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I have a credit card and overdraft with First Direct (FD) and in July 2006 wrote to them, after financial difficulties and included an income/ependiture sheet and my proposals to pay monthly. I have been paying this since then until August 06.
My monthly payments have been paid electronically. In Aug 07 and my payments could not be paid as it appeared the accounts had been closed. FD confirmed this is writing and also advised me that all future payments must be paid to Metropolitan credit services Ltd. I was not comfortable ith this and did not pay further.
In Sept 07 I started receiving normal threatening letters from DG solicitors, HSBC in house solicitors. I have CCA on both accounts. both account sI have received an applications forms in both instances and not properly executed agreements.
Today I have received a summons from DG solicitors in relation to the credit card.
I am thinking my defence could be I am paying what I can afford and FD have refused payment. Alternatively do I consider disputing the debt due to a not executed agreement being supplied.
For Further INFO
Particulars of claim
The claimants claim is for the balance oustanding under a current account overdraft which despite demand, the defendant has failed to repay to the claimant.
and the claimant claims:
1 £xxxxxxxxx
2. Interest pusuant to section 69 of the county court act 1984 at a rate of 8% per annum from the date hereof at a daily rate of £xxx to the date of the judgement or sooner.
CCA
I did not receive a written reply just a copy of the application form and a hand written compliment slip from Metropolitan Collection Services Ltd saying basically "pay us in 14 days"
Could you scan post the summons on here for those more 'educated' than me to look at? It may not be what it seems. Please remember to take out all personal data etc.
I do not know am afraid. I beleive I can write to the Solicitors asking for this inof under civil procedures which may help. Assuming the percentage is small what do you think about a defence?
I did have an overdraft and credit card with FD. However the balances stated in the POC,s are very similar to the balance oustsanding on my credit card statements and not the overdraft. In a nutshell I am saying that the POC's seem to be referring to the wrong product namely an overdraft when the balalnces refer according to my historic doumentation to a credit card. would that incorrect ststement in the POC's be improtant?
Do you have ant particular views over my defense approach as mentioned above?
I did have an overdraft and credit card with FD. However the balances stated in the POC,s are very similar to the balance oustsanding on my credit card statements and not the overdraft. In a nutshell I am saying that the POC's seem to be referring to the wrong product namely an overdraft when the balalnces refer according to my historic doumentation to a credit card. would that incorrect ststement in the POC's be improtant?
Do you have ant particular views over my defense approach as mentioned above?
Thanks for your help.
rgds
orky
its difficult, can you be definite that the figures relate to the other account? is there a massive difference between the balances of the two accounts
the thing is it would be something you would need probably to support with documents and proof thatthe balances were wrong
have you recieved any notification thatthey were taking legal action?
Could i use this mistake as a defence namely they are trying to sue me for an incorrect amount. I have letters from both FD and DG solicitors reflecting this.
If not do you have any views as what my defense should be as stated before.
well 8 grand is a sufficiently large enough figure
i would say that the mistakes give you more than enough to challenge the claim, the fact is they appear to be trying to circumvent the CCA by claiming to be suing you for the overdraft not the credit card
i will try and help when my heads a little clearer, too much Famous Grouse yesterday has impaired my thoughts
I appreciate your input and look forward to you views. I think the net stage is to send the AOS I think this will give me a little more time to prepare the defence.
right then firstly, file the AOS, my gut feeling is so long as you can show that they are claiming the Credit Card and have things horribly wrong,,i would defend all the claim.
the by special delivery send this letter to the solicitors
In the XXXX county court
Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME)
Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER)
Dear XXX
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below.
The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought.
1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened.
2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to:
a. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations by your company, or by any previous creditor
b. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.(AMEND TO THE COMPANY NAME)
c. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.
d.Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).
e. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.
f. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.
g. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998
h. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.
i. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.
3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court.
I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim.
wait and see what they send if anything, then take it from there.
if nothing comes back in 14 days, then we file a holding defence saying they have failed to supply documents vital to your defence and until they do you cannot file a full defence
can i ask if there was any documents attached to the claim form at all?
OF COURSE THIS IS BUT MY OPINION, AND SHOULD YOU HAVE ANY CONCERNS YOU SHOULD CONSULT A QUALIFIED LAWYER
Thank you for your advice and input. I suspect your advice has much more value to me via this website than most lawyers I may instruct who will probably have no hands on expeience in this rea so thank you.
May I pose a question? I think that the defence is ultimately going down the route of non supply of the correctly executed documents etc. This incidently is what i prefer. Do you think that as I have been regularly paying FD (the OC) this will impact this defence. It seems to me I maybe saying to the court one the one hand I accept the debt by paying and then disputing the debt exists by virtue of them not supplying the correct documents. Perhaps my lack of litigation is the real problem here.
As I have multiple debts, this is the first to eceive a summons, I can see this being a constan dilema for me.
1. Yes I did receive notification from DG Solicitos concerning instruction to take legal action back in November 2007.I CCA them.
2. Yes I have been paying what I could afford on the overdraft upto August 2007 when FD (the OC) advised the account had been closed and all future payments must be paid to Metropolitan Collections Services Ltd. At that point I ceased paying FD or Metrolpoitan and CCA the later. To date Metropolitan have only sent a application form. I have made no other payments.
3. I received no other documentaion with the summons. This answers a historical question you posed.
sorry for asking questions which may already have been answered, the problem is i dont have a file in front of me to refer to with all the notes on the case. when im involved with a case from the start i do often make notes but i havent done so yet so appologies
its difficult trying to seperate the two cases into their individual parts,
at this point i would like to try and keep things seperate as they are clearly suing you for a credit card but claim its a overdraft
the thing i think to do here is to concentrate on the credit card and raise the issue that the claimant is in error and claiming for the wrong account
did the POCs refer to an account number and if it did does the account number relate to the overdraft or the credit card. im just looking for a point where they have made an error other than the actual figures which would confirm the claim they are bringing is for the wrong account
No probs, thanks for getting back to me, right then we pretty much have tnm then
no way for arguing that this claim is for a overdraft then if the account number refers to the credit card
bingo
Now then you mention metropolitan , now im assuming they were just a debt collection agency which were tasked with collecting this debt and that he account has now been passed back to HSBC / FD and its their solicitors who are taking legal action if im right then we dont need to ask for any notice of assignment as that would be irrellevent,
right then
i will put my defence writing head on this evening and see what i can draft up for you