Thread: Penny v Egg

Penny,

Egg does require photocopy of passport or drivers licence, plus 2 original utility bills (returned). You can have a list of penalty charges only for £5 within days or a comprehensive one-inch pile of paper for £10 which can take 40 days. Inclusion of cheque will speed up the response.


Egg used to pay without stalling or waiting for legal cohercion, but this admirable practice has noticeably slowed down, in some case stopping, since the announcement of the test case at end of July. For history of winning Egg cases see V-E Day: Victory over Egg 5


The OFT bank penalty charges test case hearing is expected (as per OFT) "at the beginning of 2008". When a High Court judge pronounces a lawful penalty charge to be £XX, I would be surprised if this figure has no bearing on credit card reclaim hearings in Small Claims Court -- where the card does defend. Although one hearing is for banks and the other for cards, judges have repeatedly said they seek consistency not lottery of verdict. Imho it is hard to see how Small Claims judges would have any appetitite to substantively deviate from the High Court figure following the cause celebre. Small Claims judges could of course develop an appetite for a separate verdict for credit cards, staying hearings if another test case is in the offing.

The High Court verdict will put an end to 100% refund of bank penalty charges. As this hearing draws ever closer --

OFT press release 15OCT2007:

"8. When will the test case take place?
There is a trial window between January 14 and February 28 2008 within which the trial will take place. We expect it to last between eight and fifteen days.

10. Does the test case have any read across to credit card default charges?
The present case concerns only whether banks' charges for unauthorised overdrafts on personal current accounts are subject to the test of fairness in the UTCCRs and, if they are, the case may continue in order to determine whether those charges are unfair under the UTCCRs."

managements of cards such as Egg will realise they only need to stall a few weeks and then they will be able to refund less retrospective charges to claimants, or even to refund nothing at all, bearing in mind the OFT set a £16 intervention threshold for Egg on 5th April 2006, and the possibility of a comparable figure adjudicated by High Court.


Imho therefore, claimants who want 100% refund of charges are in a race against time. For OFT press release on 15OCT2007, see

Information about the test case?

PS. To encourage Egg onto the path of virtue you might consider informing Egg that if they refuse to refund on the strength of your letter in plain English, you are minded to take your case to the fos, who will immediately charge Egg a fee of £360 win lose or draw.

What is the balance on the card because they do have a right to offset your claim against the balance. Having said that, I believe there are cases of people getting a cheque nonetheless by just refusing to settle until they do. A bit risky though.

Originally Posted by paulrockliffe

Not updated this thread in ages, but Egg capitulated today, just under £1000 refunded.

Interestingly, I claimed interest at 16.9% on my charges, simply based on the date of the charge. This wasn't quite right as I hadn't paid interest on the charges during periods when the account balance was zero. I couldn't do this as a number of charges on my account didn't have values assigned to them, so I couldn't calculate my balance each month.

Egg have calculated the interest properly for me and then refunded that too. Very good of them.

I myself would not reclaim debit interest if in any month there was no debit interest levied, e.g. the account had near zero balance. Precise calculation of debit interest compounded monthly on penatly charges is not simple, as cardholder monthly payments go to pay off different debit items in a pre-set order described in the T&C, e.g. cash advances wiped out first.

Egg is so cooperative these days that they redid the arithmetic for Paul above and refunded in short order, so no need to get your computations 100% right, only a computer using known formulae can do that.

I believe if Egg agree to pay yourself instead of into your card, then rather than the less secure option of sending a cheque they would prefer to transfer money into the bank account in your own name which you nominate.

Good luck Penny!

Keep us postd, we'll be here to help

A pound to a penny they will pay Tuppence.

Pennypenny, Eggegg no longer has the appetite to resist garden variety charges refunds. Claimants beyond count have received full refunds, many with interest as requested, and many within the week to the amount of £1,000, after just a proven template letter or two in plain English. All this has been reported continuously on V-E Day thread.

So if Egg stiffens and stalls, let us know. The Queen's English can in cases have effect faster than the law.

Penny, the reply you received came promptly because it was a computerised template letter. If you check against some of the initial responses from Egg, as listed in V-E Day thread, you will find the text to be identical -- so it was not targeted at you.

This procedure has become a ritualised choreographed dance, as one dancer goes forwards another goes backwards. Egg staff have been instructed to go through the motions just in case they succeed in bamboozling innocents. If you completely ignore the adverse letter, but adapt the template letter below to your own particulars and send same, then Egg's next response is likely to be -> ££££. The less you deviate from the template the better, as that is a signal that you know that they know that you know that they know how it will end, so no point pussyfooting any more.

Good luck!

03 weeks - 22 JAN 2008 - WINNING TEMPLATE LETTER - andrew_nwide - WON!! Egg Smashed £900

01 weeks - 30 APR 2007 - WINNING TEMPLATE LETTER - Eggmail then 2-day payout - moc1982 v Egg

That was the first variant of the winning letter. Egg management know the text by heart now. The above simpler variant will need less adaptation. Over 30 senders of this template reported a quick result, with none disappointed, so this route is proven to work faster than the legals.

If Egg have no appetite for spending more money and wasting staff time, least of all going to court, they will not split hairs with your text. Ignore their standard "hard to get" letter. No need to wait. This is the scripted one-two, the scripted slow-slow-quickquick-slow, proven many times.

Penny, no harm investing in 66(?) namesakes of yours, and sending both ways, each message referring to the other. It is peak holiday season now with many staff away, and whichever Eggployee is still awake and reads the message first will pass it onto the authorising manager.

Hope the Pimms will soon be on you. :grin: