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I am about to begin my first ever credit card claim against Citi Cards.
In April 2004 I had a credit card with them with a balance of £250.00.
I only ever spent £90.75 on this card.
In April 2008 I finally cleared the account and it has since been closed.
During those 4 years I paid them a total of £781.91!! £545.00 of this was made up of late payment fees and over limit fees at £25.00 each.
I paid them each month sometimes just the minimum sometimes more but their charges were cancelling out everything I was paying and my balance was geting higher and higher. Then my account went overlimit and they started charging me over limit fees too. I was just getting deeper and deeper into debt because of their charges.
What I would like to know is how do I begin my claim? Which template letter do I use?
What exactly do I claim for with regards to the interest?
1) Submit a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, easier but you won't be able to claim interest
2) Submit a county court claim, Citibank have been defending all of these cases under instruction from the US, hardly but you will be able to claim 8% interest on all of your charges. Some people have claimed contractual interest but that is harder to work out.
For court claims, here are samples of the Claim Forms from the template libraries:
Alternatively you can submit claims online through MCOL. Details of what to enter are in the template library of this site.
Advice offered by ENRON is without prejudice and is for your judgement as to whether to take it. You should seek the assistance or hire of a solicitor or other paid professional if in doubt.
Given the problems experienced with MCOL as well as their restriction on letters plus the confusion following the SC rulings,I wouldnt advise online.
N1 in open court is far more suitable-especially given that this is Citi !!
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Would I actually have to attend court or does it not normally get that far?
If I decide on the court route do I start by sending Citi a letter detailing all the charges, etc? I have seen a template letter for this on the money saving expert website, would that be ok to use?
If I decide on making a complaint to the fos is there a template letter on here that I could use?
Not sure which route to go down, what would you recommend?
OK, first thing is to get the penalty charges that you are asking for fixed.
If you don't have all your statements, you can submit a Subject access request asking for your statements - this will cost you £10. I would also request a copy of the "executed agreement" for the account and manual intervention sheets for as well to be thorough.
Citi will always defend, so if your claim totals more than their costs to defend a court claim (normally about £500) they will go all the way to appearing in court, that said we are well prepared, the main tactic being the request to ask the court to adopt the draft order - this asks to bring all matters to the fore including a Breakdown of Citi's costs.
Going to the fos will take about a similar amount of time though can be somewhat easier, downside being you can't request interest, but you would submit a complaint, give a breakdown of the penalty charges you are reclaiming, and copies of documentation from and to yourself.
Advice offered by ENRON is without prejudice and is for your judgement as to whether to take it. You should seek the assistance or hire of a solicitor or other paid professional if in doubt.
Think I might go down the fos route if its easier.
I have actually still got all my original statements, I kept them for some reason. I don't have an agreement but as the account is now settled and closed I am not really bothered about the CCA and SAR etc I just want to get the charges back or do I need to follow these steps before I can complain?
If I go to FOS can I claim for the full amount of every single charge or just the difference between £12.00 and £25.00?
Do I need to write to Citi first before I approach the FOS?
Citi will no doubt attempt to offer you the difference.
The thing is as a lot of their processes are automated, the charges at £12 still do not represent their true cost - you are likely looking at a couple of pence per late payment etc as part of their overall IT costs.
So as like me you are probably prepared to pay their true costs, or a penalty charge which bares a reasonable relation to those. But what we as customers have been lumbered with is highly inflated penatly charges to make a profit.
Citi have come out in county court stating that their costs are £12.88, £13.47, £27+ for each instance such as a late payment, which to be honest is pie in the sky figures, especially when they are reluctant in the extreme to back these up with a Breakdown of their costs. On each and every time a court has ordered them to provide a breakdown of costs, they have either not complied or have settled claims immediately.
Advice offered by ENRON is without prejudice and is for your judgement as to whether to take it. You should seek the assistance or hire of a solicitor or other paid professional if in doubt.
Think I might go down the fos route if its easier.
I have actually still got all my original statements, I kept them for some reason. I don't have an agreement but as the account is now settled and closed I am not really bothered about the CCA and SAR etc I just want to get the charges back or do I need to follow these steps before I can complain?
If I go to FOS can I claim for the full amount of every single charge or just the difference between £12.00 and £25.00?
Do I need to write to Citi first before I approach the FOS?
Thanks for your help Enron, have you any more thoughts on my other questions?
Claim the whole amount of the penalty charges made against you.
Inform Citi you are going to the fos, 1st letter will likely be they think their penalty charges are fair etc etc, the next step is that they'll offer you the difference, but persist as they should cough up.
Advice offered by ENRON is without prejudice and is for your judgement as to whether to take it. You should seek the assistance or hire of a solicitor or other paid professional if in doubt.
Harlequin v Citi Cards charges
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Originally Posted by harlequin10
