Thread: Any help with Barclaycard issue greatly appreciated!

In 2005 I applied for a basic barclaycard credit card, which was granted to me with a credit limit of £300. At the time I was employed, and although I soon maxed out that £300 limit i did initially keep up repayments.

Since then, due to a number of reasons including unemployment and extremely poor financial management on my part, the account has fallen into a shocking amount of arrears due to standard charging. The charges include late payment charges, no payment charges, and interest on the overdrawn balance.

To date, this balance amounts to approx £950, £650 of which are primarily due to charges/interest. I understand that it is unlikely I will be able to make a claim for interest served on my account, but I believe the charges to the account have been unfair and unlawful.

I would proceed with an S.A.R with the intent of court proceedings, but since the charges to the account have not yet been paid, I would be asking for the charges to be removed and not refunded. Has anyone got any experience with this kind of situation, and what it might entail with contrast to refunded charges?

Mercers, who I understand to be operating under hood of Barclaycard, are currently chasing me for payment. It was requested that a token payment of £10 be paid this Tuesday, but since I am currently unemployed and living with my Mother I was unable to find the money until this afternoon. Should I still make the payment to them? Would serving a CCA request buy me time with Mercers/Barclaycard and should i do this whilst issuing an S.A.R?

Any help would be appreciated. I and my girlfriend are both in debt with our regular bank accounts, (Abbey and Halifax), but since balances are frozen and/or payments are stable I would like to concentrate on Barclaycard before proceeding with those.

Many thanks, I have been reading through the FAQ's and guides but thought I would ask as my situation is a little different to the norm.

Cheers,

John

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Reposted here as probably more general-current-debt oriented. Original in Barclarycard forum removed.

In 2005 I applied for a basic barclaycard credit card, which was granted to me with a credit limit of £300. At the time I was employed, and although I soon maxed out that £300 limit i did initially keep up repayments.

Since then, due to a number of reasons including unemployment and extremely poor financial management on my part, the account has fallen into a shocking amount of arrears due to standard charging. The charges include late payment charges, no payment charges, and interest on the overdrawn balance.

To date, this balance amounts to approx £950, £650 of which are primarily due to charges/interest. I understand that it is unlikely I will be able to make a claim for interest served on my account, but I believe the charges to the account have been unfair and unlawful.

I would proceed with an S.A.R with the intent of court proceedings, but since the charges to the account have not yet been paid, I would be asking for the charges to be removed and not refunded. Has anyone got any experience with this kind of situation, and what it might entail with contrast to refunded charges?

Mercers, who I understand to be operating under hood of Barclaycard, are currently chasing me for payment. It was requested that a token payment of £10 be paid this Tuesday, but since I am currently unemployed and living with my Mother I was unable to find the money until this afternoon. Should I still make the payment to them? Would serving a CCA request buy me time with Mercers/Barclaycard and should i do this whilst issuing an S.A.R?

Any help would be appreciated. I and my girlfriend are both in debt with our regular bank accounts, (Abbey and Halifax), but since balances are frozen and/or payments are stable I would like to concentrate on Barclaycard before proceeding with those.

Many thanks, I have been reading through the FAQ's and guides but thought I would ask as my situation is a little different to the norm.

Cheers,

John

bump

Personally, and this is only my view (anyone else feel free to comment cos i am no expert)

I would serve a CCA and continue the claim as normal. When you get to the point of court (or just before the cough up) they will almost certainly credit the amount of the charges against your account/send cheque to Mercers and reduce your debt.

Good luck, don't let them bully you. They are as responsible for you being in this mess by their extortionate charges so don't feel bad about it all.

You should certainly issue CCA as they can't enforce any debt until the relevant info provided. If you are in debt with current account banks including overdrafts loans or cards I would urge you to move to a 'safe' bank account ASAP ie one you don't have any debt with. At least any monies paid in can then cover essentials.

You may want to speak to National Debtline on 0808 808 4000 to discuss your situation in more detail - it's free confidential independent advice & they will look at the circumstances as a whole - standard advice is to treat all of your creditors equally not in isolation but the choice is yours...

Best of luck

Now, I don't know much about this but my novice opinion would be that you tell mercers (the collection agent) the account is in dispute whilst you CCA barclaycard.

the only complication is that they are so closely tied.

Originally Posted by PriorityOne

The CCA normally goes to whoever is attempting to collect on an account.... in order to place the account in dispute and get them off your back. You can send a CCA request to Barclays if you wish.... but if you want to re-claim charges on the account, you cannot choose not to acknowledge a debt with Barclays.... and then decide to re-acknowledge it later on in order to re-claim those charges....

This is of particular interest to me as the account is predominantly composed of unpaid charges. As such, I would be very happy if i could have the debt placed in legal default as the result of none-compliance to a CCA request - I have no real money to claim back. Since i applied for the card online, i'm also fairly confident that i did not return a signed agreement to them before opening the account.

I will CCA Mercers, but if they or Barclaycard can produce an agreement, will i still be in a position to claim back for charges? If they do not produce an agreement, i'd be happy to let it lie as an unenforcable debt.

Do you recommend a good CCA template?

John

Originally Posted by PriorityOne

If an Agreement is produced, then re-claim the charges. If an Agreement is not produced, then it will be unenforceable....as you have said.

The CCA template is here Creditors and DCAs - Letter Templates & Budget Planner.... Letter N. Adapt it to you needs, if you need to.... but make sure it goes off by rec. delivery.

Thanks very much for your help, i'll keep you all posted on the results. I was also going to CCA equidebt (who have control of my Abbey account), but I have paid a lot of charges in this case that I would like to reclaim. If Equidebt are unable to produce an agreement, can i still successfully claim against Abbey? Am I right to assume that I will only be refusing acknowledgment of any debt to Equidebt and not necessarily Abbey?

Cheers again

John

This week I finally received a reply from Barclays regarding the CCA I sent to them on the 2nd of June.

Barclays start by first acknowledging that my letter was dated the 2nd of June 2007. They then reference an attached photocopy of the terms and conditions of their credit card agreement and state that "The information enclosed completes our obligation to supply information and copy documents under the Consumer Credit Act". Clearly this is not the case, as I have received nothing with my handwriting or even my NAME attached to it, let alone a signature.

In addition to this I today received my first letter from scotcall who claim to have been instructed by Mercers to collect outstanding arrears.

I think my next step should be to write to both scotcall and Barclaycard telling them that they have NOT provided me with a true signed copy of the credit agreement under the CCA1974 and that they having also openly admitted to have responded to my query well past the allowed time-frame, thus committing a criminal offense.

Should I also demand that until proof of the agreement is presented to me that all record of this account should be wiped clean from any reference agencies? I feel very confident about the situation now that they have so openly buggered up but i'm a little unsure what to say next.

Cheers,

John

bumpety bump

Hi Aristoc

i can think of many many things to say to them but non are publishable on here


this is what i sent Littlewoods when they sent me a blank agreement

Dear Sirs

Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

Thank you for your recent letter sent to me, the contents of which are noted. I appreciate your quick response to my original letter. However, the reply received by me does not fulfil your requirements under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

The Act demands that I be supplied with a true copy of any properly executed credit agreement that exists in relation to the above account. I may ask for this on demand providing that a fee of £1.00 is paid. This fee was sent with my original letter.

My request remains outstanding. An unsigned credit agreement with incorrect personal details simply printed onto it, like the one you sent in your reply, does not constitute a true copy of any credit agreement that may or may not have been signed by me on the opening of this account. A blank agreement neither confirms that I am liable for any alleged debt to you, nor gives me any chance to evaluate whether any original agreement was ‘properly executed’.

I still require you to send me a true copy of the original credit agreement that you allege exists. As you will know, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a judge is not permitted to make any enforcement order unless the creditor can provide a true signed copy of the original credit agreement. This means that unless you can produce such an agreement, this alleged debt is not enforceable in law.

You had until 31st May 2007 to provide me with the true copy I requested. You are now in default of my request. Any account I hold with you is now in legal dispute. Whilst the account remains in dispute, you are not permitted to ask for any payment, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. Furthermore, whilst the dispute remains, you are not entitled to charge any interest on the account, nor make any further charges to the account. Additionally, you are not entitled to register any information on this account with any credit reference agency.

To register information with a credit reference agency, you must have written consent from the customer to collate and share such information. This consent is given in the form of a signed credit agreement, so until you produce such an agreement, you may not do this.

The requirement for consent to share data is a clear requirement of the Data Protection Act 1998. any such attempts to share my data without my consent will be met with a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office

The time limits, which are laid down in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 are clear. You must supply an executed credit agreement within 12 + 2 working days of a proper CCA request. If you fail to comply with a legitimate request the account enters a default situation and if you fail to comply after a further 30 days you commit an offence. If you continue to try to enforce this debt without complying with my original request you will have committed a criminal offence and your conduct will be reported to the Office of Fair Trading, the Financial Ombudsman and Trading Standards. Any investigation undertaken by them may affect your ability to offer credit in the future.

To sum up, I will not be making any further payments to you until you provide me with the document I have requested. Whilst you remain in default of my request, you are not permitted to take any action against this account. This includes adding further charges and passing any information to the credit reference agencies.

Should you not have any signed credit agreement in relation to this alleged debt, please confirm this in writing to me.


I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully

i hope this is some help

regards
paul

Thats a fantastic response. I will see what I can come up with myself, using your letter as a reference if that is ok? I will post my final draft on here before I send it off this weekend. Looking forward to their next course of action!

John

Hi John
Thanks

if the letters helpful then by all means use whatever you need.

Good luck

regards
paul