Thread: Fees from debt collector - advise please?

Hi all,
Hoping someone can help me.
My fiance had a Lloyds account that got in a right state due to all their charges (I have sent a SAR for this account), the account then got passed to BLS collections and he had to pay a little under £3,000 to completely clear the debt. This obviously included BLS charges.

My question is....

If the charges by the bank were unlawful and they then referred the account to debt collectors, who in turn added their costs, is there any way to try and get the debt collector costs back?

Look forward to any replies
Thanks

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Your fiance did not have a contract with BLS, so they had no right to charge
him fees-they get paid by the bank. Write to BLS asking for proof of their
right to charge you. If they cannot justify the charges, give them the choice
of repaying them or going to Court. And you could add, that unless
payment is made speedily, you will contact the OFT to complain
that the charges are discouraged by the OFT and querying whether
BLS are fit and proper persons to hold a Consumer Credit licence.

lookinforinfo is quite right. The OFT guidelines state that there has to be a provision in the original contract for DCA charges. Even if your original agreement did contain such a provision (which is unlikely) any charges which are subsequently added must be reasonable and in proportion to the main debt.

Sonja, you need to do things in writing, so that you can show the Court
that you have done all you could to resolve the matter without legal action.
Once you get the SAR from the bank, you will know how much the debt was
when passed to BLS. Unless they have incurred Court costs, then the debt should not have risen.
In the meantime[pending the SAR response] you could send a CCA request to
BLS in which they might include what charges they have made,

In addition, you could write to your bank, stating that you believe BLS have added unlawful charges to your account and are refusing to state what they
have charged for. You are holding the bank equally responsible for the
breach, and you will complain to Trading Standards that neither
company is fit to hold a Consumer Credit Licence. And see if your bank can
get BLS to retract their fees.

Excuse me for poking my nose in, and maybe I'm stating the obvious but BLS Collections is part of Lloyds Tsb, they are the same thing.

Does this have any bearing on things??

When you send an SAR it covers ALL your accounts with them and all records
they have on you.

Lloyds are a very tricky bunch.

Unlike many lenders who pass the debt briefly to an in-house collector, then sell it outright to a purchaser for the tax relief, Lloyds pass it to a 'separate company' to do the deed. This 'separate company' does in fact belong to Lloyds anyway (as you now know).

This company will hang on to the bitter end to squeeze every last penny out of you for the debt, and interest and charges if they can get away with it, without involving the purchase market or any outsiders. This is old fashioned debt collection at it's best/worst/fairest depending on your point of view. Pure profit for Lloyds.

CCA'ing Lloyds or BLS is likely to produce the necessary documents for them to proceed a step further, should they want to, unless the docs don't exist anymore. That's the gamble. If they do sell it to a purchaser a very quick CCA to the new 'owner' may catch them out, but unfortunately they will almost certainly have guessed your intentions by now.

I don't really know what to say, but perhaps the next step would be to identify the charges or interest by Lloyds and BLS separately, then question them on the legality of it, knowing they are the same company and effectively charging you twice....?????.

It's a good bargaining tool, but I really don't know how things would pan out if you take that route. Sorry for putting a bit of a damper on things.....but forewarned is fore..wassisname..and least you can be prepared and plan your next step.

All the best.

After having a look at charges etc which have questionable legality, if things are in your favour you could drop obvious hints that you are aware they have effectively been charging you twice, and you are prepared to let the matter go to court to get it resolved. That will give them something to think about, and put them on the offensive to try and shout you down. They don't want to go to court and kill the goose.

Depending on the circumstances, (balance, charges, interest,) and using your own judgment, it may be possible to get them into a position where they would let it go. "It wouldn't look too good for Lloyds if this became public knowledge, would it??"

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...templates.html

Letter K with a few alterations might do the trick.

They will make it very uncomfortable for you, that's guaranteed, but it just might be possible.........

The decision is entirely yours and I'm just bouncing an idea.

Sonja, you should write and point out that they still have not fulfilled the
requirements of your SAR. Advise them that you will complain to Trading Standards and in Court also should the information not be forthcoming. [In
court your argument would be that you are unable to ascertain the true amount of charges unlawfully applied without all the data].
That being said, most charges are taken from your current account-though you
should have received the loan details-perhaps they just missed them when
they checked the account details.

I'll second that. Seems like a logical step.