Thread: NN vs The Woolwich

I am in the process of claiming over £2000 from the Woolwich. I received a Breakdown of charges from them within 3 weeks of sending the DPA letter and proceeded to send them a version of letter 1 from the Govan Law Centre requesting a refund of the unlawful charges. The 14 days I gave them in my letter is up now and I have just received a letter from Mike Brophy at Barclays saying that the matter is being investigated and it could take up to 8 weeks to resolve. These are obviously delaying tactics and are unacceptable. However as they haven't refused the refund as yet I feel that the lba would be innapropriate. Any ideas how I should proceed?

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As above I would get the lba off now or do as i have done and go straight to c/court- in my experience with woolwich/Barclays they only really start to take notice of you when they get notice of issue on their doorstep. they will make an offer to you about 25% to start with. it just saves you time in the long run mucking about with letters to and fro- as the person above said its your shout so do as you feel!! but you have nothing to lose all the best with your claim cheers LES

Here is a copy of the letter which will be sent to Barclays in the morning. If I have missed anything important please let me know:

Dear Mr Brophy

Thank you for your letter dated 20th September 2006.

As you will note from my letter to the Woolwich, sent on 9th September 2006, I requested that you refund all disputed charges within 7 days. 14 days have now passed and your letters states that you may not be able to find a solution within the next four weeks. I feel this timescale is unacceptable. As the Woolwich have already provided me with a full break down of the charges applied to my account I fail to see what investigations you need to carry out. All the facts should already be at your fingertips. However, in order to expedite your investigation, I enclose a copy of the charges incurred on my account with the disputed charges highlighted. I trust this will be of some help.

I would like to stress that I have always been very happy with the level of service that I have received from the Woolwich (apart from the penalty charges) and have been a loyal customer for over xxx years. Since opening my Openplan account in xxxx , I have deposited in excess of £xxxx and I am currently looking for a home for c. £xxxx, which I would happily invest with the Woolwich.

As a gesture of goodwill and due to the good relationship I have previously enjoyed with the Woolwich I am willing to allow an additional 14 days from the date of this letter for you to fully refund the disputed charges totalling £xxxx.

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract, which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. Those terms and conditions are subject to common law and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 (UTCCR). The UTCCR takes precedence over any contractual term where the court finds a term to be ‘unfair’. The court can then treat that term of contract as having no legal effect.




The question that arises is this: are your charges unfair in terms of the UTCCR? On 26 July 2005 the OFT stated that ‘a charge is likely to be disproportionately high if it is more than a court would be likely to award if the lender sued the cardholder for breach of contract.’ On 5 April 2006 the OFT stated that default charges which are set at more than £12 will be presumed to be unfair and unenforceable in terms of the UTCCR. Charges above this sum will be subject to legal action by the OFT.

So what would the court award your bank for my minor breach of contract? As you will be aware, the court will only award (in a non-negotiated consumer contract) a sum to reimburse actual loss. Your charges do not reflect actual loss. Rather, they include a massive profit margin or penalty. Alternatively, they subsidise the bank’s global debt recovery costs and lending losses. There is parliamentary evidence for this assertion.

When the UK banks gave evidence to the House of Commons Treasury Committee on how bank charges were calculated they said:

“[bank charges] are going to pay for all the people we have who pursue debt, collect debt, speak to customers and chase payments. The way these charges are arrived at is by taking these total costs and making some assumptions about the volume that is going to come through to arrive at the individual charges” (House of Commons, 2nd report, 25th January 2005, paragraph 50)

Accordingly, your charges do not reflect the actual loss in my case. They are an unlawful penalty charge designed to recover money unconnected with the conduct of my account.

If you do not fully comply with my request for a refund within the next 14 days, I will begin a claim against you for the full amount of £xxxx plus interest and court costs without further notice. In that eventuality, I would require you to lodge in court financial vouching for the actual loss sustained in my case, together with your full financial accounts revealing how much income is generated from your bank charges, as against the cost of administering dishonoured transactions.

I look forward to you urgent response.


Yours faithfully


NN

Fantastic letter firm but polite. you should get a favourable response to that sort of letter but i wouldnt start booking the hols too soon--banks are banks and my experience they only really take notice when they get "notice of issue" on their doorstep- but that letter is very good and please make sure you keep to your timelines its your money remember and you have already been fair--lets see if they will be?? cheers LES

For a number of reasons, mainly that I'm in the middle of a house sale, I decided to wait a couple of weeks before sending the above letter. In the meantime I received a letter from Barclays which, whilst disagreeing with my claim, offered me over 50% of the total amount I am claiming. Although this is quite a substantial sum and it would be tempting to accept it, I have decided to pursue them for the full amount. It is my money after all. I will be sending an amended version of the above letter.
One question though: Does anyone think it is worth discussing the matter with them over the phone? Has anyone had any success this way?


NN1

better off keeping it in writing that way you have proof should it ever go to court ! i was offered 50% and excepted it as partial payment and would pursue the reat through the courts offer was withdrawn stick to your guns its your money aftrall !

I haven't posted for a while so here's a brief recap of where I have got to.
After moving house and getting settled I started court prodeedings with MCOL. As I expected Barclays/Woolwich waited until the last minute to acknowledge the claim and then to file a defence. On 2nd Feb I was given a court date of 30th April and I was ordered to file and serve my schedule and evidence by 7th March which I duly did. Barclays were ordered to file and serve their response including a full Breakdown of how they calculate their charges by 4th April at 4pm. Failure to comply with the order would result in their defence being thrown out without further notice.
As I wasn't served with their response I phoned the court at 4.01pm to let them know and ask if Barclays had filed with them. Unfortunately I was told that they are at least 5 days behind at the moment.

I assume this all means that Barclays have now lost and that I should receive my money soon. Is there anything that I should now do, e.g. write to the courts to request judgement and to highlight Barclays non-compliance? If so is there a specific form that I should use in this case. The court receptionist, who plainly didn't know anything, couldn't tell me.

Anyway, whatever the final details are, I think I will be celebrating very soon to the tune of £2500.

Sounds good to me, what you need to do is send a.sa.p the tear off part of your "notice of issue" form, at the bottom of that form there will be a part to send to the court requesting judgement for claimant(you) for no defense being filed, send it as quick as you can,take to the court if its near you!!! and then the court will order judgement to you, and then just sit back and wait for the call from the bank offering you the money!! unless of course they ask for judgement to be set aside, which some have done and the court has said ok to them. thats another story at the moment though. so get that request for judgement to the court, and you should be ok my friend all the best cheers LES

Cheers Les

My notice of issue form doesn't have a tear-off slip at the bottom. Probably because its from MCOL. I was told by the receptionist at the court that I would have to send a form with a covering letter but she didn't know which form. She said she thought it might be N225 but wasn't sure. I've looked at this form and it seems to be for when a defendant hasn't filed a defence. Barclays have filed a defence but haven't filed and served a response to my schedule and evidence. Is N225 still appropriate? Having scanned through the list of available forms I couldn't find one suitable.

Anybody know?