Hi, all.

Letter typed and ready to go tomorrow. I have my doubts as to whether they will fold without hassle, as they've always been hard-assed bstrds anyway, and I haven't seen anyone else going for them before... We'll see...

Will let you know as soon as I have response, of course.

xxx

ML

I entend to persure a claim against them but no at the moment. I wrote to them in the summer about their charges but they said their was nothing they could do but did refund me £80 out of the £300+ as a goodwill guesture, I was told that they charge £20 every 10 days your payment is late !!

I accepted this then as I didn't know it was unlawful; but I do now

Please could you start your own thread please. It is too difficult to follow or to help when things are bundled together.

ok, sorry about that

They haven't even bothered acknowledging my letter!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to court we go....

xxx

ML

They haven't even bothered acknowledging my letter!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to court we go....

xxx

ML

I forgot to say that I wrote to them again to remind them the clock is ticking on DPA request on wednesday. Still no response so far...

Poor little IKEA store card - probably don't even realise that all of this is happening yet

A classic, even though I say so myself.

Today, 39 days. Still no letter from Ikea.

Since I am not an unreasonable woman, I thought I'd give them a wee call.

To be fair, the chap was lovely.

He couldn't trace the account. Then he found there had been an acount, but with no address or name to link it to us (?)

He then said that they had changed systems a couple of years ago, and old information might have been archived. He would have to e-mail the relevant dept.

That's fine, said I, but just in case things might go slow, may I remind you that you have 1 day left to comply or it's IC time...

Can't say anymore, said he, as I can't see any more info.

Ok, I said, I'll tell you what. I'll give you until Friday. If I haven't got the info with me Monday morning, that's it, can't say fairer than that.

About 1/2 hr ago, my phone rang. 'Twas a lady from Ikea, who'd just got a message about lil' ol' me.

1st, it would appear my letters never got received.

Then, she asked me why I wanted the info.

I happily told her.

She tried to convince me that I had accepted T&Cs, therefore the charges were legit.

I explained to her why they weren't.

She seemed bemused.

She said that if that was the case, then I would have to go after every company that had ever overcharged me.

I said that was the plan, yes.

To be fair, she seemed genuinely convinced of what she was saying and not really comprehending why I should disagree and fight for my money back. (a bit like the people who post here saying we should take better care of our finances) At one point, she said: "Well, maybe I should look at my accounts and see if I have been charged".

So I gave her this forum's address.

Anyway, then she said she would have to look for the info I wanted. So I reminded her about 39 days and counting, and she got a bit flustered, saying I wasn't being very fair, and there was no way she could retrieve the info in 1 day. I did tell her that actually, I had kindly left them till Friday. I also pointed out that her company would not have been quite so generous and would have charged me for being 1 day late, as indeed they did in the past. Oh, and when she said she wasn't even sure if they had all the information, I said that should go down a treat with the IC.

I also pointed out that if I did have to go to court, I didn't think that a judge would necessarily accept that not one, but 2 letters had gone astray, and again, that her company wouldn't have done so if it had been the other way round.

I was very polite, very civilised, said time and time again that I had nothing against her personally, and we left it at that, with her being somewhat more flustered, I think, that when she first phoned me.

It would seem, by the reaction I got today, that I am the 1st to claim against them... I did point out to her that I was unlikely to be the last.

Just got phone call from the same lady.

The case has been passed to their legal counsel*, who will be writing to us in the next couple of days... Ooooh, I wonder what that could say? And oooh, I wonder how that's going to look to the IC...

*Thanks, B/F

Intresting, sounds like you have got them really scared! Keep us informed, can you post the address that you sent your letter to if possible?

Ikano Financial Services

PO Box 333

Nottingham NG7 5LP

Go for it while it's fresh in their memory, I told them there would be others!

Have just printed dpa request letter. Did they take the full 40 days to give you the info?

And then some... 40 days were up wednesday and I still haven't got them. I did grant them 2 days' grace, but if I still haven't got it by monday, they'd better be ready for a complaint! They say they never got my 2 letters... mhhh...

Hopefully, as they get more, they'll get better at it!

so do you think I should send recorded delivery then?

Yes. This way, they can't play silly buggers. Not that it will help them when I complain to the IC, as 1 letter lost, maybe, 2 letters, I think not...

Well. well. well... Funny how they can go fast if they want to...

Complete with a breakdown of transactions, this is what came this morning: (bold type is added by me)

IKANO Financial Services Limited

 

Adam House

Players Court

Player Street

Nottingham

NG7 5LN

 

Mr and Mrs M xxxx

 

 

T: 0115 955 1610

F: 0115 978 2256

 

http://www.ikano.net

 

23rd March 2006

 

Dear Mr xxxx

 

Re: account number xxxx

 

I write further to your letter of 12 February 2006.Please note that this matter has now been referred to our legal team and all future correspondence should be addressed to Debbie Shannon, Legal Counsel at IKANO Financial Services Ltd.

 

I have been asked to consider the claim from a legal perspective. I attach to this letter as requested a full list of all charges levied to your account and the dates upon which these charges were made. Upon investigation, all charges were correctly incurred upon default in payment.

 

Your query rests with whether these charges are penalty charges which would be unenforceable and the cases you quote consider these issues. (You may wish to note that the 2004 Murray decision was actually overturned in the Court of Appeal in July 2005.)

 

The charges levied to customer accounts are based on our pre-estimates of loss which are incurred when an account goes in to arrears, these do not simply cover a letter being generated and sent as the term "letter fee" implies, they mark the moving of this account into the collections team, the appointment of a payments advisor to consider the account and its history and to make decisions on how to proceed and monitoring

that account until it is no longer in arrears. The costs increase as staff costs etc increase, hence you will see that the amounts of fees are reconsidered and where necessary increased annually to reflect our increased costs.

 

You may also wish to read the recent Competition Commission report which considered the amount of letter fees charged.

 

Based upon the above information, unfortunately I cannot recommend a refund of the fees requested as they were correctly incurred and are pre-estimates of loss and not penalty clauses.

 

I would recommend that you discuss this matter with your own legal advisors or if you do not wish to incur costs in doing so, the Citizens Advice Bureau will hopefully be able to assist you with this further.

 

If you require any further information in relation to your account, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Debbie Shannon

Legal Counsel

Direct Line 0115 9551650

All-righty then...

Was the Murray decision overturned on July 05? Anyone knows? And what of the Competition Commission?

I note that they're going for the genuine pre-estimate/manual intervention angle, which should be interesting, as now, all I have to do is ask for that information. My 1st letter to them was before the template was changed and therefore didn't ask for those details.

What surprised me is that the charges only amount to £80.00, but then I suppose in my memory, it was the cumulative effect of being sometimes charged twice (once by the company, once by the bank). Still, better in my pocket than theirs.

Thoughts, recommendations, advice before I get going?

Well, this is what I plan to send as a reply to the above. Any comments on that?

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

Dear Ms. Shannon,

I write further to your letter dated 23rd March 2006. I am interested to see that you offer as justification the argument that those fees are a genuine pre-estimate of the costs incurred by the company.

In an effort to conclude this matter without having to go to court, I would be grateful if you could provide me with the information on how that genuine pre-estimate is calculated. I would also like you to provide me with a copy of the names/initials of the employees who were involved in monitoring my file, the date and time at which they intervened and in which manner, at what point my account was moved into the collections team (interestingly, it would appear that it occasionally happened on the same day that I actually made a payment (cf: 23/09/02), and all other relevant information as to the running of my account.

I require this information to be provided within 7 days. Should you fail to respond in that time, or should your response be unsatisfactory, I will have no choice but to pursue the matter in court. Alternatively, you may send me a cheque for £ 80.00, which represents the total sum requested.

Please note that if I have to issue a Court Claim, your company will be held liable for the following:

Charges Reclaimed: £ 80.00

Court Fee: £ 30.00

Interest at 8% £ 28.07 (at today’s date, and increasing daily)

Yours sincerely,

Oh, it's good to be right ;-)

Sounds great to me. They should have fun giving you that information. As if they'd hand it over to another department for one late payment. I personally doubt it.

Bookworm, do you have an update for us? I am thinking of approaching IKEA.

I do, I do... Fresh from the post, here is the response I got today:

Dear Mr xxxx,

 

Re: account number xxxxxxx

 

I write further to your letter of 25th March 2006.

 

I note your request for information on how we calculate our charges, you will appreciate that the charges are based upon past experience of collections profiles, systems and personnel charges and bad debt ratios and all of these relate to the base costs of our business and as such are highly commercially sensitive information not for disclosure. The charges levied to customer accounts are based on our pre-estimates of loss which are generally incurred when any account goes in to arrears based upon this historical information.

 

Your account entered our collections team as soon as it became delinquent (i.e. no monthly payment was made.) The account was then considered by the Collections team to rate, based on account payment past history and other relevant information, the risk factor associated with that account. Your account was then allocated to a Collections team where it would be kept under regular review by that team until the account is either charged off as a bad debt or returned to normal account function. The names of the individuals within that team are not relevant to your claim and would have varied depending upon who was in that particular team when your account came up for review.

 

I hope that this helps to resolve your query and I would strongly recommend that you discuss this matter with your own legal advisors or the Citizens Advice Bureau before proceeding with this further.

 

Yours sincerely

 

(signed)

*sigh* Oh dear... Guess who'll be on my next Moneyclaim then?

Happy Easter to ME!!!!

"not cost effective for the business to defend given its small value" bla bla blah... "full refund" "gesture of goodwill", etc....

Well, I did tell them it wasn't, but they wouldn't listen!!! So that's £138 to me, and an opening of the way for others .

Wooot - excellent news - happy Easter indeed (to both of us )

Cheers

Michael

Well done, bookworm. The floodgates for credit cards are now wide open!