Hi everyone, apologies for delay in reply, thanks for advice

Hello So I recently did a SARS request to HSBC this is after they sent out letters to me saying I may have been mis-sold etc. It was clear I had been mis-sold so I wrote back giving the reasons why with a spreadsheet showing interest due etc. I have now had a letter back confirming receipt and would I please fill in their Financial Ombudsman Service PPI Questionnaire. The question is do I really need to do this? I explained in my letter why I felt I was mis-sold so surely this should be enough for them to take on board my complaint and settle. Would you think? Any advice greatly received. Thanks

Hello Thanks for assistance and apologies for delay in my reply, but yes he did have an accountant, however I am not too sure if some of his statements were shredded or burnt by him clearing room which is why we wanted a full set from the bank to go through. So if we have burnt is it not possible to obtain these from the bank again?

The business account was held under the Limited Companies name so not personal

Hi Thanks for reply. The SAR request I did was on the individual DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998 SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST Date: 27/03/2015 Dear Sir/Madam Name: ***** D.O.B: ***** Address: ***** I understand that you currently hold details of my personal and financial information within your internal record systems with regard to personal loan accounts and credit cards accounts I would be grateful if you would provide the following for ALL accounts or associated accounts I hold or have held with your organisation: Full copies of all contracts which you believe exist or have existed between myself and your organisation, including true copies of any documents you hold in support of the same. A complete list of all transactions or statements relating to ALL of my Loan Accounts with your organisation. Copies of all documents which include any of my personal information including copies of any contacts or invoices, emails or computer records containing my personal information, or any records which pertain to this information. Full copies or transcripts of any correspondence in postal, email or any other format which you have entered into with any individual, organization or third party which contains my personal or financial, or which pertains to me. Where any previous information or records held have been deleted or disposed of, the methods used to do so, including dates, certificates or references confirming details of destruction. Where you are unable to provide such certificates, please provide a declaration, signed by an authorised officer of your company, confirming the dates and methods of destruction of this data. Full hard copy print outs of my personal or financial information, held in a digital, magnetic or any other format which is held in any archives, backups or other storage devices / locations. Underwriting sheet or other such document recording any commission (or other) payment made to an intermediary or packager, and/or payment/commission from the insurer in relation to my account. Where you have used abbreviations and/or codes, I would request that an accompanying sheet be provided so as to translate these abbreviations and/or codes and their meanings, I also request an accompanying appendices of the documents included and reference to the purpose or meaning to those documents. I request that you provide all the information requested above, even though you may consider that it falls outside Data Protection. I reserve the right to refer to the contents of this letter if an application for pre-action discovery is necessary relating to any of the documents requested herein. I enclose a postal order of £10 to cover your fee. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO DEAL WITH THIS REQUEST, YOU SHOULD IMMEDIALTELY FORWARD IT TO THE PERSON WITHIN YOUR ORGANISATION RESPONSIBLE FOR DATA PROTECTION. I look forward to hearing from you in the first instance of receipt. Your faithfully. Then HSBC wrote back saying "we will only be searching for information held about you in your personal capacity as director, as limited companies fall outside the scope of the DATA Protection Act 1998." So I am assuming they will not produce the limited company statements from their reply, or am I wrong? Is there another letter or SAR that would have been a better approach in respect of the limited company. Thanks for assistance Regards

Hello Thanks for you reply, sorry I am not sure I follow. So the SAR should have provided us with statements for the old limited company business account, or if not how to I go about requesting these? Please note the company was ceased trading around 4 years ago. Thanks

Hello So I did a SAR on behalf of my father to the bank which held is personal account and business account and the letter back stated: Please also note that we will only be searching for information held about you in your personal capacity as director of *****, as limited companies fall outside the scope of the Data Protection Act. Then how do we go about requesting all information held on that account? Please advise. Thanks

Hello everyone So around 2009 my fathers business was stretched and he was getting some hefty charges from the bank £40.00 for going over the agreed overdraft etc which I know is considered illegal. He fought for a couple of years to try and save his business but a couple of events outside his control meant he eventually closed it down. HSBC ended up selling the debt on which he eventually re-paid, and the same with his credit cards the debt was sold to others and he has managed over the last five years to pay everything. Now in his 70's he doesn't have much left and I wondered if it were possible for him to claw something back from these institutions? So am I right in saying despite his business closed down, he repaid all his creditors, so if there was anything untoward i.e. unfair bank charges, any loaded PPI on cards he can claim this back and keep the proceeds rather than surrendering them? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated at this time. Thanks everyone.

Hello So I actually never did anything about this, following EGG's original reply, however after further research and reading other stories I am convinced the box was pre-ticked and no advice given. The question is as I made contact with them in 2009 can I still claim? I don't think I have the original paperwork so should I do another SAR. Please advise anyone. Thanks

Hello any comments on the above: Also with regards to T&C's they confirm Our records confirm that you accepted Terms and Conditions on the 19th of November 2012. This is secure information which is only stored digitally in our database. Still should I not have been provided with copies? How can I ignore the DCA and just ask the uni to start court proceedings against me?, as I don't mind it going to court so can argue my points with them? It is not about the money it is about the principle of being lied to during enrolment and then being forced to pay for a service that you feel is not upto your expectations, I mean you must have some right against this surely?

Hello I sent email to uni which stated: I do have a copy of the letter dated the 25th February, however I have no response to my letter dated the 27th which requested further information from you in order for me to write to the Vice Chancellor. In light of the fact you will not provide me with this information I will now follow your complaints procedure. Please advise your directors that this debt was, and still is in dispute and therefore no further approach should be made by DCA regarding this matter. Please also send me copies of my agreement with you and your terms and conditions. They wrote back: As per my e-mail message sent on 15th December 2014, the last official letter you received on February 25th 2014 from Arlene Stewart outlines the steps you should follow should you wish to advance your complaint with the ******, as your grievance has not been upheld by us Therefore we will not respond to any further correspondence regarding this matter. For your reference please find below a link to complaints policy: You will see in both the policy and the letter sent to you by ****** on February 25th, that in order for your complaint to be reviewed by the Vice Chancellor, a pro-forma should have been lodged with the University’s Student Procedures Co-co-ordinator within ten (10) working days of the date of the letter. As you did not request a review by the Vice-Chancellor within the timescale stated, your debt was passed onto our collection agency. Please find below a link to Terms and Conditions. Unfortunately I am not in a position to comment on the other specific questions you have posed at this time. I have got final demand from DCA today so I have emailed UNI again: The debt was contested, I explained this in my letter to ******, and the reason for my letter dated the 27th February, two days after 25th was that I wanted an answer to a very relevant question. A resonable request I thought, and one that if she was not prepared to answer, she could have given me the courtesy of a reply even if it was IDI will not respond to any further correspondence regarding this matter. So please advise your directors to instruct DCA to make no further contact with me until we have run the course of due process and if required I go to the ombundsman. I will of course put this in writing to you as I have received a final demand from STA International and send them copies. The links on your website relating to a review, or how to go about a review, by the Vice Chancellor do not work so I would be grateful if you could forward these to me so I can take appropriate action. Please as requested before provide me with my digital acceptance of your Terms and Conditions. I also intend to write to DCA: As you may not be aware, but I would hope you are at this stage this debt is in dispute with the **** and until such times as this dispute is resolved I will not be dealing with you or any representative you may try to use. I trust this makes my position clear. Is this the right course of action? What if they do not hold digital copies of my acceptance of their terms?.... they do say by starting the course you are in acceptance on reading their T&C's: The reason for my withdrawal from the distant learning course is for two reasons: 1) Unable to maintain the recommended reading and activities which exceed the 15 hours I was advised pre-enrolment and 14 days cooling off was not sufficient to get to grips with course content and online work/management system 2) Interaction/Teaching provided by Tutors was not sufficient enough, I mean at no time on a degree course was I allowed a direct conversation or instant messenger chat with my tutor it was all by email which I found ineffective for me. I express this is in a phone call with one of their directors. In their T&CS; Our obligations to you We will provide you with access to course materials as described in the course description. We will provide you with tutorial support via the online managment system. We will undertake to ensure you receive feedback from tutors regularly, and whenever possible within 24 hours of feedback being requested from Mondays to Fridays. We will not be liable for any failure to perform any or all of our obligations where that failure is due to the actions of someone else or to any cause beyond our reasonable control. This includes the failure of the online management system. The Terms and conditions used to say something like it was the duty of every student to make contact with their tutors in order to receive feedback or something to that effect so I believe they have revised these T&C's. They go on to say: Application and enrolment we undertake to provide you with information about the general content of courses, the learning hours involved, and recommendations regarding any previous experience required. By accepting the offer of place you are confirming that you have received enough information and are satisfied that the course is suitable for you. Well in my opinion they didn't provide me with enough info about the learning hours involved So can I use these arguments for breach of contract? What if the T&C's have changed and if they provide me with no copy of my agreement. Disappointed it has come to this but then I was unhappy customer who did not like the service they provided and therefore I stopped using their service. Any advice on the points raised I would appreciate.

Hi unclebulgaria67 & renegadeimp Thanks for taking time out to reply to my post and thanks for your pointers, I will state my case with the University. Regards

Hello Hope someone can please give me some advice on my situation. As a mature student I enrolled on an online degree course. At the time of enrollment when I asked about hours of commitment I was advised verbally that 15 hours per week was enough commitment to follow through with the degree course. Eager to start I enrolled and had 14 days from the date of the course date to change my mind. After a while it became clear to me and other students, that the hours we had been advised at the date of enrolment, did not coincide with the course reading lists and activities, as the hours recommended on each exceeded the 15 hours of commitment we had been advised during the enrolment process. A couple of other students and myself voiced our concerns on their online student forum a few weeks into the first semester, to which a student support officer replied, however I did not keep a record of this. The forum is no longer in existence. After the 1st semester it was clear I was not going to be able to maintain the schedule of works as I run my own business and needs must, and therefore dropped out, and was unable to login to to the course content and forum from this point on. I had paid approx half of the years course fee at this stage. The Uni then started to write to me about outstanding debt, to which I pointed out my dis-satisfaction with their enrolment process, and argued I felt 14 days was not enough of a cooling off period for a mature student to re accustom themselves with higher education and a degree course. They advised me of their complaints procedure. I stated before I can undertake their complaints procedure I would like copies of my forum posts and their student officers reply to that so I could include this to their Vice Chancellor in my complaint, I also asked for a copy of the syllabus and schedule of recommended reading and activities, again so I make my case. They refused to give me any information and still hold me accountable for the full years fee despite me not receiving either the full years course content and modules, or a full year of teaching. Each time they wrote to me I wrote back and contested the debt and asked for the information. I made the point again how can they advise someone 15 hours is enough per week to achieve the highest grade on a degree course without any prior knowledge of that individuals academic capability in the course he/she has enrolled for. I argued if I visited a physical university would I be told 15 hours a week was enough to achieve a first place on a degree course. On Feb 25 they wrote to me again advising of their complaints procedure. I wrote to them on the 27th again requesting the information and heard nothing back. In December I received a letter from STA international and have done some research on this forum and believe as the debt is with the Uni I have not taken an agreement out with them and therefore they have no right to chase me for the debt. I emailed the Uni accounts department and they confirmed receipt of my letter but advised me they had told me how to go about their complaints procedure. I told them I had requested information from them and they had no right to pass my debt to an agency. I have an email now form STA international stating: We are a debt collecting agency working on behalf of our client the ****** We have been instructed to collect the above outstanding amount and we have sent you a letter to this effect. To avoid any further costs or legal action you must contact us immediately on 0044 (0) 844 324 0607 quoting your pre-legal reference 1331195. Alternatively you can respond to this email. We await your urgent correspondence. So I wanted to ask: 1.) Should I have done a SARS on the Uni would that have provided me with the forum posts I wish to argue my case with their Vice Principle? 2.) As STA are working on behalf of the Uni does it mean they have a right to enforce the debt? 3.) How should I reply to STA? Or should I ignore? 4.) Is their any claim for mis-advice/information because of the enrolment process? 5.) As I was not able and have not received the full years course content/module and they have provided no service to me can they really enforce the debt? I understand they run a business but the way the lady reeled off the answer of 15 hours when I asked the question, in hindsight I know it was a common question and she knew she was not being entirely honest about the process. I also have a suspicion seeing the number of students who graduate each year on this course compared with the number who start is small, and I suspect their aim for first years is to get everyone on board signed up and then those that falter like me they can sell their debt on. Anyway any answers to my questions would be greatly received. Thanks for your time and assistance.

Hi Slick Thanks for you replies, and Artmo it's your right to have an opnion of me without even knowing me that's fine. So I had ARC phone me last week chasing the debt, and I explained to them I had written a letter to Virgin's head office disputing my contract as I hadn't a copy on file. The gentleman I spoke to said he could get this organised for me and the next day I received a telephone call from a lady who works at my local gym, and she emailed me through a copy of a contract. I say a contract because it was the original contract I had signed with Esporta in November of 2008 tying me into a 12 min contract period and termination of 3 months notice. It does say shorter notice periods may be considered. I had posted the letter to Virgin a few days earlier basically saying what you had suggested slick I recently received an email from ****, Members Relations Assistant at *** please see emails below. I have not had a reply to my email, but have received a request for payment from ARC and therefore I am contacting you directly. I would still like a copy of the contract I have signed. I wrote to you on 24th May 2012 cancelling my membership. The amount you are demanding from me (for 3 month's notice) is unfair to me as a consumer and this was made clear in the High Court ruling by Mr Justice Kitchin against Ashbourne Management Services Ltd in August 2011. In his ruling, the judge suggested a month's fee was reasonable compensation for cancelling a gym contract, which tied a member to a contract for more than 12 month. Your new contract that I was told to sign in 2011 effectively tied me into a contract of 15 months when all I wanted to do was take the tennis option from my existing membership. I was not asked to sign a new contract when you took over the gym so why after some months was I forced into a new term when all I wanted to do was ammend my existing membership with you. I consider this unfair. Accordingly, I am prepared to offer you one month's fee in full and final settlement of all monies due in respect of any agreement between. This offer is valid for 14 days only and, if you fail to accept my offer within that time, I will withdraw the offer and pay you nothing further. On receipt of your agreement to my offer, I will arrange to pay the final amount to conclude all business between us. In light of the fact I presume that they cannot produce to me a new contract that I had signed, and the recent high court ruling, do you think I should be ok with my offer then to pay them a months fee? Thanks for all your assistance, really appreciated. I will update the post in time to let everyone know the conclusion. Thanks

Hi Slick Thanks for your reply. I originally joined Esporta I think in December 2009. I think it was just a monthly membership plan I would have to try and find the agreement. I was asked to sign a new Virgin Agreement I think around this time last year only when I asked for them to remove my tennis membership from my subscription, so I wouldn't carry on paying a higher fee. This was some months after Virgin took over the club. I know this sounds stupid but I don't know what I signed up to the lady just said you need to sign this new form the monthly payments are x, and please sign this direct debit. This is why I have requested a copy of my contract because as far as I am aware I didn't walk out the door with one, and would like to see the date it was signed. I suppose I could check to see when that direct debit became active at my bank. I have read some other posts now, but if I have signed a contract for a minimum of 12 months with a 3 month cancellation period is this enforceable by law? I saw a thread where there has been a court ruling or something to say that in this period of "austerity" it isn't really acceptable to force people to sign these types of contracts. Financially things are tight for me and I do not need this debt right now, and the truth is I haven't visited their gym since April which they would have record of. So If I haven't continue to use a service from them why should I have to pay? I could understand a months notice as you would if you were renting or resigning from employment but 3 months in my opinion is not justified and nor are there heavy tactics.