Cabot have just written to me today stating they have purchased a loan account I had with a bank. ( I wont say which one yet.) The account was for 15,000 made up of loan, interest and insurance and I have paid sparodically over a number of years £10 here and there during the harder times I had.

Knowing the way Cabot work I want to be able to keep them in my control rather than the way they tend to treat others so I am seeking advice on EXACTLY what procedures they and I should follow step by step.

The letter only states:

" The account you hold with xxxx bank was purchased by the cabot Financial Group. The outstanding balance is currently £15,000 (+- few pennies) "

The rest of the letter is just methods of payment and how good Cabot are understanding peoples circumstances - but nothing else other than please telephone us now.

Can someone tell me exactly

a) what documentation I should receive from Cabot

b) what I should receive from the bank and in what time scale

c) should I send a CCA to Cabot requesting deed of assisgnment / copy statements details of defaults etc

d) should I deny I owe a debt to Cabot and insist that NO defaults are added to my credit file and that No telephone calls are received.

e) any other information or guidance that anyone has to offer re procedures

I know from what has gone on the threads for Cabot bit parts of the above questions, but as this is a new situation I want to make sure cabot do exactly what they are supposed to do and respond in a way that keeps them totally at arms length and within my rights.

I would like to do this as soon as possible because Cabot will register a Default immediately they get the debt.

There were a few charges on the account which I haven't yet tried to recover but I could at a push state the account is in dispute but it's marginal.

Thanks

a) see c

b) I would do a DSAR on the bank - you want full disclosure of all data.

c) yes - the CCA does not fetch up copy statements, only a breakdown of what is owed and when it was due to be paid

d) definitely do not acknowledge any debt to Cabot - they must prove to you that they have a legal right to be demanding money from you - yes you can insist that all contact is by letter - and that, unless and until they can prove they have a legal right to be claiming money from you, any default entered will by challenged by court action, and a complaint made to the Information Commissioner

e) if the account has any charges, then you are correct to say that the original debt is in dispute - however, to back this up you do need to issue the DSAR against the bank asap.

It is important to make them prove everything, and question anything that is out of the ordinary. Also remember that they will have paid a small amount for this debt, and they will be happy to get a small monthly payment - or a percentage settlement.

Thanks Alan, Seminole has helped me on another part of this after I pm'd him some other part of it but I'll draft up a letter tomorrow and post it here for confirmation. I do not want these buggers down my throat without having all the precise ammo to keep them in order. Many thanks & good night!

CCA request gone out to Cabot 24th June.

DPA SAR to Bank 25th

They cashed my £1 cheque on the 24th June still waiting for any sort of response.

Well Cabot have exceeded all expectation with the CCA requests and come up with Nothing at all ! The 12 and following 30 days have all passed and all they have sent me is a letter stating it might take 8 weeks so it's - Zilch!

Letters to Trading Standards for both my accounts with Cabot cos they have faffed up big time !

sent a few letters to cabot but no reply by post. They keep ringing my wife and I up, I will not answer the phone because they have not written back to me, only telephone calls, i think it is called harassment, How do I stop them ringing me up?

You send them this: thanks to HagenUK change it to suit yourcircumstances but start it off as " I am writing to formally request that all future communications with your company will be by letter ONLY as are my rights as stated below.

Dear

( I am in receipt of your letter of xxxxx 2006 and note its contents.

Despite your written undertaking contained therein to cease contact via telephone and your confirmation that I have ten days before your telephone procedure will be recommenced I have received two telephone calls this morning already.) these are hagens bits for his letter.

As I am sure you are aware Harassment of Debtors is a criminal offence in England and Wales under Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970.

Furthermore, continued telephone calls after the receipt of a request not to call may constitute a criminal offence under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.

In addition every individual has a right to be free from harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The offence of causing harassment is arrestable under the provisions of Section 24(2) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and attracts the powers associated with such offences. Additionally Section 3 enables a person who is, or may become, the victim of behaviour prohibited by Section 1 to take civil proceedings against the perpetrator.

Further it is my contention that your company is in breach of the Office of Fair Trading guidelines on harassment.

As you have demonstrably failed to honour your written pledge I feel I have no option but to report your conduct to the relevant statutory authorities, including Trading Standards, the Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading.

If I should receive another telephone call from any person from your company at any point then I will be contacting the police to report the criminal office of harassment and will be naming you in my statement to the police.

I trust that I have made myself clear and that all future correspondence with your company will be in writing.

Yours sincerely

When complaining to trading standards do I contact the office located near me or Cabot In West Malling?

the one nearest to cabot

Thanks Alan,

Can I ask you for your take on this situation.

Cti finance( abbreviated so as to not be caught in ' Brians searches!) have sold a cc debt to Cabot. 'Legal Brian' @ Cti has written to me stating that the unlawful charges rendered on the account which they will repay will be sent to cabot ( albeit he has knocked a grand or so off - but that's another matter!). Cabot have not responded to my CCA request at all (over 1 month late) and the charges I claimed from cti far outweigh the debt sold to cabot. Now given cabot haven't responded to the cca what should I write to cti and what should I write to cabot?

There's another twist to this re the default but I'll come back to that later.

I will avoid names as well.

This is a difficult one.

Assuming the debt was sold to the DCA, I would suggest that they now have no legal right to be chasing the debt. They have failed to provide the documents, and have breached the CCA.

However, that means the file would technically return to the original bank.

The original bank are entitled to offset any refund against a debt owed. Certainly you could not use the lack of contract argument against the bank to argue the debt doesn't exist, whilst at the same time trying to obtain a refund quoting an unfair term in that same contract.

Certainly, if the bank owes more to you, than the debt, then the refund has to come to you, since the DCA have no legal right to the money.

Great, thats what I wanted to confirm and thats what I thought. I don't mind the debt going back to the bank as they owe me more than I owe them, it's was just the Cabot lot I want to deal with at present. They were really bad at the beginning and I seek a little retrospective ear bashing.

I have posted a bit on this next situation on maddyrose thread http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/other-institutions/11229-cabot-financial-6.html, but if I can get a sound and consistant response from the forum I want to take this next situation to the wire.

When cabot bought the debt they wrote to me under the name of Cabot Financial (Europe)Ltd saying they bought the debt. On the same day KingshillNo1 Ltd registered a default on my account in 2004. BOTH these companies are individual Ltd companies within the Cabot Financial Holdings Group Ltd but they are SEPERATE legal entities filing their own accounts, same directors, same address. Now how can one limited company write and say they own the debt and another - with no reference whatsoever to me, register a default for the same debt?

Equifax & Experian both say different things about who their client is. Experian said they didn't know a company called cabot and their client was Kingshill and equifax say cabot registered the default - so why does it say Kingshill on the credit file?

There are Data Protection Act issues of transfering data from one to the other, but I want to get to the bottom of why they do this in the first place. I have written to Kingshill asking them why their company has registered a default when I don't owe it any money or have any correspondance from them. I'll post back here with their reply.

I am not the only person to have this happen with defaults in the Kingshill No1 Ltd name but there's something fishy about it. I have spoken to the Information Commissioner re the Data Protection Act issues and that is being looked into but any ideas on this to help me nail these beggars will be much appreciated.

Update: heard nothing from Kingshill so another letter going off. Experien are now looking at my credit file and exploring the Kingshill / Citifinancial entries as both have defaults for the same debt, Kingshill showing £500 less than originally as Citi have refunded ( cabot?) them for my unlawful charges. Be interesting to see what they come back with.

Hiya andrew, just wanted to know if you had any replies yet?

thanks

karen

Well well my hearties, this began back in 2006 when I first posted this, but you will all be very happy to hear that Cabot and their in-house solicitors have made another of their gigantic cock-ups in litigating against someone they should have known better than to take on who was at the heart of the Cabot Fan CLub. This was classic Fan Club stuff, backed up by the skills and expertise of PT and a not half decent barrister.

If you read my first post you will see that I had a loan from a bank - it was Bank of Scotland and the loan was for £13,000 to which they added nearly £6000 in PPI.

Way back in 2006 my chums in the Cabot Towers bought this account and wrote to me - cock-up No1 It was a Joint account with my Other Half ! LOL (it gets better!)

They continued to write to me on occasion, but I wanted them to take the initiative and put this to the test - it took them a while.

Earlier this year they issued proceedings against me only and not before time. When they first bought this account from BOS I could have told them then that this account would never get passed the door because it was a multiple agreement and totally unenforceable take a look [ATTACH]23043[/ATTACH] Loan Unrestricted Use, Insurance Restricted Use Credit . It was only later I learned the PPI was mis-sold too, but that's for another day. This particular 'report' is to demonstrate how useless Morgans were in the way they carried out this litigation and how useless Cabot were for not checking this agreement before firing off the litigation process. How the hell no one ever noticed this was a joint account I'll never know, but that being the case they continued until WE reminded them to check it out. By that time they'd already issued the Particulars of Claim and to change them, which the particular solicitors (Ref: IL) had to do or go have a cuppa with Dean (Frank)Spencer and Peirs Morgan and forget the whole thing ever hit his desk.

I was on a CFA so he was looking at costs he'd rather not be looking at.

So, in the face of a superb defence submitted by the barrister Cabot had to either eat humble pie and start again and lose in court anyway or back-off. They took the sensible route and for a debt they probably paid max about £1800 for they settled to write the whole thing off and pay my legal bill which I understand cost them a whopping figure just under £20,000

So, take on the Cabot Fan Club eh Ken? it's currently, from my own estimates from my fan club chums 6-0 currently.

We've won 6, you've won none! that's without the thousands of others who have followed in our wake...(which contributed to your £17 Million loss last year I predict!) and I hear good ole PT hit them with another bill much the same as mine a couple of weeks ago again so Cabot - do your job correctly and people like me would be saved a considerable amount of time, so would you and so would the Rugby Club (Morgans) . If you checked out these accounts before chancing your arm attacking people when their agreements are totally unenforceable in the first place, then you wouldn't suffer the consequences. But I guess it's throw enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick most of the time isn't it....

Bring em on, the Cabot Fan Club are waiting and you have no idea how many of the cases you raise have a fan club inspiration behind them do you?

Sorry Cabot - another bad day in the office....? LOL

Well done Andrew with PT's help and all the fan club.

An excellent result, inspiration for all!!!...

VOLVO

Nice one Andrew. Congrats mate!

H. x

Well done andrew1 - another fantastic result

So Cabot got hit with £20,000 costs

In a claim against us Link lost & have been hit with £21,000 costs

Beachy

brilliant result, let's hope there's many more such results to follow

OMG Andrew, can't believe I missed this - talk about wooooooo hooooo

Fantastic result !!!!

So pleased for you sweetie x

Well done Andrew.

Just out of interest did they ever manage to produce a CCA?

Well done Andrew.

Just out of interest did they ever manage to produce a CCA?

Yes, for what good it did them!...They should have read it first, analysed it and realised the consequences of trying to chase it. That's what makes me so mad about these people. Not forgetting of course that one should morally pay ones debt, but these agreements are put together by organisations, such as BOS who have legions of legal teams who should ensure their agreements abide by the law - the CCA which is in place to ensure fair play. Well they abused that so as a judge said to me once when I mentioned a moral obligation, she said " We are not here to judge Morals, we are here to judge FACTS!

Fact is that Cabot begin collection without any regard or sight of a document, it's just a list on a disc, name, address, Original Creditor amount, phone number - that's it, so they get what they deserve!

Spot on Andrew, I'm about at the first step re Cabot where you were in 2006 and looking forward to taking them on (strange but true).

Good to see you cost those malingering miscreants a good amount of money.

Thought I'd like to give our experience of Cabot which ended yesterday in Court.

The first thing we knew was a Sheriff knocking at the door presenting us with a Court Summons from Cabot just before Xmas. We’d had no phone calls, letters, no previous contact whatsoever, it was out of the blue.

Their summons was for £5500. It turned out it related back to a Lloyds Bank PPI 'overpayment' from 4 years previously. We had 2 Lloyds accounts, had had several loans, credit cards, & when we received two differing amounts of PPi cheques we didn't think anything was unusual, in fact we paid off our Lloyds credit cards & bought a new fridge. One cheque was for £2600, the other £2300.

Quite a few months afterwards Lloyds said the 2nd payment was a mistake, they wanted it back. We told them to whistle, so they just invented an overdraft on one account to cover it. After 6 months of constantly hanging on the phone, getting £50 here & there as sweeteners, we spoke to one guy who 'sorted' it. He closed our accounts without warning & at the same time the only branch within 40 miles closed. We heard nothing more about the PPi overpayment. We kept all the letters as without an account number we could no longer get through on the phone.

From this £2300, Cabot’s court claim was for £5500!! As part of their evidence that we'd been apparently ignoring them, they enclosed a post office print out as proof of sending us a recorded letter. We got the Tracking reference & easily saw from the Post Office website that the letter had been returned to them & signed for 48 hours after they'd sent it. We mentioned this as part of our defence, which cost us £97 to lodge.

The Sheriff turned up once more last week to tell us Cabot’s solicitors had asked the Court to postpone the case, giving the reason that as part of our defence we had asked them for evidence of Lloyds transferring the debt. This was again untrue, so we challenged their postponement which cost another £47. (By the way, when he called, the Sheriff advised us the postponement was good for us as we now had time to communicate & reach a settlement!! No, really?)

We had 2 days notice of the hearing which was in a proper courtroom with all the pomp & circumstance. Cabot actually had a solicitor there, he read out his reasons for wanting the postponement. I finally got to have my say & refuted the reason he’d given for the postponement, saying we'd asked for no further evidence whatsoever.

I stated that surely before bringing the case they would have already been in possession of such evidence, the instruction from Lloyds surely was fundamental to their decision to bring the case to court in the first place. Eventually after several more responses to & fro, the Judge decided that he wouldn't allow the postponement & said the case should go ahead on the original date.

With that, Cabot’s solicitor stood up & said if the case couldn't be postponed then they would have no alternative but to withdraw, providing I agreed there should be no costs. The Clerk of Court & the Judge then had a meeting to decide whether the case could be dismissed given the case was purely about postponement.

To my relief they did dismiss the case. I objected to the dismissal on the grounds of the costs to us so far. The Judge asked what costs could exist given we'd represented ourselves. I told him about the Court Fees and he awarded us every penny.

A couple of things to mention. On the sheet which was 'proof' of posting the registered letter to us, there were several other peoples names & addresses, obviously in the same boat as us. Surely this is a disgraceful disclosure, can we hurt Cabot over this? I have the references regarding postage to these people. Should I also search the Post Office tracking system to see whether they had their letters or whether they’d been returned to Cabot as ours had been?

If we had received the letter, I’m pretty sure that one of the templates found on here could have stopped them in their tracks. Are they now employing tactics to make sure you’re not given the opportunity.

Does anyone know how we go about getting the costs back that the Court has awarded us?

Above is a brief summary of what happened, it wasn’t easy & there were many trips to the Court over the 2 months, it seems every moment of time off was taken up with these shysters. However, no matter what conclusion you feel has been reached, you must keep every scrap of paper, notes of things said during phone calls, names of people spoken to & times. They definitely hit us before Xmas as a tactic, people are busy & cannot dedicate the time & its not easy finding the funds to even lodge a defence.

But basically we’re just ordinary people, not academic, not administrative, struggle to get by each month, but please fight them as I think if you challenge they are already on the ropes.

Forgot to mention, these accounts were in my partners name. She couldn’t be in court (2 days notice!!) but the Judge was happy for me to conduct the case, I needed no proof of who I was. If you feel you cannot face up to it, perhaps see if a friend would help you out.