Thanks toneight Slippery customers. Will start court papers today.

I have today received a reply to my letters requesting refund of charges from the Funding Corporation:- 1. As advised the OFT statement did not apply to bank charges or loan charges. The OFT statement of 5 April 2006 was amended to reflect this the following month. On reading through the Oft statement of 18 May 2006 it states "The OFT also calls on banks and other financial businesses to apply the same principles when calculating default charges in other consumer contracts such as bank overdrafts, store card contracts and mortgages where and as appropriate" ????? 2. Section 5 of your Credit Agreement details the fees applicable should you breach the terms of the Agreement. You state in your letter that we concealed the true nature of the charges, clearly this is not the case. 3. I confirm the total amount of fees paid by you to date is £130, and there are a further £130 of outstanding fees on the agreement. When reclaiming fees can fees that have been added to my account but not paid be reclaimed? Anyone help? 4. The charges have been applied in accordance with the terms and conditions you agreed to by signing the credit Agreement, for breach of contract and our costs incurred in contacting you to recover the monies. As per our telephone conversation this extends beyond sending a letter to you. 5. It is not possible to correspond only in writing with you. Isn't this a letter? 6. We do not consider the contact to be harassment as it is the pursuit of a legitimate debt, and our contact is in accordance with the OFT Debt Collection Guidelines. In view of the above we do not accept your request for a refund of the charges. I appreciate this is not the answer you were looking for and regret I am unable to assist you further. Please note that under the terms of our Complaints Proceedure, this is our final response. This is probably their standard "sod off" letter. But can anyone clarify the situation whereby charges have been applied to an account but not paid? I am continuing with the claim through the court route but need to know about these charges.

Last year I decided to take out a cosolidation loan to pay off outstanding credit card accounts which I was unable to pay due to illness. My monthly payments were paid through D/D. I took the loan out with Magic Loans who used the Funding Corporation. Over the last 9 months due to insufficient funds in my account at the date of payment not only was I charged by the bank for retirning the request but was also charged by the funding Corporation. If a payment had been returned the Funding corporation would telephone and I would make a payment over the phone. Earlier this year I successfully reclaimed charges from my bank, however when two D/Ds were returned to the Funding Corporation the bank stopped the D/D. I thought no more of this since I phoned every month to pay on the day with a debit card. Last month the Funding Corporation phoned me a day after the payment was due, on my mobile and landline several times during the day. When I answered I was told that as well as the payment due I had to pay another £120 charges. Annoyed I asked what these charges were for and was told for D/D returns. After getting no joy from the operator I asked to speak to her supervisor, who after several minutes replied. He told me that he had been listening in on the conversation. On questioning him it transpired that several charges had been applied to my account. Since no statements had been sent to me, as is company policy, I was clueless as to what these charges were for. After a heated conversation I did as he suggested and wrote for statements of my account. A week later the statement arrived together with a highlighted terms and agreements document. Several charges had been made to my account, £40 for returned D/D, £30 for memos etc. In the conversation with the supervisor when mentioning the cost of the charges he clearly stated that as I had a mortgage account( this is actually a secured loan account) the issue of reclaiming penalty charges didn't apply to them. On speaking again to the operator I asked clearly several times if the charges applied to my account were penalty charges to which she replied every time"yes these are penalty charges" she then refered to a paragraph of the agreement which refered to charges. Last week the payments were due again and the telephone began to ring. This time they used number witheld, but I knew it was them as they left there usual message . Payment was sent to them by post. I also wrote a letter using the telephone harasment template telling them to contact me in writing only and stated that any further calls would be recorded and sent a template letter requesting refund of penalty charges. Their first reply informed me that as they are a "telephone based company" all contact with customers was made by telephone as they charge £30 for every letter sent. They also repliedthat they did not give permission for me to record telephone conversations as such calls would be null and void. Finally the state that this letter added another £30 fee to my account. Today I received two more letters, one a response from their complaints dept and two , one for myself and one for my wife each stating that they had not received my payment and were adding another £30 to my account for sending this letter. It will be obvious that their "investigations" will take time but I have given them the statuatory 14 days letter regarding fee refunds. Several questions have been raised:- Are they exempt from customers reclaiming charges? Can they continue not to supply statements unless specifically requested? and if requested to send monthly statements should they ? If nowhere in their information including terms amd conditions states that they are a telephone based company can they make you telephone rather than send letters when as is an individuals right to ask for no calls? Can they charge £30 or whatever fee for contact by mail? Can they stop you from recording telephone conversations? I would appreciate any imput. Sorry for such a long thread.

£2000 fees are forBroker Fee. The loan was originally applied for through Magic Loans although the agreement is with the Funding Foundation and the paperwork is through Loan One Plus a trading name of the Funding foundation. I have the agreement which has a legal charge on the property. On the agreement there is a list of charges from telephone collection costs of £20 to Tracing costs of £60. It may be helpful for someone to compile lists of which companies are associated with others, I note reading a different thread that MBNA are associated with Loans.co.uk. Which other banks are associated with which other loan companies, insurance companies etc? Are the banks using associated companies to find loopholes for charging excessive charges?

After getting into debt with several credit cards in 2006 I decided to get a secure consolidation loan. This paid off all my debts by taking out a £20000 loan. As I decided that I did't want to take out a PPI with this company they said that they would have to apply £2000 additional fee. I started repayments last year and due to long term illness I was inevitably late with some repayments, although all payments were within a month of the due date. Recently I phoned to make a monthly payment as usual using my debit card and was told that I had to make payment for charges incurred for late payment. After a heated conversation with the advisor and her superior I had to write requesting a statement. No statements are issued by this company unless requested by mail. On receiving the statements I see that a charge for a returned direct debit is £40 and other memos £30. Although I queried the assistant on the phone about these charges being penalty charges, her reply to my question "are these penalty charges" five times being "yes these are penalty charges", she adamantly stated that as this was not a current account or credit card account I couldn't reclaim any of these charges. The supervisor plainly stated that as the loan was a mortgage reclaims for charges were not applicable. Is this the case? I was told that if I had any complaints to contact the FSA. The loan was taken out as a secured loan on my property and not as a mortgage. Is there any difference? Is this another loophole for finance institutions to raise easy capital? Can anyone shed any light?

Unfortunately we have to await the outcome of the oft case which could be weeks or months. I was told by the judge that as soon as there is an outcome I just contact the court for the case to be relisted, no court fees to pay. Whatever the outcome Citi will loose out. If the fees deemed fair by the oft case are lower than the £12 suggested limit they will either pay the difference between that figure and the £30 fee they charge at present plus all court costs and interest, as they would bee deemed the loosing party, or disregard the figures from the oft case and continue to fight and loose cases in court, which judging by current solicitors' fees will cost them more in fees than is actually being claimed from them claimed. In my case Citi never even offered the difference between the £12 oft figure and their £30 charges. The original claim was for £950. So far They have had to employ solicitors to attend court twice, a third time when the case is re listed, and will have to pay interest on the outstanding claim until the case is resumed. If they loose the case then it will have cost them many more times the cost of the original claim.

I attended court today for a hearing that had been set aside from July. Citis' representative from a local firm of solicitors turned up late and was only given the court bundle citi was to rely on, as I was, this morning, one hour before the case was due. The court bundle was prepared by Eversheds LLP, 1 Callaghan Square, Cardiff a firm of solicitors, head office London. Having only had a few minutes to look through the bundle I recognise several pages that appear to have been used by Citi's internal solicitors and as such contained several inaccuracies. Are they employing different tactics? The bundle contains a skeleton argument of 14 pages, witness statement from John Allan Jones, oft report, case law Phillips v attorney general of Hong Kong, Potter v Citi, Dunlop v Newgarage Pre the hearing I talked to the solicitor who told me he had not received my court bundle as apparently Citi hadn't received it. I produced a Royal Mail tracking receipt to show him that my bundle had been received and signed for at the Salford office. To cut down on paperwork for my bundle I submitted case laws, Government early day motion, oft full report, Dunlop v Newgarage, Murray v Leisureplay, UTCCR 1999, UCTA 1977, SOGA 1982, and Matnamara statement on cd with relevant passages in my evidence relating to the disc for the full reports. I did this as both times I have been to court the judges have had laptops. This obviosly would be up to the judge to accept but it does save enormous amounts of printing. Immediately we saw the Judge, a deputy district judge, she informed us that she was under the impression that all such cases, regardless of them being for credit card claims, were to be stayed, but she wanted to confirm this from the district judge. She ajourned for 20 minuits to confirm. Meanwhile Citis' solicitor contacted Eversheds to confirm whether they wished to proceed today, as I had stated that I wished to proceed, they also said they wanted to procced today. On returning to the judge she told us that although both parties wished to proceed she was staying the case. She quoted an order from Civil Judge Hume QC case 7QT4849 at Winchester c/c who gave his reason as to avoid large cost orders against the claimants if they lost. This wouldn't happen in this case as it was through small claims track. All the cases within the Carlisle district are all being stayed. I hope this information will be helpful to other claimants.

The reason for the set aside is because "the defendant has a defence to this matter and ought to be allowed to present this to court" Surely if this is the case then why didn't they supply the defence within the allotted time limit? Stalling tactics until they had the result of Potter V citi?

After going through the mass of paperwork sent from citi (one month over the 40 day limit) I now see that the loan company paid Citi Cards the sum of £2334.48, confirmation of settlement 13/06/07 on print out of activity from Citi. Where were Hillsden and 1st credit involved? Nowhere! I shall send copies of Citi's statements together wiyh a letter to the court.

I have a six page copy of the order between Timothy Potter and Citifinancial Europe in Salford County court case no 6QZ39123 6th June.The judge heard evidence from the solicitor for the defence and considered the written submission of and documents lodged by the claimant. I can send a copy of such for reference if anyone is interested by email.

Today have received a notice of hearing of application for a set aside by citi at my local court on 24th July. A judgement by default was issued on 1st June to pay by 7th. No payment.Today I received this set aside application, 12th June, together with a defence and copy of a case 6th June at Salford in which the claim was dismissed. On the reverse of the application notice following evidence states:- "The claimants account charged off owing £2407.32.The claimant simply never paid to the defendant the sum claimed whether in fees or at all and as such there can be no debt." "The defendant defends default fee claimed and encloses a decision in one such,Potter v Citifinance, which it intends to rely upon at the hearing, together with a copy of the draft defence." The account was closed May 2006 and total of £2334.78 paid to Citi through a loan taken out to pay off all my credit cards. This money was paid directly by the loan company,it may have been to "Hillesden" or 1st credit but since payment I have received nothing from either requesting money etc. In a final passage of the defence Citi claim that I have an outstanding balance on my account held by 1st credit and as such, never paid the balance of my account, including default fees imposed. This is a total lie. Can I send anything to the court to correct this information or have the defence strucvk out? I would be grateful of any help.

Thanks for your speedy reply. I will persue the charges, through the courts if necessary, it costs me very little as I am exempt from fees and have very helpful court staff. ( Penrith is a small court and service of claims etc seem to go out the same day of issue). I have plenty of time since I will be incapacitated for some time. Hope your health improves ,thanks.Nick

Hi sorry to butt in but I am about to reclaim charges from mbna. I have an mbna credit card on which I took out PPI. 18 months ago I became ill and claimed through the PPI. My card had reached its limit but the PPI covered the minimum monthly payment. I am still claiming and on looking through my last years statements I noticed a late payment fee was applied every month of £10. This increased to £12 in the last two months. I also noticed that the premium for the insurance which is dependable upon the outstanding balance is still being deducted every month. Obviously I can reclaim the late payment charges, applied because the insurance company changed the date of payment without my knowledge, but what I am wondering is can they still take insurance premiums every month while I am still ill? Because of these my monthly balance goes down very little. Can anybody help? P.S having taken information from your site I have managed to get refunds from NatWest,First Direct,Capital One, and LLoyds TSB and Citi card both by default at court.

Sorry forgot to say no littigation cases against Citi cards in littigation section.

Thanks for the info. A few points- Since I am exempt from paying court fees My claim was made at court because exemption paperwork can't be processed throgh MCOL, will this make any difference? or shal I ammend the letters accordingly. One of my claims is against lloyds tsb on an estimated claim. A request was sent to lloyds tsb Gresham st together with £10 requesting statements.(4/3/07) The day before the 40 day limit expired I telephoned the number on the back of one of my three remaining statements to ask of progress, this after a second reminder letter was sent. The assistant told me that I had sent it to the wrong address although Gresham St is the registered office, and I should send another request including another £10 to customer services Brighton. I asked to be transferred by phone to the Gresham St premises but was told they didn't have a number, they haven't an email either and the only way to contact them was by snail mail. Incenced by this I sent a letter to Brighton requesting statements to be sent within the next seven days otherwise I would start court proceedings for estimated charges. No reply has been recived and after 7 days I put the papers into court (1st May 2007). I still have no statements. Will this affect applying for defence to be struck out? Will the recent court case involving lloyds affect supporting evidenceof other cases? Lastly there appear to be no successful cases in the littigation section, should I go through forums to find cases? Thanks for your help, sorry if this is long winded