Thread: SteveH2508 v Egg **WON**

I was one of the 161,000 from whom Egg withdrew cards recently (I was paying in full each month now BTW). I thought don't get mad - get even so I sent an S.A.R - (Subject access request) and got all of my statements quite quickly. (No 'manual intervention stuff or anything else yet). Nearly £1000 in overlimit charges over the years!! :o

Claim letter duly sent and standard bog off reply received. LBA is going in Monday.

After making my February payment and clearing the account, I cancelled their DD mandate on my bank account. (No way are those f**kwits having access to my account a moment longer than necessary)

Last night I got a whingy, complainy, slightly threatening letter from Egg saying I had to have a DD mandate for my Egg card - it was in the T&Cs!


I've calmed down now and just e-mailed them this:

I refer to your letter received yesterday regarding the cancellation of my direct debit in favour of your company. You quote the Terms and Conditions of the credit card account. I would remind you that it was YOU who terminated this account under a rather dubious pretext with an insulting letter. I have paid off the balance on the account as I have been doing every month for the last year. If you think that I am going to leave your organisation with access to my bank account – think again. Your computer systems may be stupid – I am not.

I specifically required that the refund of charges which I am pursuing is to be paid by cheque so there is no need for a direct debit mandate being in place. A letter before action is on its way to you in relation to this claim. Be advised, that I have already successfully pursued several charges reclaims and your prevarication will only increase the ultimate cost to you. (specifically Interest and Court Fees).

I will remind you that you still have not complied completely with my Subject access request – or – if you have - then you would not be able to rely on a ‘manual intervention’ defence in relation to my above-mentioned charges claim. This failure to supply all personal data may well involve further expense to your company in terms of possible litigation and/or fos complaint (which costs you £400 per complaint).

Egg used to be a fairly efficient, customer-friendly company. They seem to have gone completely to pot since that septic shower Citi bought them.
[end rant]

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Suing in Small Claims Court for unlawful charges reclaim ensures repayment by other cards (stalling up to the last minute), but with Egg a lawsuit would actually be the second-best option, for two reasons:

(1) Once a court date is assigned, it encourages Egg management to stall for months effortlessly, with Egg no doubt settling at the last minute. However during this long wait IF the bank Test Case verdict came out with a lawful figure (completely guessing, of £10, or £12, rather than £5 as proposed by CAG), then such a bank verdict although not binding on cards would embolden all the card managements into not settling out of court. They would fancy their chances of a similar verdict for cards, so why should they refund 100% out of court?

Even worse, on any day now the OFT could announce the launch of a Test Case against cards in 6 months time. All claims in the cards pipeline would likely be stayed until the Cards Test Case, with possible appeals, and no more out-of-court settlements in the interim.

(2) After an eventual High Court ruling, when card charges are reclaimed via court, the refund will not be 100% as out-of-court up to now. Only the excess portion above the point ruled as lawful e.g. for a £16 charge only the £6 excess above a level ruled as lawful (say a completely hypothetical figure of £10) would be retrospectively refunded via the court, I believe. So the double whammy: a long wait for refund then a reduced payout.

The well proven CAG Egg template letter in plain English, such as pasted in andrew_nwide's thread below has consistently out-performed lawsuits, with 2 cases below refunded in full within a week of sending the letter. On the other hand formal lawsuits open the door to uncertainty, and delays do not favour claimants.

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

01 weeks - 23 JAN 2008 - fivelaws v Egg ***WON***

20 weeks - 01 MAR 2008 - Alex the Lad v. Egg

Whereas I greatly appreciate Andrew's letter (and said so on the thread) i don't think 3 cases is statistically significant. Use Andrew's letter by all meanss but keep the court route up you sleeve. There is a danger that the OFT will have a case against CCs but it won't be until after the dust has settled on the current one. THe judge is expected to give his ruling in the next few weeks but then there will be a series of appeals (whichever way it goes). Any OFT case against CCs is not going to start until way in to 2009 if not later.

Thanks for the input guys. I shall craft the lba carefully in plain English before it goes. I might post it up for thoughts/inputs if that's OK. At the end of the day, Egg are not the most important fish I have to fry - Citi and MBNA are on the front burner - set to high!

This is what I am intending to send to EGG tomorrow.

Any thoughts?

The Customer Relations Office

Egg plc

Riverside Road

Pride Park
Derby
DE99 3GG

Your reference: EGG/XXXXXX/2008

11 March 2008

Re Account No. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Default Charges – letter before action


Dear Egg,

Thank you for your letter of XXth February 2008 regarding my request for repayment of charges.

In your letter you say that you do not agree with my legal analysis in regards to the penalty charges you have levied from my account, yet you have given no reason as to why. I have explained clearly the views of both myself and the law regarding penalty charges. Once again I invite you to show me that the charges imposed on my account are a true reflection of your costs. I require a detailed breakdown of what actions are necessary to make up such costs & how you arrive at the sum charged.

Please be aware that I am thoroughly conversant with the technicalities of management accounting as it is one of the subjects which I teach. I am quite conversant with the principles of budgeting; marginal cost accounting and absorption cost accounting so technical papers on these subjects will not pose a problem.

I would also remind you that I have not received any evidence of manual intervention in the running of my account or any other personal data which you hold, as requested by my Subject access request (dated Xth Feb 2008 ) made under the Data Protection Act.

I require repayment in full of this money. I will not accept any goodwill payment that is less than the full amount requested .If you do not comply fully within 14 days, I shall either be forced to begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest, plus my costs, or to involve the Financial Ombudsman Service - either option will involve your company in significant extra expenditure.

For your convenience I enclose another copy of my spreadsheet detailing the charges applied.

I require repayment of this sum by cheque.

Yours faithfully,



XXXXXXX XXXXXXX

Egg has over 2 million accounts, and incoming letters are not read by lawyers, professors or managers. When faced by an unfamiliar letter Egg's frontline clerk will simply send out another template letter about the OFT, £16, and pre-estimates, in reply. Or Egg will ignore or stall on the incoming letter - no action. The more unfamiliar the incoming letter, the more likely it is filed at the bottom of a large Pending basket.

The OFT set their tolerance figure for Egg at £16 based on Egg pre-estimates. Egg's central defence against claims rests on their pre-estimates. Egg would like to talk until the cows come home about pre-estimates.

Andrew_nwide's letter, itself based on moc1982's 30APR2007 template letter, between them have brought in at least 30 quick successes, some within a week -- by shining a pinpoint spotlight on Egg pre-estimates, saying the one thing Egg least want said. Egg then decide the claimant has understood the issue, and Egg say: here's your refund, go away and keep quiet.

Any new letter which works would be fine. Good luck.

Well I got the next standard letter in the series this morning, making the £4 per default offer (£20 - £16). It also goes on about using the account correctly yada yada (which is nice 'cos they closed it on me!)

I shall send them the following on Monday.

Your reference: EGG/XXXXXX/2008

17 March 2008

Re Account No. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX X X XXXXXXX

Default Charges – Decline of Offer - letter before action


Dear XXXXX,

Thank you for your standard letter of 14th March 2008 making an offer of £XXX towards my request for repayment of charges. I would point out that references to the running of my account (para. 6 of your letter), are not appropriate as your organisation closed my account recently under a somewhat dubious pretext.

I am afraid that I must decline your offer and would re-iterate that I am requesting the full amount of £XXX to be refunded.

If you would furnish me with the relevant figures to support your ‘genuine pre-estimate’ figure of £16 per occurrence then I will examine those figures and may accept that estimate. However, in the absence of such figures, it is impossible for me to make that judgement. I am very aware of the coverage relating to default charges and that there have been several studies done in relation to this issue. These studies have come up with various figures, ranging from pennies to a maximum of £4.50 (assuming manual intervention in the process).

There are considerations regarding the absorption of initial start up costs, which are a one-off, as opposed to the coverage of day-to-day running costs. Once these initial start-up costs (e.g. purchase, programming and installation of IT systems) have been recovered, there is no legal justification for their inclusion in the default charges. It would therefore show in a higher charge at the outset, followed by a substantial reduction in the charge after a period of time. This has clearly not happened.

The charging process and the issue of standard template letters is an automated process which incurs costs of pennies to run. Manual intervention, which requires staff time, is obviously a more expensive process, but it is still unlikely to incur a cost of £16. That would imply that each event took perhaps an hour or more (assuming an hourly pay rate of about £15 per hour – a not ungenerous amount).

I would also remind you that I still have not received any evidence of manual intervention in the running of my account or any other personal data which you hold, as requested by my Subject access request (dated 4th Feb 2008) made under the Data Protection Act. The 40 days has now expired, so I can only conclude that there has been no manual intervention therefore no associated costs.

I require repayment in full of this money. I will not accept any goodwill payment that is less than the full amount requested .If you do not refund me fully within 14 days or you do not forward me the financial information I requested above, I shall either be forced to begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest, plus my costs, or to involve the Financial Ombudsman Service - either option will involve your company in significant extra expenditure.

Yours faithfully,



XXXXXX XXXXXXXX

Any comments?

Today they have offered me the full amount!

I shall accept.

Mods please mark as won (donation to follow when the dosh arrives!)

Steve - well done - CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS !! Well done, steve.

Thread title changed.

Els

Thanks all.

Another victory for the carefully crafted letter(s).

I do wonder if variations on a template letter are more effective than a straight 'copy and paste'.

Perhaps we should encourage a little more customisation of the template letters by CAGgers?

The MiBs who see these letters every day must get quite bored with the same templated stuff (albeit that is what they send us!) It might also make people think a bit more about the implications of what they are potentially getting into.
If the MiBs get letters which show that the writer has an understanding of the issues involved, it may make the MiBs less likely to fight it.

Just my fuzzy Barolo fuelled thoughts!

You are assuming that someone actually reads what we send. Do you have anyevidence of that?

Originally Posted by steven4064

You are assuming that someone actually reads what we send. Do you have anyevidence of that?

Only circumstantial. They (generally - not necessarily Egg) do not seem to treat all cases the same. However, I would like to keep the warm fuzzy feeling a little longer, that they actually reacted to my letter!!

Originally Posted by SteveH2508

Only circumstantial. They (generally - not necessarily Egg) do not seem to treat all cases the same. However, I would like to keep the warm fuzzy feeling a little longer, that they actually reacted to my letter!!

It's just possible that some office junior about to break up for the bank holiday saw you letter and thought, "Heck, I must do something about this before I go home..."

A result!

Whatever marks out of ten Eggployees have given this successful letter, the important thing is that Egg have shown themselves willing to pay out in full, all within 4 days.

Egg's hardline and softline moods come and go. This current co-operativeness will not last, I would put money on it. All still to claim from Egg, best to get in quick by letter. Good luck to all.

Money received - donation made - on to the next lot of scrotes!

CONGRATULATIONS Steve

The £10 S.A.R. will get you your statements. I copied my letter to them via the web-site so they couldn't prevaricate about ID.

The statements arrived within a week or so. (nothing else though). I was slightly hoping there might have been something of interest re the 161,000 cull but I'm not bothered now. A grand is a grand! (better in my pocket than theirs)