Thread: Rbphot V CitiCards

Well the process has started, received my statements I requested under DPA, right at the last few days before the deadline.

Sent off the prelim letter yesterday with the request for refund, most of the charges I had on my account were due to their PPI not paying out when I got made redundant they piled on the charges and even when they finally sorted the PPI out they wouldn't refund interest and charges, the account was settled in 2004, but due to their mismanagement they profited at the time from my circumstances.

To be sure I was glad to see the back of this company, but now the law is with the consumer, I'm taking back what is rightfully mine.

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Hi Rbphot,

Just wanted wish you the best of luck. Watch out for Brian Smith who is a condescending, patronising arse!


Hondamad


Check out my claim against citi, click here

Hi Thanks for the warning, I've noticed from some of the other posts he's got a bit of attitude, I'm looking forward to his responses.

I've been dealing with someone allready about the default the put against me as the broke the agreement when I settled the account not to apply a default as the problem was caused their mis managment of the PPI and account.

Has anyone thought of throwing in there face why the charges in other EEC countries is minimal( I believe this is the case, just posted question in the general forum) and they still believe £12 is not profit making!

Well my instincts seem to be right about CitiCards, I've been looking into their charges in other EU countries as ammo for my claim against them.

Have a look at my tread in the general forum

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...arges-eec.html

You'll all be sick when just how much they rip us off in the UK, ONLY BECAUSE PEOPLE LET THEM!

Well I hope this information kicks them where it hurts, I would like to see them defend there charges and that of many of the banks on something like Watchdog.

Oh Mr Brian Smith if your reading this, can not wait for your attempt to reply to this!

Well as expected, recieved the standard sod off letter from CitiCards in reply to my first request for refund!

I'm in the process of writing up my reply, and while doing some investigation in to CitiBanks practices in other EU countrys, it seems that they can not charge the penaltys they do here in the UK in other EU member states, I'm currently trying to find out more as they may be in breach of fair contracts laws across member states.

Taken from their Germany Charges PDF

Replacement of Card due to damage or Loss by customer = 10,-EUR

Fast Card - Replacent card within 24 hr = 50,– EUR

(48 hr outside Germany)

Request for a new personal (PIN) = 1 5,– EUR

Additional manual monthly account statement on customer's request = 5,50 EUR

Cost for Customer at fault going overlimit = 4,– EUR

Request of reciepts of transactions(is void with justified complaints) = 5,50 EUR pro sheet

Costs of action for Payments in arrears
1. Service letter = 3,– EUR
2. Service letter = 3,– EUR
3. Service letter = 3,– EUR
plus postage = 0,90 EUR

Non payment/Late payment of Monthly Invoice amount = 10,- EUR

As you can see the charges that they apply to other member countrys is tiny compared to what they have been charging us for a long time, (I' have also checked their Belgium/spanish site and the charges are very similar).

Hay anyone else looked in to the legalities of this within the EU?

Well they just seem to be automatically sending out replies now, sent the lba on the 4th Sept and today 7th Sept recieved saying they have looked into my query, in other words here's a fob off letter, Blah, Blah Blah.

I guess better get the moneyclaim started as this is all the time they are getting to resolve this.

Do I use the same argument that is in the templete as my case, what did other put in there claim against this bunch of idiots.

I think I'll be dealing with Mr brian Smith soon.....:-|

Thanks

Hi I just thought I would give CitiCards a ring to confirm that this latest letter was there final response in this matter!

It went something like this...

Me
" Received your letter refering me to OFT/FSA/Complaints procedure, is this your final response?"

Citi
"We are currently looking into this for you"

Me
"So are you going to refund my charges that I am claiming as my last letter was my lba, I am about to put a claim before the courts"

Citi
"We are currently calculating what we will be refunding, it will be the difference above £12 OFT recommended, but as we are dealing with about 30 case, and as we clear some, more come in, so we will need some time"

Me
" So I will be hearing from you again within the 14 days stated in the LBA"

Citi
" we will certainly try to meet the deadline and get this sorted for you as soon as possible"

Has anyone got there partial refund and managed to get the rest from the after submiting a moneyclaim yet!

Originally Posted by Rbphot

Hi I just thought I would give CitiCards a ring to confirm that this latest letter was there final response in this matter!

It went something like this...

Me
" Received your letter refering me to OFT/FSA/Complaints procedure, is this your final response?"

Citi
"We are currently looking into this for you"

Me
"So are you going to refund my charges that I am claiming as my last letter was my lba, I am about to put a claim before the courts"

Citi
"We are currently calculating what we will be refunding, it will be the difference above £12 OFT recommended, but as we are dealing with about 30 case, and as we clear some, more come in, so we will need some time"

Me
" So I will be hearing from you again within the 14 days stated in the LBA"

Citi
" we will certainly try to meet the deadline and get this sorted for you as soon as possible"

Has anyone got there partial refund and managed to get the rest from the after submiting a moneyclaim yet!

When I accepted as partial offer they withdrew it, then on defence said they had paid it - bunch of idiots.

Well, I had my reply to my lba from our Mr Brian Smith, regarding their charging policy in other EU countries, and my claim, most of it the same as others have received.

Here's some of the other bits.

"My client has adopted the same practises as the entire UK credit card industry and, with that industry, disagrees with OFT's interpretation of the law relating to default charges. Please note that the OFT recognises that its interpretation does not have the force of law, having never been decided by a court, and is merely persuasive"

So why is it they have never taken the matter to court then!

He then goes on to try to justify the £12 threshold by implying it's not only based on the cost of a stamp/envelope etc.

Everyone knows the factors include IT staff/equipment power costs, but is still nowhere near the amount of £12

This is their reply to the rates I quoted that they charge in the rest of the EU

" Firstly, your comments regarding charging policies in other countries is not like for like because of difference in labour costs, tax etc... A like for like comparison can only be between us and other card issuers within the UK and as previously stated we have adopted the same practises as the rest of the UK industry"

Yes you have just adopted the maximum £12 just like the rest but, 4-EU + £2.70 not £12 and I don't think that labour costs in Germany are much different, or do they pay their computers less!

This is where the letter gets to the crux of the case(wouldn't mind some advice from the mods)

After listing a breakdown of the charges, and saying that they would refund the difference above the £12, they go on and add this.(they can not even do their sums as the amount is to much, not good considering they deal with money)

"However in this case, I see from our records that we have already refunded £xxx Date, when we accepted £xxx in short settlement of your balance at the time which was £xxx

I feel that the refund of £xxx, that we would have offered, has already been included in the short settlement figure that we accepted from you, where we refunded a remaining balance of £xxx. We will therefore not refund any further amount to you for this reason."

He then goes onto his usual threats of will defend any claim, and have the case transferred to their local court, HAHA

THAT'S not going to happen is it Mr Smith and you know it..

As the inflated minimum payments that were made would have included interest and charges applied over a couple of years due to them not paying out on a PPI due to a period of redundancy and then when it got sorted after 6 months and they then refused to refund the excess interest and charges for that period.

All the payments made to them therefore included an amount covering the charges more than I would have paid, the original debt was £500 and the limit would have been maintained with their PPI meeting the minimum payments during the redundancy period, this went up to £1600 due to charges in spite of payments made to them.

After 12 months of trying to get it sorted I threatened to report them to OFT and FSA, they then offered a settlement of £750 as Full and final payment.

So with this in mind I feel the claim is valid as they have received the full amount with payments, the settlement amount, and also they will have written off the remainder through tax, so they have lost nothing, where would I stand with my claim?

Hope someone can advise, as I want to put the claim in soon as they have really tried my Patience, it was bad enough when I had the account with them.

your last four paragraphs beginning with "my question is" is rather confusing for me.

Would you mind restating your question carefully please

Sorry about that, give it a read over now.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Rbphot

Well, I had my reply to my lba from our Mr Brian Smith, regarding their charging policy in other EU countries, and my claim, most of it the same as others have received.

Here's some of the other bits.

"My client has adopted the same practises as the entire UK credit card industry and, with that industry, disagrees with OFT's interpretation of the law relating to default charges. Please note that the OFT recognises that its interpretation does not have the force of law, having never been decided by a court, and is merely persuasive"

So why is it they have never taken the matter to court then!

He then goes on to try to justify the £12 threshold by implying it's not only based on the cost of a stamp/envelope etc.

Everyone knows the factors include IT staff/equipment power costs, but is still nowhere near the amount of £12

This is their reply to the rates I quoted that they charge in the rest of the EU

" Firstly, your comments regarding charging policies in other countries is not like for like because of difference in labour costs, tax etc... A like for like comparison can only be between us and other card issuers within the UK and as previously stated we have adopted the same practises as the rest of the UK industry"

Yes you have just adopted the maximum £12 just like the rest but, 4-EU + £2.70 not £12 and I don't think that labour costs in Germany are much different, or do they pay their computers less!

This is where the letter gets to the crux of the case(wouldn't mind some advice from the mods)

After listing a breakdown of the charges, and saying that they would refund the difference above the £12, they go on and add this.(they can not even do their sums as the amount is to much, not good considering they deal with money)

"However in this case, I see from our records that we have already refunded £xxx Date, when we accepted £xxx in short settlement of your balance at the time which was £xxx

I feel that the refund of £xxx, that we would have offered, has already been included in the short settlement figure that we accepted from you, where we refunded a remaining balance of £xxx. We will therefore not refund any further amount to you for this reason."

He then goes onto his usual threats of will defend any claim, and have the case transferred to their local court, HAHA

THAT'S not going to happen is it Mr Smith and you know it..

As the inflated minimum payments that were made would have included interest and charges applied over a couple of years due to them not paying out on a PPI due to a period of redundancy and then when it got sorted after 6 months and they then refused to refund the excess interest and charges for that period.

All the payments made to them therefore included an amount covering the charges more than I would have paid, the original debt was £500 and the limit would have been maintained with their PPI meeting the minimum payments during the redundancy period, this went up to £1600 due to charges in spite of payments made to them.

After 12 months of trying to get it sorted I threatened to report them to OFT and FSA, they then offered a settlement of £750 as Full and final payment.

So with this in mind I feel the claim is valid as they have received the full amount with payments, the settlement amount, and also they will have written off the remainder through tax, so they have lost nothing, where would I stand with my claim?

Hope someone can advise, as I want to put the claim in soon as they have really tried my Patience, it was bad enough when I had the account with them.

I am still confused - are you saying that you claimed PPI? and it was paying part of min payments? How much did you actually pay? The debt was £1600 of which £995 was charges,but they wrote off £850 of that debt. Therefore debt repaid was £750, if your spending was £500, then charges that you actually paid was £250 - is this what you are saying?

Hi My, credit limit was £500, and at the time of redundancy CITI Cards, the PPI was supposed to pay the minimum monthly payment each month, instead they didn't and for 6 months they applied charges/interest, I ended up making £15/per month payments just to keep them off my back from my unemployment benefit which only being £110/ month, then they decided that when I returned to work, to make a payment of £64, that was supposed to be to cover the PPI mistake by them.

By that time my account had risen to £750 or more, and after contacting them to refund the unlawful charges and interest they stuck there heads in the sand and would do nothing about it, so with my account now over it's limit and my ability pay reduced and the continued spiral of charges they keep applying, It wasn't long before it reached £1600, even with payments to them.

I then threatened them with action by OFT/FSA if they didn't resolve the dispute, after I had exhausted all possibility's following their internal complaints procedure.

They then immediately offered a short settlement of £750 leaving the remainder to be written off to Tax.

Over the period of the dispute, from when the redundancy started, the amount payed to them was £1100 including the settlement.

As a proportion of this was charges, what would the course of action as to calculating the amount to claim.

Also because the so called refund they are now claiming they gave at the time made no mention of what part of the debt it was to be linked to, I wounder if should be able to say that the written of part was in fact the core debt including interest, which means I still payed the charges they applied to my account.

So if it went to court my argument would be that the core debt was recovered through Tax by them, as I believe that is how the corporate tax right off system works, so therefore the amount I payed was in fact the charges on the account.

What does everyone think?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Rbphot

Hi My, credit limit was £500, and at the time of redundancy CITI Cards, the PPI was supposed to pay the minimum monthly payment each month, instead they didn't and for 6 months they applied charges/interest, I ended up making £15/per month payments just to keep them off my back from my unemployment benefit which only being £110/ month, then they decided that when I returned to work, to make a payment of £64, that was supposed to be to cover the PPI mistake by them.

By that time my account had risen to £750 or more, and after contacting them to refund the unlawful charges and interest they stuck there heads in the sand and would do nothing about it, so with my account now over it's limit and my ability pay reduced and the continued spiral of charges they keep applying, It wasn't long before it reached £1600, even with payments to them.

I then threatened them with action by OFT/FSA if they didn't resolve the dispute, after I had exhausted all possibility's following their internal complaints procedure.

They then immediately offered a short settlement of £750 leaving the remainder to be written off to Tax.

Over the period of the dispute, from when the redundancy started, the amount payed to them was £1100 including the settlement.

As a proportion of this was charges, what would the course of action as to calculating the amount to claim.

Also because the so called refund they are now claiming they gave at the time made no mention of what part of the debt it was to be linked to, I wounder if should be able to say that the written of part was in fact the core debt including interest, which means I still payed the charges they applied to my account.

So if it went to court my argument would be that the core debt was recovered through Tax by them, as I believe that is how the corporate tax right off system works, so therefore the amount I payed was in fact the charges on the account.

What does everyone think?

Thanks

I think that you would only be able to claim back charges that you actually paid regardless of what system they used to write the remainder off. But others may have a better understanding/knowledge of this

Did the PPI actually pay out anything?

I think that you would only be able to claim back charges that you actually paid regardless of what system they used to write the remainder off. But others may have a better understanding/knowledge of this

As I paid over £1100 to them and my charges were £995, I would argue that I paid the charges and that the core Debt was what the decided to write off as it's claimed back through tax and therefore they loss no money at all.

Yes they paid out £64, 6-7 months after the redunancy period started, during this time due to not being able to meet the minimum payments that the insurance should have been covering, the account went over limit, so the interest and charges started to pile on.

I asked them to refund the charges and interest as it should never have been applied with the PPI active, but the were having non of it, and fobbed me off a every attempt to sort it out.

Hi thanks for the reply, was starting to think no one was reading my thread.

I've been following the F&F settlement tread, and as ZOOTSCOOT pointed out, I think that there charges are taken as a matter of priority, as if they go into settlement, they can not claim that as a tax loss, so they make sure they get as much of the charges from your payments and settlement, and they get the core debt back through the tax system by it being a loss to them.

I know this as I had to do some freelance work many years ago and bought a server computer for £1300, after 12 months the project was over and I needed to sell the equipment, only got £500 for it.

When it came to doing my tax return, I got a tax refund due to this!

So htye don't loss any thing, infact they have [problem]med your for the unlawful charges.

Hi,

After looking into this regarding the F&F settlement, and their claim that the money written off by them, was the charges so as I had not paid the money in the first place there was nothing to refund.

I found this interesting information on another thread, basically when you make a payment to them the deduct the charges and interest first.

Had a look at the company in questions T&C, and as some one rightly said they priortise charges first, see below.

9. All payments we receive from you will (unless otherwise required by law) be applied to your Account in the following order:
9.1 Citi Flex Payments Monthly Instalment (to be applied to each Citi Flex Payment facility in the order of creation);
9.2 other interest and Account Charges;
9.3 existing Promotional Balances that attract a lower rate – in the order in which they were debited to your Account as shown on the monthly statement;
9.4 existing Purchase balances and non-promotional Balance Transfers – in the order in which they were debited to your Account as shown on the monthly statement;
9.5 existing Cash balances shown on the last monthly and/or previous statements – in the order in which they were debited to your Account as shown on the monthly statement;
9.6 new Promotional Balances that attract a lower rate – in the order in which they were debited to your Account as shown on the monthly statement;
9.7 new Purchase balances and non-promotional Balance Transfers – in the order in which they were debited to your Account but not yet shown on the monthly statement;
9.8 new Cash balances – in the order in which they were debited to your Account but not yet shown on the monthly statement; and
9.9 the balance of each Citi Flex Payments facility (to be applied to each facility in the order of creation).

So where F&F settlement is agreed and you have paid them more than the charges you claim back as part of that total, including monthly payments, you should have grounds for the claim to proceed.

So my claim will be going ahead.

Just to clarify something which has been mentioned a few times in this thread. The OFT did not say that £12 is an acceptable charge to levy. What they actually said was that they will automatically presume that any charge over £12 is unfair, and that amounts below £12 can still be challenged. I think this was a stop-gap measure by the OFT while they look at the matter more closely.