This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

The debt collector doesn't have an address, only a mobile telephone number and you have received no paperwork! This beggars belief! Anyway you need do nothing until the debt collector actually writes to you. If the debt is more than six years old, and provided you have not acknowledged its existence in writing or paid anything towards it in that time then the debt is statute barred or out of time. The debt is still owed to whoever owns it now but there is nothing they can do to make you pay it. It cannot be relisted as a default and it will not show on your credit file. There is a letter to write to these scavengers to advise them of the statute barred nature of a debt but I can't find a link to it just now. There's no rush though, they haven't written to you yet have they! It is important however not to discuss the matter on the phone. The conversation is at their convenience, you kight say something which you didn't mean to say and it will be recorded. Tell them simply to write to you and hang up.

My experience is similar - £200+ slapped on in charges for an overdrawn situation that was caused by the Shabby's slow processing of cheques. After my request for the money not to be deducted was rejected - two weeks after it happened I demanded a refund within 14 days or face court action. I got the standard "four weeks to consider" note which was actually answered one day after the 14-day deadline with a full refund. The Shabby will not fight but they will place obstacles in the way.

I made a complaint asnd got the same letter. My gripe followed the almost instantaneous deduction of more than £200 from my account because I was overdrawn by £13 for a day. The first four week complaint led to a £50 refund. That wasn't good enough and I let them know stating all of it back within 14 days or court action will follow. Another four week response duly arrived followed 15 days later by news of a further £155 refund - result! Stick to your guns. tell them eight weeks is not good enough and give them your timetable or see you in court.

Abbey appear to have refused my request for copies of statements under SARN. The following letter from Sheena states it will be passed on to the relevant business area with a response "in due course" What do the rest of you make of it? Any suggestions what to do next? Dear Thank you for your letter dated . Transactional data archived onto microfiche are not part of a "relevant filing system" as defined by the Data Protection Act and consequently you would not get this information as part of a Subject Access Request. However, as it is clear from your letter that you still require the multiple statements, I have forwarded your request together with your £10 fee, to the relevant business area to be dealt with as a normal customer service request. There is an administration fee for the supply of microfiche records which are as follows: - £5.00 for 1 monthly statement which has been archived £10.00 for multiple monthly statements, which have been archived. I confirm that they will forward the microfiche records you have requested in due course. You have also asked for details of any "manual interventions" that there may have been on your account. Although I am not entirely clear as to what information it is that you require, I am taking a "manual intervention" to be any action taken with regard to your account other than an automatic or computer-driven action. You will appreciate that first of all, not all manual interventions on your account may be recorded. For example, if a member of staff looks at a paper document relating to your account, a record of that activity will not always be made. Moreover, an "intervention" may be carried out by any one of a large number of departments in Abbey. There is no central record of such interventions because this is not the kind of information that we usually need nor, more importantly, information that a customer would normal request. I regret therefore that I am unable to supply detailed information of any manual intervention. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

I wrote to Abbey complaining of their actions in deduction what amounted to more than £200 in charges on a £13 overdraft - a situation which lasted for just one day. I demanded the money be refunded and gave them 14 days to comply or legal action would follow. The time expired yesterday and I visited the county court at lunchtime to get the forms to begin a claim. When I got home there was a letter from Abbey. Sent 2nd class it had taken five days to make the journey from Milton Keynes! The letter appears below and is an almost complete capitulation on their part with all charges refunded to my account. Dear xxxxxxx etc Having investigated your complaint, I am now writing to confirm the details of my resolution. I am sorry we have given you cause to complain in relation to charges totalling £XXX.00, incurred on your Abbey Bank Account, during the period xxx through to xxx 2006. I have carefully considered the points you have raised, namely that you feel the charges are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999. We do not feel that Abbey's charges are unfair under these regulations. When you opened the account with Abbey, you were provided with Terms and Conditions that detailed the charges that become applicable should you breach the terms of the account. Abbey is up front and transparent about all its banking charges as set out in the tariff of charges. The charges in question were prompted by requests for payment against insufficient available funds. As such, they are valid and in line with our Terms and Conditions. Having carefully reviewed the history of your account however, I can see that you have not incurred charges in the recent past. I am therefore satisfied that the charges in question are the result of an oversight on your part. We do expect our customers to manage their accounts effectively. It is not our intention however to penalise them for one-off lapses. On that basis and as a further gesture of goodwill, I have refunded the charges concerned, totalling £XXX.00. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to monitor your account and ensure there are sufficient funds in your account at all times, even in exceptional circumstances. Any future charges will therefore have to stand. If you are experiencing financial problems of a longer-term nature, you would need to contact our Debt Management Operations department on 0845 6039035 before further charges are incurred. My colleagues there will be happy to provide you with advice and assistance. Please note that no further charges will be refunded on the account. This is my final resolution letter. However, if you would like to discuss the content of this letter or have any new points you believe should be taken into account, and which may make a difference to the outcome of the investigation, please contact me within 14 days of this letter on the above number. If I do not hear from you by then, and you have not asked us to extend that deadline for any reason, I will file my papers accordingly. Should you be dissatisfied with the outcome of our investigation, I would like to remind you that you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I enclose a booklet explaining how to take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and should you wish to do so, there is a time limit of six months from the date of this letter. Yours sincerely etc I take exception to the line about the overdrawn nature of the account being an oversight on my part. It was the fault of the bank not starting to clear a cheque because it was deposited too late in the day. I also take exception to the comment about future charges having to stand - There won't be any - but I have demanded details of previous charges and those will be repaid! Thanks to this forum my account is well in credit and the Abbey have lost another claim.

Further to my previous posts I have read the letter very very carefully and possibly found what the Abbey are doing. My letter asked for a complete list of transactions and charges imposed tn the for the past six years. I then added "Alternatively a complete set of bank statements for that period will be acceptable." The Abbey letter makes much of transactions being microfiched but does not mention of statements at all. I therefore intent to respond by insisting the statements are provided under the original DPA request. Anyone else got other ideas?

Should you not check with someone which address to use to file court papers? In my limited experience I have received letters from the Abbey from Bradford, London, Milton Keynes and they still say I should writeto the branch with any queries!

Many thanks for all your replies. I contacted the IC and they confirmed that microfiche is not covered bythe DPA because it is not a relevant filing system as defined by the Durant ruling. I too have experience of microfiche as it is useful to store documents in a small space but these are already printed documents and I agree with the comment that it is crazy to microfiche what are essentially computer files, I can understand why they are printed out and mailed to customers but not why they would then file them in this way. If they do this it must be horrendously expensive! Ms Small's letter, like many written by the Abbey, are patronising in style. The letterwas accompanied by the 17 months of statements but as I said my account has been in good order recently and it was only Christmas and moving money to a savings account that caused an overdraft situation which only lasted for a day at most. I was offered my cheque back along with a request to let them know what I intend to do. The actual sentence is "I wuld be grateful if you could let me know by return whether you wish to go ahead with the Subject Access request. I shall do so in the method they use - second class post and will consider my demands over the weekend. This letter was the result of a DPA request for six years worth of statements. It runs alongside a demand for the return of monies deducted from the account for charges incurred by the overdraft situation. The Abbey have until Monday to refund around £160 worth of charges and interest. The Abbey have classed the demand as a complaint and require four weeks to consider it before they deem it fair! Any further comments, replies will be gratefully received.

The Abbey deducted charges from my account and I've asked for the money back. This site has been no end of help. Abbey of course are prevaricating. The complaints department say they will need four weeks to carry out an inevstigation. Strange that they can take money from an account in just half that time! Knowing there have been other charges and penalties in the past I asked for all those staments to be able to tot up the amount. Letter from Sheena Small, Data Protection Consultant, says only the past 17 months of statements can be supplied because prior to this date transactions have been archived onto microphiche which is not covered by the DPA. My account has been in pretty good order for the past 30 months - it was the previous 30 months I am particularly interested in. What steps can I now take? Write and demand the details from the Abbey without mentioning the DPA or make an educated guess about the charges? Any help gratefully received.