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Hello everyone, first of all thank you so much for this great site.
I am about to send my prelim letter in but I have come across a few things that I would really appreciate some advice on
I sent the two DPA letters to two different branches where my accounts where held, requesting 5 years of charges info, I have only recently moved to England and had assumed I would be under Scottish system, one of the two branches sent six years of statements even though I only requested 5. So either they saw the English postal address and assumed I really wanted 6 years or they realise that I could make a big mistake applying for 6 years when I am only entitled to 5 years. I moved from scotland in middle of January, went travelling and moved to England in the middle of February. So my question is, can I apply for 6 years?
Then when calculating the contractual interest I am coming up with no interest I can claim for even though most of my charges put me into either an authorised O/D charged @ 19% or unauthorised O/D @ 29.84%
but as the spreadsheet tells you to insert account balance when they debit the interest which occured one day after pay day every month my balance was mostly in credit (not by much though). So basically my account is deep in red for whole month apart from about 2 days after pay day. I have been reading up on the whole subject and just seem to be getting more and more confused.
So do you think I should just claim for my charges which add up to £1540 and add the 8% if I have to make a claim to the courts which adds up to £1857?
Then the details of the charges are not made clear as most charges just say "CHG to dd/mm A/C xxxxxxx" so I am having difficulty describing these charges on the spreadsheet.
Also can I point out that my balance is currently sitting at -£1500 and my charges total £1540, coincidence?
Thanking you in advance for any info/help and good luck to everyone in the process!!
You can claim in England as you now live their. You claim in your country of residence at your local court - which is English so 6 years and small claims limit of £5K apply.
As to interest I would just charge it at 29.84% on the basis that they would have charged you this for taking money out of your account without their consent i.e. going over your overdraft limit. They took money out of your account illegally and without your consent so charge it at 29.84% (contactual interest).
Have another look at the spreadsheets on the site - there is one where you just put in the date of the offence, the amount charged and the interest rate and it charges that interest rate up until todays date.
Just in case on another occassion you find yourself with more than one account with a company, send one SAR to the Register Address of that company addressed to The Data Controller. The SAR is for all the info they hold on you not for a specific accoumt unless you have requested it to just apply to one account and not the other.
Thanks for the info Rory32, I would love to just charge at 29.84% but surely that would be seen by any court as ...pushing my luck? Have people done that before?
Oh yeah, with regards to charges you could just put "charge to account" in your spreadsheet as the description or write to The Royal Blank and inform them that they should have included this info as part of your SAR (all info that they supply should be easily understood). Tell them you want this info (if you feel you need it) and they have x amount of days left. For templates for this letter go to here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...splay.php?f=33 and the SAR non-compliance letters are about half way down.
If your not comfortable charging at this rate, although personally its the rate I have claimed, you could always charge them at 19% on the basis that the charges are more or less equal to your current overdraft. Just remember if you are charging at more than 8% and it goes to court you'll have to justify it. If the judge doesn't agree with your interest rate the worst he is going to do is awared you 8%. So you may as well go for the higher rate.
To answer from the top......if you are in england, claim in england - you can claim back 6 years.
If your account balance is in the black when the interest is debited I'm not sure what you would do, but it might be worth asking that question here....
To bring up another point though, you say you are only entitled to 5 ( in scotland) and 6 (in england) year's worth of statements in your SAR. That isn't strictly true. A DPA request has no limitations on it and as such the bank are required to supply you with ALL information they hold on you. That means if they have further back than 6 years they must supply it. If however, you have put on your letter "I want 6 years worth of statements" then they've done what you've asked of them. If you think it would be beneficial to obtain older statements, send them a letter saying you were misinformed and want more. Have a read of this....
Back to your questions. For the account charges, put something simple like CHG to ACC or similar, whilst rory is correct you could ask for this from them I don't see the point in delaying your claim to get this. Bear in mind these charges are made up of all sorts of charges. You need to decipher which of them you are entitled to and which you aren't. For example the CHG to ACC can include Royalties charges which you CAN'T claim. For help in deciphering, click on the link my sig (Stuck with RBS charges??).
Finally, is about Contractual Interest. Whilst Rory says people have won at this rate, they are very few and far between. Contractual Interest is not a proven route to claim down and only the most solid of legal eagles have managed to succeed at this. It is not for the faint hearted by any means. If you were to be offered full settlement prior to going to court but minus the CI, CAG strongly advises you accept it. If you were to get to court and have to argue the reason for claiming CI, you would need to have done your homework on this and it will not come from just asking a few questions. It is up to you at the end of the day as it's your money.
If my post has been useful, tip my scales and let me know
What is generally the done thing in court is to supply various options to the judge, one at 8%, one at 19%, one at 29% for example, so the judge has a few options to decide from rather than just 29% or nothing. If you were to go for CI, it would make no difference if you went for 29% or 19% you would still have to justify it so I would think it better to go for 29% and offer alternatives - my opinion though....
If my post has been useful, tip my scales and let me know
Thank you very much for all your advice, I really appreciate it. I have typed and printed probably what is my 4th version of the prelim letter (I keep changing it every time I read something new!), this one I am going to post but unfortunately I do not have the courage to ask for any interest at this stage. So that clears up some of the issues I had. The only remaining issue is I have read somewhere on the forum that you need to have lived in England for at least three months, but I guess if it comes to it I can give a relatives address in England prior to when I moved.
Well I am just going to post it and stop thinking about it, its driving me crazy. Again thanks soo much!!
I got the usual response after the prelim letter saying we are looking into your claim and will get back to you. The 14 days expired and I sent lba, got no response so I filed my claim for £1890 incl 8% stat interest on Money Claim Online, which has been issued today. Today I posted a letter to the court manager including three copies of my schedule of charges. So I guess I have to sit and wait.....
Does anyone know if ALL claims with RBOS are going to the bitter end now?
As mentioned in last post, I posted three copies of my schedule of charges to the court manager in Nottingham on 30th May (by 1st class recorded delivery). These have not been delivered yet so was a little worried and rang up the customer services. They told me that there was no point in sending these to the court as the claim gets issued automatically. They said if you want the bank to have this, then to send it to the bank directly.
Am I right in thinking then, that there is no need posting yet another copy of my schedule of charges, as they already have two copies (attached with PRELIM and lba)?
Just to update everyone... today I got two interesting pieces of mail.
1. Letter from court giving notice that acknowledgement of service had been filed, giving the bank an extra 28 days from date of service of the claim form to file a defence which was 13th June.
2. A letter from Sandy Watt in Edinburgh offering me a gesture of goodwill of £1,568, (My full claim is for £2010, total charges is £1,568, 8% interest roughly £300, court claim fee £120)
What is the current opinion on this? Ideally I want to go for the full amount as its an extra £500. Would the court look on this as being "greedy"?
I have been sent the standard cobbetts defence and request for further clarification, requesting that this information is to be provided by the 13th July. I have also been sent a letter from the court which included cobbetts request for further clarification.
The court letter says:
IT IS ORDERED THAT:-
1. The filing of an allocation questionnaire be dispensed with in this case unless the District Judge at the court of transfer orders otherwise.**
Note: Any party affected by this order may under Rule 3.3 (5) apply to have it set aside, varied or stayed. Such a party must apply under Rule 23.3 within 14 days of service of this order.
**Please note that an allocation fee may be payable in this instance. Please contact the court of transfer for further details.
Am I right in thinking that I didn't need to do anything with cobbetts request for further information and clarification, as I had done all this and as it is obviously a stalling tactic, and the court did not state anything. What confuses me a little is that the court letter included cobbetts request for further info but did not include their defense. I just wondered why they attached it.
I have until 18th July to pay the allocation fee, there is mention of requesting a draft ...?? document from the court, I can't find any info on this, can someone tell me what this is and what its for?
Am I right in thinking that if its a straightforward case and the procedure was followed as advised (on this site) that it will not get as far as the hearing. I understand that anything can possibly happen but the standard is that they pay up before the hearing date???
IT IS ORDERED THAT:-
1. The filing of an allocation questionnaire be dispensed with in this case unless the District Judge at the court of transfer orders otherwise.** I'm assuming you filed via MCOL as this is a standard notice that they issue.
Am I right in thinking that I didn't need to do anything with cobbetts request for further information and clarification Send them the letter that's in the link at the bottom of my signature (CPR part 18 Response) along with another copy of your schedule of charges.
I have until 18th July to pay the allocation fee, there is mention of requesting a draft ...?? document from the court See note below.
Am I right in thinking that if its a straightforward case and the procedure was followed as advised (on this site) that it will not get as far as the hearing. I understand that anything can possibly happen but the standard is that they pay up before the hearing date??? Cobbetts generally settle cases on behalf of nat west and RBoS prior to the hearing date. However, you should be prepared to attend a hearing at court though.
Note: You should hear from your local county court within the next few days. They may still be issuing AQ's - or they may go along with Northampton and dispense with it. However, once you hear from them you'll know more. Either way, post back when you hear from them for advice on what action to take next.
Hope this helps a little
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Well I rang my local court and they said as my case has already been allocated to my local court then I don't have to pay an allocation fee, thankfully!! But to wait on getting correspondance from them.
3foyers v RBS - confused
or they realise that I could make a big mistake applying for 6 years when I am only entitled to 5 years. I moved from scotland in middle of January, went travelling and moved to England in the middle of February. So my question is, can I apply for 6 years?
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Originally Posted by 3foyers
