Won against Smile - here, if only Barclays were as helpfull!!! Still onward march!

p.s. ALL OF MY COMMUNICATION WAS DONE THRU SECURE MESSAGES. NO LETTERS WERE SENT, AND I NEVER THREATENED THEM WITH COURT EVEN AFTER 14 DAYS AFTER PRELIM. ALL I SAID WAS "I WOULD HAVE TO TAKE FURTHER ACTION" GOOD LUCK TO ALL OTHER "SMILE'RS"

Well well, it all seems a bit of an anti-climax after all the leg work & research, but smile have just deposited £1300 in my account!!! YIPPEE!!!! Thanks to all for great advice from everyone, and for posting your encouraging progress. Well, just counting down the days before barclays LBA exprires. See my progress here When the Barclays Fat Cat pays up I will be sending my donation... Thanks again to all CAG'ers

Tick tock tick tock... seems like I am checking my secure messages every day now, awaiting the payment!!! did receive a "we are looking into you complaint, so you should hear from us shortly" message, about a week ago. By my reckoning they have about 3 days to pay up before I start an MCOL. Watch this space

Hi Allie, Just write to smile asking for SAR (Subject Access Request), and they have to supply all info they hold on you, the "Subject". As long as you give your name & address details, and this is the same as when you held the account, they have to find your details and send it onwards. The one SAR request should cover the Current Acc, Loan & CC. Just remember to send the £10 and sent it recorded delivery. Good luck! Boba Fett

NO LETTER FROM BARCLAYS AT ALL!!! LBA going on Monday! Hmpfff

I thought this was ammended to "Fairness & Balance" as per Bank Fodder?

Hi Caro, The tariff is constant, but has gone up over the years. It used to be quite cost effective at £6/month, but £10/month is quite high but it does include travel insurance, green flag breakdown cover & £200 int free overdraft. Still waiting for their resonse, (or cleared funds ) Boba

I disagree, any account you hold with a bank or credit card in a Joint name, is "Jointly & Severaly Liable". This is the banks clause so that if one of you "Dissapears", the other one is liable for the full debt. As all contracts must be equal according to "Fairness & Balance", this means any repayment is "Jointly & Severaly Liable" ie/ Either one of you can take the full payment of this sum of monies. How you decide to share those monies is your concern not the banks. This is NOT the case if you are only a "Named Card Holder" on someone elses account. In this case the account holder is solely liable, and the only one who can claim for a refund. I think this is correct anyway! Good luck!

Really!!! Boo to all you non-donating people!!!

Hey all, Just sitting browsing the threads and something just occured to me... Suggested donation to CAG is 5% when a claim is settled... Current Survey Results stand at around £7,415,756... :o If half the people who win donate, that becomes £3,707,878... Of which 5% = £185,394 So by that reckoning, BF now drives a Porsche!!! ONLY JOKING BTW - BEFORE YOU TEAR MY HEAD OFF! :grin: You will certainly be getting my donation on PayDay! 8-)

Got the standard smile response today, (12th Feb) which is as follows:- 4 weeks - PAH! Anyway, they have had 5 says since my Prelim post, so 9 days before LBA. I hope they pay up, as I said I like Smile, and don't want to have to go through the court motions... Unlike Barclays, where I am prepared to go the whole way & screw every last penny from them!!! :grin: :grin: Will post in 9 days if I dont hear before then! P.S. All communication so far has been by Secrure Message, except print out of charges which was posted. So there has been no costs so far, not even the £10 SAR fee. Would recommend this at the early stages, as I hate snail mail!!!

OK, so I got 4 A4 envelopes stuffed full of 6 years worth of statements... Spent all evening sorting through them all, talk about flick-book of your life! Was very weird! Anyway, the totals are:- Account 1: Fees £425, Stat Interest £704, Total £1129 Account 2: Fees £665, Stat Interest £300, Total £965 Grand total = £2,094 As you can see, account 1 was the older account, hence the higher compound interest rate. So, have finalised the letter and schedule of charges, which are going 1st Class today! (09th Feb 2007) so they have until 23rd Feb to respond... Cheers, Boba:cool:

Well done MSA. Still waiting for my statements from Barclays, but have sent off first letter to "Smile" asking for £1300 back At least there is hope at the end the (7 month long) tunnel! Boba

Charges letter received... added all up comes to around £1300. I have sent my first letter "Asking for refund" via secure message. p.s. I have not asked for any interest at all at this stage! Lets count the days! Cheers Boba

Good luck all - keep us updated as soon as you know the score!

Gary, Another point to consider, I noticed a paragraph on the NI courts website about small claims which states that a standard rate of 8% may be claimed, unless another rate of interest applies. http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/NR/rdonly...SCOL_guide.doc (page 11) There is alo a guidance by OFT (Link somewhere in these threads) Therefore, in court, if you can show details of the banks Unauthorised Overdraft EAR you can use the same rate for your claim - typically between 15% - 35%! Good luck!

Gary, Your problem stems from rounding up! The actual rate is 8% APR. When you divide this by 365 you get 0.021917808219178082191780821917808% Now to make things easier, this is quoted as 0.022%. If you are using a speadsheet to work out the calcs, the value will be lower, but if you work out with a calculator for example, and you round UP to 0.022% you will get a higher figure. I think as long as you use the same method for all your calculations, no-one is going to argue if you round up such a small fraction of a %. Cheers Boba

Latest secure message from Smile, received today 05/02/07 Looking forward to counting through these charges! Will update when received.

Ladybird, didn't plan to confuse anyone - sorry if I have! If the above is too complex, then the speadsheets are brilliant. All I wanted to do was show HOW the interest is worked out, so that if you want to work out your own speadheet (like I did) you know the formula. You are right! I bet the first people that claimed were happy to get any money and not to have gone to court! However, those early birds have empowered us to fight more aggressively, and stick it to the banks! p.s. I AM a newbie! Just waiting for my statements following S.A.R - (Subject Access Request). Boba Fett

How long left now??? Come on, I need the next installment!

OK... while waiting for the statements, I have drafted up my first letter. I know that there are loads of existing templates, but I thought it may be a good idea to quote some of the more recent activities in the letter, which would a) Show them I am learned (thanks CAG) b) Make it clear that I will pursue to the end c) Show that the courts are getting fed up... Here is the draft letter, comments are welcome, nay, encouraged... Thanks, Boba Fett

Hi All, Just a quick message, as I know there are mixed opinions and ideas in here, but I have made up my mind to go for Compounded Contractual Interest. I am pretty good with Excel, and have found the short formula for working out the compound interest. I know there are existing spreadsheets, but the following is for reference. Ct = C x ( (1 + Rd) ^ D ) Where:- Ct = Charge Total, C = Initial Charge, Rd =Daily Rate, D = No Days Open ^ = 'to the power of' function on your calc. So... If the initial charge was £30, taken on the 1st Jan 2007, D becomes 35 days. The unauthorised overdraft rate for Barclays is 27.5% EAR. This divided by 365 = Rd = 0.075%. So the formula becomes: £30 x ( ( 1 + 0.075%) ^ 35 ) = £30.80. If the charge was taken on 05/02/2001 (6 years ago today); D = 2919 days. So: £30 x ( ( 1 + 0.075% ) ^ 2919 ) = £156.23 As you can see compound interest increases the value of a 6 year old charge by over 5 times!!! So you can see why it makes sense to make that extra claim! :D Also, I noticed a paragraph on the NI courts website about small claims which states that a standard rate of 8% may be claimed, unless another rate of interest applies. http://www.courtsni.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/83F481EB-19FD-46C3-8482-03123DA3D2BD/0/SCOL_guide.doc (page 11) As such, in court, you can prove the banks EAR and use the same rate (Reciprical agreements and all that jargon.) Anyways, just my two-pence worth, I am still waiting for my statements to come though Cheers & good luck! Boba Fett 8-)

Still no news from Barclays, looks like they are using the whole 40 days... Shame I didn't keep all my statements as this would have speed up the process some what! Oh well, will keep waiting!!! What is the usual leadtime for Copy of Statements from Barclays at the moment? Cheers Boba