No, i've never attempted a penalty reclaim, what's the procedure (or a link to a brief guide)?

Hi A couple of years ago, before I met her, my girlfriend had a Capital One card, like a lot of other people, she fell on bad times and couldn't repay and defaulted. She lives in the South of the UK and I live in the North, she's planning on moving up to mine and wants to have a clean slate so about 6 months ago, we wrote to Capital One offering to settle the account. Cap One wrote back saying that the account had been sold on but did not say who at the time but that the DCA would be in touch shortly. This week she has received a letter from Cap One which looks like a valid assignment to agent letter, the agent in question is Arrow Global Guernsey Ltd. A day later she received a letter from Arrow Global notifying her of the assignment BUT saying that she should direct all communication to Westcot Credit Services Ltd. I must say, this is the first time i've personally seen an OC's assignment letter and a DCA following up the assignment. Firstly, is this a valid assignment chain, neither letter refers to any statute etc but Cap One's does have AG's address on it and AG's address on their letter matches. Secondly, is a CCA still valid in this case given that she offered to settle before xmas which kind of admits liability of the debt and if we can CCA, do we serve it on Westcot or Arrow? Third, I think i'm right in assuming she still has the right to make a full-and-final settlement offer to them, she doesn't want to get into the £5 per month and the amount is only a couple of hundred anyway. All help greafully received. Thanks

So, just a quick update as there hasn't been any activity for some time now (no doubt they'll remember when they think i've forgotten). So, nothing back from my CCA, as predicted SAR to Citi proved unfruitful and i'm still getting the runaround. I sent the account in dispute as promised to them, no reply, i've even followed it up a month later with a cease and decist if they can't prove that which they say, however, I did notice something interesting while looking over my credit file which I think they'd hope I hadn't noticed. I looked at my most recent and noticed that the current balance and default balance had listed to HFO had changed, naturally I won't quote actual figures here, however, I remembered that they were significantly different some time back so I went back to June of last year and noticed that the records on my file aren't accurate. There are two entries for the same thing, one to HFO and one to Citi, both bear the same start date and account type, however, Citi's shows a current balance of a much lower balance than the default balance - circa 1k different, then skip on to HFO's listing, both current and default are the higher value. Both have "file made up to" dates identical as well. First of all, wouldn't this mean that the OC still had an interest in this debt at this point - meaning that HFO's "purchase" in 2006 doesn't exist? I've noticed that these two accounts are still being maintained to roughly the same date with differing balances on them. Curious!!!! Anyone had this before?

Envelopes are being kept and have also been scanned into my system, i'm assuming it's the postmark and originating sorting office that's the important bit here which builds a case against any sent on vs postmark date incongruity issues.

Formister, if your compensation etc is significant and valid, you can initiate a claim against them and keep pushing it like they do in kind. IMHO, it's the same as if any debtor owes you money realistically. I've pushed at banks and got paid out. I usually find that taking their own template letter of threats and sending it back to them usually gets them into a bit of a tizz. United Utilities paid back over £1000 in fees on top of damages after they got it completely wrong about a bill for the business I was involved in that started this whole thing off, they kept insisting we hadn't paid, came and disconnected our water and electric supply despite having been sent several copies of statements to proove it had been paid. They effectively shut us down for the weekend, we got a very significant amount in lost business plus my professional time in dealing with them in an out of court settlement with a non-disclosure of specifics agreement. They reconnected us on the Monday and tried to get away with just an apology but we thanked them for their attention to the matter but made it very clear we would not be deterred from compensation for loss of business due to their 'mistake' - all this over a payment of £200 they couldn't find.

Hi DB, yes, i'm guessing this will all come unhinged when they tie themselves in knots over who owns the debt. Surely though, for newer 'purchases', can't they get it right which would then strengthen the noose re my last post (#75) about OFT guidelines.

Thanks Formister, all of you are very helpful and the only way we learn is to share our experiences. I did have one open question, I was reading another thread which mentioned that CCA74, s77/s78 isn't as valid as we believe in securing proof of debt and doesn't provide some of the protections against dispute and that technically, DCA's are complying when they only send a copy of the application form/t&c. I had a look at the OFT site on s77/78/79 here: http://www.oft.gov.uk/about-the-oft/legal-powers/legal/cca/unenforceable-credit-agreements It says we can get a copy of the agreement, a statement and copies of "certain other documents mentioned in the agreement". It goes on to say they cannot make the debtor pay the debt prematurely, get a court judgement, take back hired or used security in the agreement but it then says they can ask you to pay what you owe, send a default notice, pass info to a credit reference agency, pass information to a debt collector, sell the debt, take the case to court. Doesn't some of that contradict itself? There's a useful PDF here: http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/OFT1272.pdf specifically about s77/78/79. I suggest we read and understand 2.16 onwards as it sounds to me like we're partially relying on something we belive they have to do but in fact they don't. This is particularly worrying as it doesn't really put a burden of proof upon the creditor. It does ask them to explain why, if they reconsitute a copy of the agreement. There's been a case recently, Carey v HSBC Bank PLC [2009] EWHC 3417 (QB) where, if I read it right, the judge ruled that the agreement was still enforceable (in that particular case) without a signature.

A solicitor friend of mine used to just say to me with regards to pushy legal firms, "the quicker you get them into court, the quicker you can make an idiot of them". I remember doing some work on a server at the firm the worked for and I was doing an upgrade on his office PC when a call came in, he was very polite with the people that called him regarding a case, he simply said to them, "I believe this is simply a matter for a judge to decide, I look forward to meeting you in court at your earliest convenience". His firm has a stupidly high win rate on this basis as the other side usually backs down as they are hoping you don't actually want to go to court.

My guess with the 12 years versus 6 for SAR bit if my experience in industry is right is an (cough, ahem, thinking outloud) 'falsehood', i'm sure I read the phrase "any and all" documentation somewhere relating to an SAR which if DCA and/or OC rely on this to enforce with but there's information withheld or unavailable, a clever solicitor could steer a judge to order the remaining data which they probably won't be able to produce, the case could probably proposed for dismissal on the grounds of insufficient supporting evidence. Result - DCA 0, Consumer 1! But that's a whole other debate mi amigo!

Of course, i'm preparing a pre-emptive-strike letter to them which will of course remind them of their CCA request deadline seeing as they like to remind us of deadlines. As suggested earlier, i'll be asking for details of the sale/assignment, who exactly owns it now including company numbers, copy of contract to which I am apparently bound, terms and conditions etc. I wouldn't normally talk to them at all but there's been mixed feelings in other threads about whether you should answer to them or not, I have some pretty sophisticated telecoms technology attached to my landline which does inbound CLI matching and routes all the DCA's I have on record to a generic message which starts with a very loud beep and a 5 second pause then instructs them to write to me at the address they have on file, they are advised that each attempt to call me is logged and they are played a audio number (eg 36) which is the number of times they have concurrently rung me, this call, one-sided though it is is also recorded so I can get any background chatter there might be. HFO are upto 76 so far and the worst is their agent actually listens to the entire message including the number of times called. It automatically adds the call to an activity log in a database based on their caller ID. I wish I could do this with my mobile.

Lol, thanks Formister, i've been reading all the CP2 stuff - if you're a HitchHikers fan, it's like the BabelFish and God, one proves the existense of the other but they try to deny it. It's with Citi, not BC, the original contract was 1997 so good luck pulling the docs from back then, they'll have been destroyed under the 7 year rule probably by now much like some old medical notes from my childhood which I needed desperately when I started having a problem with my eye.

CCA passes deadline on 11/01/2011, dispute letter already prepared ready to go. Is there a correct format for reporting these sorts of things to the OFT? I've never had to get them involved in anything before so any advice here would be extremely helpful.

Yeah, in my dealings with other DCA's i've had the same letter churned out to me several times, I found a great template letter which I amended very slightly which points out a few facts about their inability to read post sent back to them. I had this with Phillips not long ago with something that was sold down a long chain from Ruthbridge which i'd originally CCA'd to Zinc to Uncle Tom Cobbly and then to Phillips, the same threats every two weeks to the day, I replied rec del each time and still the threats churned out (obviously to push me into calling which I won't do). Finally a letter to the MD at their non-po-box address with copies of original letters, proof of posting and proof of delivery got this all stopped and the dish ran away with its tail between its legs so to speak. No doubt it'll be sent to someone else but that in itself proves their inability to substantiate their claim.

Ok, here's both as PDFs so they should be more readable. 00 - Initial Demand Letter 2010-12-14 - desensitised.pdf 02 - Second demand 72hr notice 2010-12-20 - desensitised.pdf

Good idea, didn't think of that, will do and re-post both