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Hi, started action against Barclays recently, all communications so far listed below:
Letter to Barclays local branch manager sent 10 March 2006:
DATA PROTECTION ACT (1998) DISCLOSURE REQUEST
Dear Sir/Madame
ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxx
Please supply me with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my bank account since ****. Alternatively a complete set of bank statements for that period will be acceptable.
Blah blah.... standard Data Protection Act letter from library.
You have 40 days in which to comply.
_________________________ ________________
No acknowledgement that they were dealing with it so reminder letter sent **** as follows:
Dear Sir/Madam
DATA PROTECTION ACT (1998) DISCLOSURE REQUEST
ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxx
I am writing this letter with reference to my recent recorded letter, posted **** and signed for ****. I have not received any confirmation that you have received the letter and therefore will assume that you have misplaced it and not yet begun processing my request. A copy of the letter is enclosed.
I would like to point out that I still require a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my bank account since ****. I will be very grateful if you could also respond to the other requests in my initial letter.
I would also like to mention that the Data Protection Act 1998 requires that “requests for personal information should be responded to promptly, and no later than forty days after the request.” This means that your deadline to respond is no later than ****. I look forward to your prompt reply.
_________________________ ________________
Letter received from local branch manager **** as follows:
Dear blah blah,
Thankyou for the letter dated ****. We received the original letter you sent to us and forwarded the request on to our Data Protection Department. This department will now contact you directly in response to your request.
_________________________ ________________
Three fat envelopes received from Data Protection Department containing statements (FREE OF CHARGE), total charges add up to £****. No mention of manual intervention on the account so reply sent to local branch same day as follows:
Dear blah blah,
REF: LETTER DATED ****
ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxx
May I begin by thanking you for your prompt reply to my letter dated ****, and for the speed at which the Data Protection Department sent the relevant information to me. However, I feel that I have not had a response to all of my requests; namely, my request for evidence of manual intervention on my account with relation to all penalty charges, or, confirmation that there was no manual intervention on my account during the stated period.
If you do not respond to this request by **** I will assume that you agree there has been no manual intervention on the account, and therefore you have no evidence or documentation to disclose.
REQUEST FOR REPAYMENT OF CHARGES
My request
I am writing to ask you to refund to me the charges that you have levied from my account between **** and ****, both dates inclusive.
I now understand that the regime of ‘fees’ which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations.
Your responsibilities
I would like to draw your attention to the terms of the contract that 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 that 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.
What I require
All charges that you have levied from my account between **** and ****. Total £****.
My targets to resolve this matter
I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.
I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting unconditionally my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment.
If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.
After that there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.
_________________________ ________________
Letter received **** as follows:
Dear blah blah,
I am sorry you have had to contact us about the bank charges incurred on your account. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to do so.
I am looking into your concerns and will let you have a response or update as quickly as I can but no later than ****. In the meantime if you need to speak to me please call on xxxxxxx. I have enclosed a leaflet explaining how Barclays works to resolve complaints. I hope you find this helpful.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Yours sincerely
Senior Case Manager
_________________________ ________________
Phew! Any comments very welcome. I'm not sure if I have confused the 'manual intervention issue though? It's still not clear in my head whether they have admitted to there not being any by not mentioning it.
I'm expecting their standard reply with 50% offer and will issue the 'letter before action'.
Do not be governed by their timetable. You have told them what you want and by when. Issue the letter before action and then the court claim according to your timetable. There is nothing in their letters which suggests that they are not merely stalling.
As soon as you start complying with their deadlines you are ceding control.
Quick update:
No response to my request for a refund within my deadline so letter before action sent **** as follows.....
LETTER BEFORE ACTION
ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXX
I now understand that the regime of ‘fees’ blah blah......
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract blah blah......
I calculate that you have taken £**** plus interest. I feel that the overdraft interest that you have charged to my account amounts to a figure that will more than cover your costs, as a gesture of good will I have not asked you to refund the interest.
I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus 8% interest under the County Courts Order 1991 plus my costs and without further notice.
_________________________ _________________________ ________
I've decided to go down the 'you can keep the interest I've paid to cover your costs' road. Looking at other threads with information on claims against Barclays it seems likely that they'll send me a 50% offer or not respond. In which case I'll prepare my claim form ASAP then send it the same day the deadline is up (or sooner if they respond unfavourably). Any thoughts and comments on my actions are more than welcome and will be very much appreciated.
Hi all, just a quicky. I'm in the process of filling out the N1 claim form - not sure what wording I should put in the 'Brief details of claim' section. Everything is ready to go apart from this section. Can anyone help with this please? I will be handing the form to the court tomorrow.
Also, do I send a copy of the claim form to the bank?
Have look in Bank Templates, the details are in there.
If you are filing your Claim with your local county court rather than online, you will need supply them with a copy of your claim. They will forward this directly to your bank.
Thanks kaznelson, from your comments I understand that I need to give two copies of the claim form to the court, the court will then forward the second copy to the bank. Have I got this right? It is a local county court claim by the way.
I can't find any reference to 'Brief details of claim' in the bank templates section though. Sorry, I may have missed something in there, it'll be great if you could point this out to me . I've already used information from that section to fill out the particulars of claim section on the form. I'm using the N1 claim form with form filling www.dream-concepts.com/magicbunny/n1_eng.pdf from the bank templates section, this form has the 'Brief details of claim' section on the first page. Hope this is a little more clear. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated.
hi valleyboy i am reading this with interest as i am a Barclays account holder as well, i will look forward to any news you receive from them (hopefully good)
Claim issued on **** for £**** (this includes the 8%) +£120 costs. Deemed to be served on ****. They have until **** to reply.
I must say, I don't feel at all worried, must be all the success stories on this site keeping me motivated. Thanks.
Hi Everyone, Barclays acknowledged the claim ****. I've since received an offer of £**** on **** from Karl Voller . I have absolutely no intention of accepting an offer as low as 13.5%!?! What a cheek!
I've already sent a letter saying that there will be no further communication from me once the claim is underway, is there any need to reply declining the offer? Will it look as though I haven't been communicating properly if I don't? As usual, any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks kaz, I've drafted a letter thanking them for their good will gesture but saying that I am insulted by their offer and that I will settle for nothing less than the full amount plus costs.
They have until **** to enter a defence. The clock's ticking, I suppose they will waste even more of my time and leave it 'til the 28th day to respond.
Ok. I received the banks' defence today along with the allocation questionnaire. I am not in the country at the moment so don't know what the details are.
Can I extend the date for the return of the documents, just in case it takes a while for the mail to get to me?
I now have the details of the banks defence. I'd really appreciate some advice on a few sections of the document. Also, can anybody point me in the direction of examples and references to other Barclays defences posted on this site?
1) "it is admitted that such charges were debited from the Claimants' account; however, the Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof of each charge and the date thereof."
Does this mean I should provide copies of the statements they sent me?
2) "if the said charges amount to sums payable on breach of contract, it is averred that the charge asserted by the Claimant to have been applied to the account on **** would not be recoverable for reasons of exhaustion of time in bringing contractual claims from the date of accrual, persuant to the limitation act 1980."
Would I be right in saying that there is one charge that falls outside of the six year period that I am not able to claim? This being a charge that was applied to the account on ****?
_________________________ _________________________ _____
There are nine paragraphs in the defence, will it be of benefit to post the full details of the document here? I would like to have other peoples opinions on this if anybody is interested?
2) "if the said charges amount to sums payable on breach of contract, it is averred that the charge asserted by the Claimant to have been applied to the account on 01 March 2000 would not be recoverable for reasons of exhaustion of time in bringing contractual claims from the date of accrual, persuant to the Limitation Act 1980."
Would I be right in saying that there is one charge that falls outside of the six year period that I am not able to claim? This being a charge that was applied to the account on 01 March 2000?
Yes, they are referring to the limitations which mean you cannot claim back over 6 years, so this charge would need to be discounted.
If you could post the rest of the defence, people will be able to advise on the other points.
Opinions given herein are made informally by myself as a lay-person in good faith based on personal experience. For legal advice you must always consult a registered and insured lawyer.
"Some people say The Stig chews on spark plugs and drifts while walking. Some say he is terrified of ducks, and that there is an airport in Russia named after him. All we know is that he is really barracad from The Consumer Action Group" - Jeremy Clarkson (allegedly)
valleyboy v Barclays
recently, all communications so far listed below:
Reply With Quote
Re: valleyboy v Barclays
Re: valleyboy v Barclays
. I've already used information from that section to fill out the particulars of claim section on the form. I'm using the N1 claim form with form filling 
Please ignore this.
. I have absolutely no intention of accepting an offer as low as 13.5%!?! What a cheek!
Originally Posted by valleyboy
