Request letter typed but worried

[alijolly]

After looking at this issue repeatedly over a couple of months I have finally bitten the bullet, dug out my bank statements and been shocked at the amount of charges I have incurred. I know I should request the full 6 years of statements, but think that if I do this I will end up not doing it at all so I have put in a request based on the information I have to hand, which comes to £3090.50 since October 02 despite having a years statements missing. The letter is sitting waiting to be taken to the Post Office to be sent recorded delivery tomorrow, but I am beginning to get worried that my claim may not be valid because I haven't got all the information.

I know I have to get over the guilt that I should be paying these charges, mainly bounced D/D, but I know that if I wait to apply for the bank statements I'll convince myself not to apply. I'm sirry to waffle but I'm really not sure what to do for the best.

[alanfromderby]

It is entirely up to you what you claim - it is your money, that has been taken out of your back pocket unlawfully.

Claiming for the period you have will not cause you any problems, other than the fact that you will be missing out on getting some of your money back.

Whatever you decide - be assured that you have thousands of people behind you. Please keep us updated with your progress.

[Bookworm]

Well, think what you could do with the money... A nice holiday? Or maybe just enough to pay off some credit or store cards, and drop your overdraft to nothing? Would it be a drop in the ocean or a life-changing amount, or somewhere in between?

Maybe treat someone you love to a special outing. Maybe giving the car a top of the range service.

Forget about guilt. They're more guilty than you are. All these years, they took your money and made you feel bad about it. The cheek of them. You were guilty of carelessness. They were, and are, guilty of wilfully misleading you into thinking that you should be more careful when all along they WANTED you to go over so they could whack you great big unlawful charges. And you'd let them get away with it?

Go for it. You have NOTHING to lose, and over 3 k to gain. A bit of a no-brainer, isn't it? And for moral support, you have US. Go on. If you get into the spirit of it, it can even be fun. Trust me on that. And if you don't trust me, read my threads. I've had my money back. And I have had fun getting my own back, in more ways than one.

[Robertxc]

alijolly, take my word for it, there is absolutely nothing to it. You'll send off your letter, and they'll write back telling you to get lost. You'll start proceedings, and they'll give you your money back. End of story.

And as Bookworm and Alan pointed out, there are plenty of people on this forum who will be happy to give you all the support you need.

[alijolly]

Okay I took a deep breath and sent it! I was helped by the fact that I received two letters on the same day charging me for the same cheque, the first one was £30 charge please represent, the second a £35 charge return to drawer. Hmm if they were as quick at getting out the letters as they are at applying the charges I may just have had enough time to juggle my finances enough to cover the represented cheque, so now I have to pay them £65 for not honouring my cheque, it certainly strengthened my resolve.

The waiting game commences.

[Yasmin]

Keep strong... they will refund, don't worry. They refunded mine in three seperate amounts, always a goodwill gesture LOL. When one advisor can't handle it, they seem to pass it on to another, same standard crap

[alijolly]

Received the standard thanks for your complaint and we are looking into it letter saying the matter will be resolved by 8th June. I will stick to the timetable in my letter and send off the next letter next week.

[alijolly]

LBA sent today (14 days after they said they received it rather than 14 days after I sent it).

The waiting game continues

[Robertxc]

Good. Steady as she goes...

[Tinkerbelle]

Well done

Now go and get the rest.

Send off your Data Protection Act for the full 6 years. By the time the DPA information comes through, they will have coughed up your +3k

[alijolly]

Received two letters today, one from Openplan saying my complaint has been passed to head office, and one from Mike Brophy with the usual Sorry you are unhappy blah blah letter. They are dated the 23 and 24th May respectively so may have crossed with my LBA.

I have therefore copied my LBA and sent a covering letter with it saying that as the case is now been handled by HO I wanted to make sure they had a copy of my LBA but that I was willing to extend my deadline to 14 days from today.

[Robertxc]

It's up to you, but having sent the LBA I would do absolutely nothing further. It's up to them to get their internal communication sorted out. The LBA is quite specific in its terms, so they know what they have to do to avoid court. If they do nothing and you send them a summons, they'll get the message pretty quickly. Remember, you're dealing with the 'organisation', not the individuals within it. The more you write to them and go to the trouble to make sure specific individuals within the organisation have seen your letters, the more opportunity you give them to debate it and cloud the issues.

Just a suggestion.

[alijolly]

I hadn't thought of it like that i must admit, the letter is still sitting here waiting to be posted so now I'm not sure.

[Robertxc]

Well, speaking from experience, if you've sent the company an opening letter, followed two weeks later by an LBA, followed two weeks later by a summons, they're not in a position to turn round and say that thye weren't aware of it. I always address letters to the company, and send them to the Registered Office.

If you go into most shops that are part of a chain, you'll usually see a notice somewhere near the door which says something like "This shop is Owned by Dixons PLC, registered office Dixons House, 21 High Street, Leeds. This is the address at which documents can effectively be served". This means that if you want to send them something legal, you can send it to the registered office and it will definitely be dealt with. The danger with addressing a letter to an individual within the organisation is that it has a greater chance of going astray, because that person might not be the proper person to deal with it, or they might be on holiday, or have left, or whatever. If you just address it to the organisation then it's up to them to direct it to the proper person.

[Robertxc]

If I were in your position, having sent the LBA I would be doing absolutely nothing until that deadline runs out. If and when it does, you follow the procedure exactly as laid out in the FAQs. Remember YOUR claim, YOUR timesacales. don't let them hijack it.

[alijolly]

My original LBA was sent to Woolwich Openplan Customer Contact Centre in Clacton, which is the Openplan head office, I believe, although not the registered office since they were taken over by Barclays so I guess that should be enough. I think I will stick to my original timetable then which means I get to claim on 5th June if they don't respond beforehand.

Thanks for helping me toughen up a bit!

[Robertxc]

No problem! The first time you do something like this it can seem a bit intimidating because we've all been conditioned to believe that big companies are more powerful than they actually are. The absolute worst that could happen is that you get to court and they turn round and say that they knew nothing about it. All you would need to do is show the judge the letters you've sent and he would probably be satisfied. He would probably just adjourn the case for a few weeks to give the other side a few weeks to catch up, rather than just throw it out. This assumes of course that they actually decide to defend it all - which considering what's been happening to other people on the forum seems unlikely!