Thread: Gizmo111 V Citicards**PAID AFTER BALIFFS VISIT**

Prelim sent today for 708.84 and request for default to be removed - 870.65. Debt was sold on to hillesden for 221 so am expecting the usual letter back.

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I have receive letter back in reponse to my prelim and the points made are as follows - my scanner is playing up so I will just reproduce the new and salient bits, and would be grateful for any advice on the letter that I have drafte to send to Brian Smith, Citi's solicitors.

OFT recognises that their statement is not law as has never been decided court but is merely perusasive.

Default fees are not unlawful, just unfair level and we are entitled to charge a fee just not one above £12,

Recommeneded thrshol of £12 to reflect that charges are based on a number of factors and not just the price of an envelope or stamp etc..

Have recommended that out of £600 charges claimed £312 be sent to Hillesden DCA to reflect difference between 24 charges of £25 and 24 charges of OFT's recommended level of £12.

Should I proceed citi will defend on bais of OFT's statement and analysis of the lawful level of default charges.

defence will also exercise defendants right to seek claim to be transfereed to home court,

Defendent is innocent until proven guilty and should not be disadvantaged in defending himself.




Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your letter dated 28 July 2006, with your offer of £312 which will be sent direct to Hilledsen Securities. I confirm that I am prepared to accept this in partial settlement of my claim of £708.84 against yourselves on the condition that I receive confirmation from Hillesden in writing that this transaction has been effected within 14 days from the date of this letter. However, I shall be pursuing the remainder of my claim which amounts to a monetary sum of £396.84, and the unconditional removal of the default registered against myself with the credit reference agencies in favour of the alleged debt of £870.65.

I refer to your fourth and fifth paragraph in the aforementioned letter where you state that your interpretation of the OFT’s statement of April 6th 2006 is that you are entitled to levy a fee for breach of contract, as they cover more than just the price of a stamp or envelope etc but just not one in excess in of £12

Please read and consider the following extract from the OFT’s statement

‘Where credit card default charges are set at more than £12, the OFT will presume that they are unfair, and is likely to challenge the charge unless there are limited, exceptional business factors in play. A default charge is not fair simply because it is below £12
A default charge should only be used to recover certain limited administrative costs. These may include postage and stationery costs and staff costs and also a proportionate share of the costs of maintaining premises and IT systems necessary to deal with defaults ‘
I quote from my letter dated 24th july 06
‘ will you please demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs’ Additionally, it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT who reported on the 5th April 2006 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.’

Your reply did not answer my above specific query, nor did you provide specific proof that the charges that you levied on my account represented a true estimate of your costs. so you leave me with no option but to presume that your charges are unlawful at Common Law, Statute Law and recent Consumer regulations.
I also refer to your final paragraph where you state that if I take any court action you will
a) base your defence on the OFT’s statement and analysis of the unlawful level of default charges
b) you will exercise your right as defendant to have the claim transferred to your home court in Salford.
I once again quote from the OFT’s statement
Only a court can finally decide whether a charge is unfair or not. The OFT has today set out a statement of its view of the law.
And
As a solicitor acting for a large company you should be aware that current legislation governing local county court hearings is likely to ensure that the court hearing will be heard in the individual’s local court not the local court of the defendant. However, should my interpretation of this aspect of the law differ in any way in practice, please be aware that should my claim proceed to Salford Court, and be successful, I will be claiming any additional costs that I incur from your client.

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary.

I calculate that you have taken £600 plus £108.84 which you have charged me in interest for the sums which you have taken, you have indicated that £312 will be refunded, I therefore continue my claim for repayment of unlawful charges, Total £396.84

Additionally, you have entered a default notice against my credit record. This default occurred merely in respect of unlawful charges levied by you, or was the result of impecuniosity caused directly by the taking by you of penalty charges which you had applied unlawfully to my account.

In addition to full payment of the sum mentioned above, I require that you remove the default entry from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable.

I require repayment in full of this money and removal of the default notice. If you do not comply fully within 14 days, I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest, plus my costs, without further notice.

Yours faithfully,

I would tend to avoid getting into pointless legal arguments with a solicitor - remember that they are trained and extremely experienced in the art of arguing!

If they want to have this debate then the place to do it is in court, where there is an even more experienced person ready to pick holes in their argument.

It is your call, but I would suggest the following:




letter before action

Dear Mr Smith

I am in receipt of your letter dated (insert date of their letter) the contents of which have been noted. Please be aware that I do not agree with your assessment, and am happy that I will win should this matter reach court.

I am prepared to accept your offer of £312 in partial settlement of my claim of £708.84 against yourselves, on the condition that I receive written confirmation from Hillesden that this transaction has been effected within 14 days from the date of this letter.

However, please be aware that I shall be pursuing the remainder of my claim which amounts to a monetary sum of £396.84, and the unconditional removal of the default registered against myself with the credit reference agencies in favour of the alleged debt of £870.65.

Should I not receive confirmation that you are prepared to accept my terms of settlement by 12 noon on (insert date 14 days from date they will receive letter), then a county court claim will be issued for the full amount, plus 8% interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act, and court issue fees.

Yours etc.

[quote=alanfromderby]I would tend to avoid getting into pointless legal arguments with a solicitor - remember that they are trained and extremely experienced in the art of arguing!

If they want to have this debate then the place to do it is in court, where there is an even more experienced person ready to pick holes in their argument.

It is your call, but I would suggest the following:


Thanks Alan,

Was getting a bit confused with how much info to put in lba, I have just added this one line after paragraph 3

I would expect any further settlement under this claim to be paid direct to myself.

Will send tomorrow and see what returns.

Thanks again

Hi all,

I have received the following response from Citi, the bit about not actually paying is rubbish as I have paid to date £400 to hillesden. Not really sure weather he is withdrawing his offer of £312 direct to hillesden or not, so I will have to ring around tomorrow and see if it has been paid or not, before I issue claim. Still no mention of removing default, so Iguess I add that requirement on to my claim? Any advice/thoughts on response welcome. Thanks.

Thank you for your letter of 31st July. I note the point you make, however, unfortunately my client is unable to meet your demand as your total indebtedness to Citi before the account was closed and the debt was sold was £870.65. accordingly , my can and will legitimately will claim as defence that you ever actually paid the sum of£708.84 or even the £600 actually charged into your account. Moreover, to pay you as you suggested would imply that your continued breaches of contract with my client, some 24 in total, should simply never of attracted any sanction whatsoever. Is that really a tenable position for a bank to do business upon when agreeing to lend money to its customers?

The fact that payments of yours were used to pay interests and charges rather than principle in accordance with the T&C’s does not mean that these sums have been “paid” and are recoverable whereas some other transactions, independent of those, form the basis of the outstanding sum. The account is one indivisible whole.

Given the above, we will neither be paying you any further sums or hillesden on your behalf. In the event that you initiate an action, I shall defend the action on this basis.

Well as expected no monies have been paid to Hilesden/Ruthbridge so I am preparing money claim - however it is 1235 characters long - can anyone advise on a shortened version of the below, and am I right in requesting that th edefault be removed on this claim or is that something seperate? Wording as follows

I have an account no 4508xxxxxxxxxxxx with
the defendant which was opened on 05/01/02
and is conducted on their standard terms and
conditions.I claim the return of £708.84
taken by the defendant in the way of charges
and the interest levied on those charges.
The bank's charges are a disproportionate
penalty and thus unenforceable as they are
contrary to common law. Further, as a
disproportionate penalty they are invalid
under the Unfair(Contracts)Terms Act 1977
s.4 and under the Unfair Terms in Consumer
Contracts Regs.1999.Para.8 and sch.2(1)(e).
In the event that the charges are not a
penalty then they are unreasonable as per
the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982
s.15.The bank have repeatedly declined to
justify these charges.The claimant claims
interest under s.69 of the County Courts Act
1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 10/06/02
to 08/10/03 of £191.14 and interest at the
same rate up to the date of judgment or
earlier payment at a daily rate of £0.13
Furthermore I request the removal of a
default notice that was registered 04/02 as
a result of the charges that were applied.
Charges 600.00
Interest 108.84
Total 708.84
S69 Interest 191.14
Total 899.98

On A Moneyclaim you can only address the money side.
However with your out of court settlements you can draw their attention to the fact that Full and final can only be accepted if the default issues are sorted.

You would need to initiate further action later on an N1 in open court.
But all is not lost.......once the issue of charges are settled you can move to the default issues.

I gather you want to submit this for tomorrow (before 10 to be issued same day)



Use the original from the temps


Claimant has account (A/C No) with Defendant from (Date)conducted on their standard terms and conditions. Claimant is claiming the return of (£0.00) taken by Defendant in charges over (X) years. The Defendant's charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as they are contrary to common law. They are also invalid under the Unfair Contracts Terms Act 1977 s.4 and under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.Para.8 and sch.2.1.e.
In the event that the charges are not a penalty they are unreasonable within the meaning of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 s.15. Defendant has declined justification of charges despite repeated requests. Claimant claims interest under Sec.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% a year from(Date) to (Date) of (£0.00) and also interest at same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of (£0.00)

putting in your figures.
You will then need to reduce the lineage to 24 by formatting them easy done.

Originally Posted by MARTIN3030

On A Moneyclaim you can only address the money side.
However with your out of court settlements you can draw their attention to the fact that Full and final can only be accepted if the default issues are sorted.

You would need to initiate further action later on an N1 in open court.
But all is not lost.......once the issue of charges are settled you can move to the default issues.

I haven't issued MCOL yet was waiting for some help, I notice that you are doing both on a N1, and they have withdrawn offer now so I think it makes sense to do all on one claim, I am just stuck as I don't know what to put in the default removal bit of the claim. I got this far '

Further more the defendant issued a default notice for £870.65 on 20/04/04 and registered the same with the credit reference agencies Experian and Equifax, I also require unconditional removal of this adverse data from my files, as the default amount was mostly accruued by the defendant applying unlawful cahrges to my account.

Have you any thoughts on this wording? Thanks

no I have not issued to citi yet.


I am thinking of doing the N1 so I can do the both together.
I will prob file soon.
Moneyclaim will not let you address issues that are non penalty related.
I have a plan of action if you are interested to know,but its not for mc.

Originally Posted by MARTIN3030

no I have not issued to citi yet.


I am thinking of doing the N1 so I can do the both together.
I will prob file soon.
Moneyclaim will not let you address issues that are non penalty related.
I have a plan of action if you are interested to know,but its not for mc.

Yep I would be interested as I want a refund of charges and that default removed - I am ready to claim this week.

Thanks

Went to county court today and issued claim for £900.16 and removal of default.

Originally Posted by gizmo111

Went to county court today and issued claim for £900.16 and removal of default.

Defence received today - basically
1. denies charges are unlawful
2. claim is entirely based on OFT statement, defendant has agreed to abide by OFT report and has set it's default fees at the new industry standard of £12
3. Account was in arrears and sold off to hillesden, balance was 870.65 sold for 14% of its value and citi have already lost 750.00
4. Defendant has offered difference between £25 and £12, totla £312 and has transferred this amount ot hillesden to reduce my debt.
5. Defendant was entitled to issue a default notice in April 2004 as the debt was outstanding. Default notice will not be revoked.
6. This is not a money claim but a damages claim.
7. interest claim is not valid, as defendant has claimed interest from date each default occured and not date it was paid.
8. The claimant has a current outstanding balance with hillesden and therfore has not paid account or any defaultfees.
9. Whole claim is denied.
10. Defence signed, by David Travis solicitor.

I made an arrangement with Hillesden to pay off the outstanding balance whic as £470.65 They have received no money from citi as of this morning. Citi withdrew the offer of payment £312 when I refused it as Full and final.
The default was for 870.65, my claim is for 708.84 before 8%, my credit limit was actually £250

Do I just sit back now and wait - or does this ridulous defence need any further action?

Hi Gizzmo,

You need not respond to the defence at this stage. You will get an allocation questionnaire in the next few days which you will need to fill in and return to the court. After this you will get a date through for a court hearing. Chances are Citi will cave in at some stage... if not I'll help you prepare your defence.

Good luck

Zoot

Originally Posted by zootscoot

Hi Gizzmo,

You need not respond to the defence at this stage. You will get an allocation questionnaire in the next few days which you will need to fill in and return to the court. After this you will get a date through for a court hearing. Chances are Citi will cave in at some stage... if not I'll help you prepare your defence.

Good luck

Zoot

Thanks zoot -

A/q filled in and sent back to court - copy to Brian

Originally Posted by Notty

Hi Gizmo

Has anything happened since the 17th September? I notice you sent the aq but you havent posted since?

I am at the stage of sending the NI claim form and I have copied your particulars of claim and will include that on the NI form. Do you think that's the okay?

Dayglo answered on my thread and said I would probably have to go to court at sometime in the future and I wondered if you had a court date?

Have they settled with you?

No not setled yet - POC seem to be OK so feel free to use - no court date as yet.

Good Luck