While I'm waiting for my claim against HSBC to go to court I've decided to go after charges applied to my Mint credit card....

I already had copies of all statements so used them to build my charges spreadsheet last night. The total inc interest on the charges came to a total of approx £480.

I used the credit card LBA in the templates directory after modifying it to resemble a preliminary letter. I sent it off special delivery today...

So now we'll see how long it goes before they make an offer.

I've read through most of the other Mint threads but struggled to find a pattern to how they behave when faced with someone reclaiming their charges. I wouldn't mind getting the whole thing wrapped up before it gets to MCOL, not that I'm worried about going to court, but it's just a pain in the backside having to spend so long preparing documentation etc when they could just have refunded the charges straight away (as they are likely to do so in the end regardless).

Any reason why there isn't a sub-forum for Mint by the way?

I've had a request for a copy of the modified credit card LBA I used as a prelim letter so here goes..

thorx

-----------------

[YOUR ADDRESS]

Mint

Cards Customer Services

PO BOX 6050

Southend on Sea

SS99 1WL

[DATE]

REQUEST FOR REPAYMENT OF CHARGES

Dear Sir/Madam,

CARD/ACCOUNT NUMBER: [CARD NUMBER]

I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to late fees and over limit charges, are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations.

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary.

I calculate that you have taken £XXX plus £XXX which you have charged me in interest for the sums which you have taken - Total £XXX. I enclose a schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter.

I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting, unconditionally, my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment.

If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively, within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

After that, there will be no further communication from me and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.

Yours faithfully,

[sIGNATURE]

[PRINTED NAME]

Thanks

Good luck with the claim

Received offer letter yesterday. I must say they are quick to deal with incoming mail. So well done Mint/RBS...

Anyway. The offer was for approx £110 and it explicitly said it was the difference between what I was charged and the current charge (£12).

So...

Reject or accept as partial? Most people seem to reject (makes it more transparent I guess), but is there a good reason not to accept a partial refund and then continue the process including MCOL (if needed) for the remainder?

LBA isn't due to go out for another 6 days so I've got time to prepare a strategy..

From what I have seen, if you reject the offer they do not improve on it even after sending a LBA so if you are going to go for a full refund you are likely to end up claiming through the courts. I am a few weeks ahead of you so can let you know how things progress

Whilst most rejected offers aren't bettered upon, each claim is weighed up by the bank in terms of whether or not it is worth their while going to court, or whether it would be in their best interest to settle. A small amount like this, would have more chance of being settled in full prior to court (not saying it would, just might).

Rejecting and accepting as partial are one of the same. You are rejecting the offer as full settlement but would accept it as partial settlement.

So my LBA is due out today and I still haven't posted my rejection letter. I know...slow, but there was nothing to gain by being quick!

Anyway, as I'm due to send both letters at the same time do you think sending them in the same envelope is okay? Or two small envelopes in a bigger one. It would save me approx £5, but whether it is acceptable in legal terms is another thing.

Opinions please...

thanks

Why don't you amend the LBA to incorporate the fact that you have received their offer and are rejecting it??

I guess that would work. Seems a bit pointless sending two letters, especially when the rejection letter is only two lines of text....

thanks for your help!

As many others have done I only received a repeat of the initial offer after sending the LBA. Should I reject this offer as well? I did say in the LBA that I wouldn't be in touch again so I'm guessing it isn't needed.

Anyway, MCOL next. I've been looking around for some particulars of claim, but the only ones in the template library apply to current accounts. So if any of you nice people could point me in the right direction it would be appreciated.

thanks

Hi, this is what I used (which worked)

"The Claimant, a customer of the Defendant claims that between 00/00/00 and 00/00/00 the Defendant debited (number of) charges from the

Claimant's credit card account 5460xxxxxxxxxxxx. The claimant believes that the charges are an unfair penalty under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 as they are a disproportionately high sum in compensation compared to the cost of the purported breach and that Under the law of penalties, the charges are an unlawful extravagant penalty. The claimant requests the refund of these charges being £000.00 plus contractual interest of 16.9% compounded. The interest is an additional £000.00 The Claimant has written to the Defendant on a number of occasions in order to try to resolve this situation but now feels that they have no other course of action left. The Claimant therefore respectfully asks the court to enter judgment in their favour for a total of £000.00

The address to send it to is:-

Royal Bank of Scotland Plc

RBS Litigation

1 Princes Street

London

EC2R 8PB

Hope that this helps

thanks Chris. looks good to me. i was going to use a slightly modified version of the one in the template library, but yours looks better suited (and appropriate as it has been tried and tested).

Please bear in mind that I am not legally qualified so this is not guaranteed to be 100% technically correct but it did work for my claim. Good luck!

yeah no worries!