Abbey/MBNA and legal insurance

[mb14uk]

Hello fellow sufferers ...this is my first time and I'd be grateful for any pointers/ help on two points:

1 I want to claim all my unfair charges back from Abbey Credit Card plus compensation for all the bullying, threatening letters and phonecalls. Has anyone done this successfully? Any tips?

2. I have legal insurance, but when I called the insurance company's help line they hummed and hahd about not being sure if a credit card contract was a 'contract' in the 'legal' sense...said they couldn't take it on if it didn't come under breach of contract. Sounds dodgy.

Thanks

[blueskies]

Hi and welcome to the site mb14uk,

to give brief answers to your questions.

1. You can claim back your charges is very straight forward and you will find all the information you need in the FAQ's section of this site. To claim compensation is quite complicated and I don't think anyone has successfully done this yet (I hope someone will come along and prove me wrong on this).

2. A contract is a contract, whether it is a credit agreement, loan agreement or even an agreement with a milkman to deliver milk. We are not, however, claiming breach of contract, we are claiming that the contract with the bank was unfair and therefor unenforcable. I would advise you to discuss this further, in writing, with your insurance company to see if they can help.

Good luck

[mb14uk]

Thanks for that, Blueskies. I'll follow your advice with the insurance company. As for the compensation bit, though, I sued a kitchen-fitting firm a few years back under the Delivery of Goods and Services Act, 1982, for failure to provide goods and services to a reasonable standard (this seems to be a 'catch all' Act). I was awarded compensation for inconvenience and 'vexation.' I was wondering if the same would be applicable here. My feeling is that the bank would settle because, as with the simple claim for unfair charges, if it went to court they would be risking being asked straight up what their true costs were. They would refuse to divulge them and so be in breach of the law.