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Alerted by the press coverage and encouraged by others' experiences (albeit resigned to a long slog), I have just started the marathon of reclaiming the penalty charges which Abbey has levied against me.
Progress so far :
Subject Action Request 13 Nov 06 (used the template off this site)
Acknowledged by Abbey (Bradford) 20 Nov
Promise last 14 months statements in 5-7 working days
Promise microfiche covering 2000-2005 "under separate cover"
A load of waffle about "manual interventions" which boiled down to "no central record of activity is kept".
Observations :
Efficiency personified so far - they are obviously used to dealing with these now !
Promises, promises - but they still only have 40 days (is that from their receipt of the S.A.R - (Subject access request) or from the date of my letter ?)
Have they given up wriggling about providing microfiche under the Data Protection Act in light of the Information Commissioner's findings against them last month ?
I think I'll let their evasion on "manual interventions" go - if they state that they can't tell me now, they can hardly use it later as an argument to justify any of their charges.
Need to start an efficient filing system and get organised !!
Good luck mate, you are one step ahead with the Mad, it will drive you Mad. Keep chipping away and you will get there. Time scale 2/3 months from service of N1. Best wishes and good luck.
Regards bish
Abbey : £8070.41*PAID IN FULL*14/02/07 Capital one : LBA sent 17/09/06 £1,087.22 Marbles : LBA sent 17/09/06 £720.00 ; £720 offer accepted
As far as I Know Abbey has not defended any case, be it SCC or fast track. The ploy by abbey to avoid disclosure by requesting SCC when claims are > £5000 is not working. Even though the Judge may order SCC as requested by abbey, in my experience the Judge will put other requirments on abbey, that negate any tricks abbey pull. The court system is now well aware of most if not all the dirty tricks the banks are trying, to wriggle out of a very large hole they have dug themselves. It is my opinion that the courts and Judges are very fed up with the banks treating them with contempt. Even when cases have been sent to the multi track as test cases, they have been settled out of court. Have a read of my thread regarding this.
Regards bish.
Abbey : £8070.41*PAID IN FULL*14/02/07 Capital one : LBA sent 17/09/06 £1,087.22 Marbles : LBA sent 17/09/06 £720.00 ; £720 offer accepted
Only thing I struggled on was what interest to claim (and when). Choice seemed to be
nothing now and rely on Statutory 8% awarded by the Court
at start, Contractual at either authorised (c16%) or unauthorised (c27%) borrowing/overdraft rate
Lots of helpful threads, and an increasing tendency for claims to include contractual interest from the start - and many being settled at rates >20% (in some cases (?MBNA) being worked out (so helpfully) by the Bank)
Bearing in mind this is Abbey we're dealing with, and that I must be prepared to defend my claim for interest in Court if it ever got there, I reasoned that :
on the one hand, charges put me beyond (or further beyond) overdraft limit, so I was being charged at c27%. But only until I was back within limit. That was going to be a nightmare to work out, so I settled on using a flat 16.9% (Abbey current authorised rate). I will use this "concession" in any later negotiation.
but In your particulars of claim I would also give the court the discretion to not allow the 16.9% and just award the 8% S69 rate as this might make a difference, there are wordings on here "somewhere" that illustrate this
Lula
Lula v Abbey - Settled Lula v Abbey (2) - Settled Lula v Abbey (3) - Stayed
I want to nail Abbey for contractual interest and I've seen "mutuality & reciprocity" endlessly, but never the actual legal reference and/or the legal mumbo-jumbo to quote at the Bank or in Court. Does anyone have the low-down ? They're slippery sods, so forewarned is forearmed !
I've looked. All I could find was "fairness and balance". The legal basis of this appears to be UTCCR Schedule 2, para 1(b) : inappropriately excluding or limiting the legal rights of the consumer vis-à-vis the seller or supplier or another party in the event of total or partial non-performance or inadequate performance by the seller or supplier of any of the contractual obligations, including the option of offsetting a debt owed to the seller or supplier against any claim which the consumer may have against him;
and the associated OFT Guidance document (OFT 143 @ http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7...0/0/oft143.pdf
which says at Annex B : “Terms Excluding Or Limiting Liability, paras 1a and 1b of Schedule 2 : Fairness and balance require that both parties to a contract are equally bound by it, and equally liable to pay compensation for failure to abide by it. A term which could be used – even if that is not the intention – to prevent or hinder customers from seeking redress when the supplier is in default tends to upset the balance of the contract to the consumer’s disadvantage.”
Any observations ? Is "mutuality and reciprocity" an urban myth ? Should it be "Fairness and balance" (which sounds like the same principle to me) ? Or am I missing something ?
Abbey haven't let me down at Christmas. Today I got a GOGW offer. Derisory (£833 cf £8268 inc contractual interest), but an offer nevertheless.
So tomorrow or Friday, I'm going to write:
rejecting their offer (unless anyone says it's better to accept as partial settlement)
being more specific about UTCCR (paras and schedules) and case law about penalties/Liquidated Damages. Worth seeing if they cave in when they see what amounts to a Particulars Of Claim;
stating that they have now ignored two invitations to justify their charges by disclosing their costs associated with the breaches (ie to avoid wasting the time of the Court system). Again, worth seeing if they cave in when they realise that continuing to ignore the invitation will look increasingly bad in Court.
stating that my claim has again increased (interest is increasing at £3.53 per day).
cross referencing my lba (dated 22 Dec) and deadline.
rejecting their offer (unless anyone says it's better to accept as partial settlement) YEP AGREE TOTALLING turn it down out right - if they have already paid it into your acount though(check first) then you will have to accept as a partial settlement, and take that amount off of the end of your schedule of charges.
being more specific about UTCCR (paras and schedules) and case law about penalties/Liquidated Damages. Worth seeing if they cave in when they see what amounts to a Particulars Of Claim; Can't hurt - I assume you will be filing by N1 as you have the contractual element in your claim, and your amount is pretty likely to put you in fast track ?
stating that they have now ignored two invitations to justify their charges by disclosing their costs associated with the breaches (ie to avoid wasting the time of the Court system). Again, worth seeing if they cave in when they realise that continuing to ignore the invitation will look increasingly bad in Court. again, can't hurt - but I doubt if it will make any difference.
stating that my claim has again increased (interest is increasing at £3.53 per day). that seems high to me, but with the contractual interest rate I guess. I am not great at maths but at the standard 8% it would be £1.11 a day (I dont know how you work the sum out for 16.9% per day but I believe you would work it out on the 5071 not the full 8k bit)
cross referencing my lba (dated 22 Dec) and deadline. Yep.
Karnevil, thanks for the comments. On the one about interest :
Originally Posted by karnevil
stating that my claim has again increased (interest is increasing at £3.53 per day). that seems high to me, but with the contractual interest rate I guess. I am not great at maths but at the standard 8% it would be £1.11 a da (I dont know how you work the sum out for 16.9% per day but I believe you would work it out on the 5071 not the full 8k bit)
agree your £1.11 per day @ 8% statutory (simple interest), but as you say, I think it's just because I've calculated contractual interest. But I'd be grateful if anyone could double check how I did that :
Contractual interest 16.9% which is calculated compound
So the daily Rate = (1+i)^(1/365)-1 gives 0.04279% per day
So for charge C, days since N, the contractual interest to date for that charge is C x (1+0.04279%)^N - C [eg a £30 charge on 30 Jun 00 gives contractual interest to date of £52.80 - what a savings scheme !]
I checked that, for a 1 year old charge, simple and compound give the same answer. As I say, grateful if any maths wizzkids could double check. Thanks.
Has anyone asked Abbey to calculate the interest for them; ie to calculate what would have been their balance if Abbey had not levied the (unlawful) charges ?
I'm going to do exactly that - preempt them arguing the toss about my calculations if/when this gets to Court.
Kev, good point. I'd better word it so that it's clear that I'm asking them to do the calculation but that I'm not going to hold up submitting a Court claim while they do. Which suddenly gets me thinking that I ought to be able to manoeuvre them into a position so that, if they later try to challenge my interest calculation in court, I can say that I gave them adequate warning of the issue and of the need to submit their calculation in their defence of my N1 ! And if they can't/won't do that, I can't see a judge giving them the time of day. Kev, I'm glad you posted.
Abbey's GOGW paid into my account today as long list of "miscellaneous" entries. My rejection letter sent recorded delivery today.
Incidentally, with Bill-K's and Mindzai's help plus a bit of Googling, I am now confident enough of my contractual (compound) interest calculation that I couldn't care less what objections Abbey might come up with - I can bat them off. Out of interest, I used the formula
Daily Rate (DR) = (1+APR)^(1/365)-1
Interest = Charge x (1+DR)^No. days - Charge
Some people calculate the Daily Rate as APR/365 but that's just an approximation based on the general mathematical approximation that (1+a)^b ≈ 1+ab where a,b are small. In this case they are : a=0.169 and b=1/365.
Some people calculate the Daily Rate as APR/365 but that's just an approximation based on the general mathematical approximation that (1+a)^b ≈ 1+ab where a,b are small. In this case they are : a=0.169 and b=1/365.
This is sad, replying to my own posts, but I couldn't let it go without finding out the basis for the approximation. Eureka - it's just the first two terms from the Binomial series : (1+x)^n = 1 + nx + n(n-1)/2!.x^2 + n(n-1)(n-2)/3!.x^3 + ……….
Now who said that contractual interest wasn't fun ?!
I want to nail Abbey for contractual interest and I've seen "mutuality & reciprocity" endlessly, but never the actual legal reference and/or the legal mumbo-jumbo to quote at the Bank or in Court. That makes at least two of us then!Does anyone have the low-down ? They're slippery sods, so forewarned is forearmed !If they do they haven't posted it.
I've looked. All I could find was "fairness and balance". The legal basis of this appears to be UTCCR Schedule 2, para 1(b) : inappropriately excluding or limiting the legal rights of the consumer vis-à-vis the seller or supplier or another party in the event of total or partial non-performance or inadequate performance by the seller or supplier of any of the contractual obligations, including the option of offsetting a debt owed to the seller or supplier against any claim which the consumer may have against him;I don't believe this has anything to do with r&m. The bank doesn't have to under perform or withold your rights for there to exist the principle of r&m IMHO. It could be argued that even if the bank charges were lawful but that they had been incorrectly applied i.e. a mistake on the banks part, that r&m would allow you to ask for contractual interest until such time as the debt was repaid, i think.
and the associated OFT Guidance document (OFT 143 @ http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7...0/0/oft143.pdf
which says at Annex B : “Terms Excluding Or Limiting Liability, paras 1a and 1b of Schedule 2 : Fairness and balance require that both parties to a contract are equally bound by it, and equally liable to pay compensation for failure to abide by it. A term which could be used – even if that is not the intention – to prevent or hinder customers from seeking redress when the supplier is in default tends to upset the balance of the contract to the consumer’s disadvantage.”this seems more likely to be the route to argue but it would be better if there was some case law and i have searched and like you can find nothing.
Any observations ? Is "mutuality and reciprocity" an urban myth ? Should it be "Fairness and balance" (which sounds like the same principle to me) ? Or am I missing something ?
If you're missing it then i think a lot of us are. Perhaps someone who knows about such things could explain or point us in the right direction.
Glenn
PS good question.
Kick the shAbbey Habit
Where were you? Next time please
Abbey 1st claim -Charges repaid, default removed, interest paid (8% apr) costs paid, Abbey peed off; priceless
Abbey 2nd claim, two Accs - claim issued 30-03-07 Barclaycard - Settled cheque received
Egg 2 accounts ID sent 29/07 Co-op Claim issued 30-03-07
GE Capital (Store Cards) ICO says theyve been naughty
MBNA - Settled in Full
GE Capital (1st National) Settled
Lombard Bank - SAR sent 16.02.07
MBNA are not your friends, they will settle but you need to make sure its on your terms -read here Glenn Vs MBNA
Mad Nick v Abbey ***SETTLED IN FULL***
has levied against me.
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Originally Posted by karnevil
