overdraft but especially now with the criteria much tighter than 5 years ago, this is easier said than done. I bank with Barclays and am into an unauthorised overdraft every month because of charges but they won't give me an overdraft facility until I have run my account in credit for at least 3 months yet they won't break the cycle by not charging me. Anne "whatsherface" of the BBA needs to look at the wider picture before making such sweeping statements.
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