Just got back from court .... They did not turn up as it said in their letter. The Judge said they have withdrawn it so that’s that! I asked for costs and the Judge pulled his face a bit - and said he would consider it. He then said that they wrote in there letter that they had wrote to me 4 times asking for the money and I never complained and if I had they would not have issued the demand. ... So he said he would consider a percentage as I was partially at fault He then asked if I had sent a copy of my expenses to 1st credit - I said no and he said that’s it then - you can not have expenses. I tried to explain that they were underhand but the Judge would not listen to the OFT report or the letters the OFT sent me. He also would not take in to account that they did not formally assign the debt, and that I presented the recorded delivery slip of the CCA request and they then assigned it to 1st credit a month after they were in default of the CCA and I informed 1st credit that there was a dispute and that the account was in dispute – but they argued in their letter that I did not make it clear that it was a CCA dispute!!!! He just would not listen At least the OFT have taken some action.

Thanks Michael I have already reported them to the OFT, and the OFT asked for permission to release my details to them so that they could talk with them about the case. However they probably would know this? plus I really do not expect to see them there. I really have spent over 40 hours including research, but I will reduce it if this looks like I am going over the top. I guess I just did not have any background and wanted to be sure what I was doing, and maybe I have not picked things up too quickly. I was considering knocking 10-15 hours off, I assume this would be seen as reasonable?

Thanks for the information, the 40 hours included all the research reading through cases on here, to figure out what to do and writting to the OFT, so if its just time preparing letters and putting the evidence together for the claim then it will be a lot less. All other costs are next to nothing. If out of the blue 1st credit were to turn up, do we just run as normal? or do I jump all over them about the letter saying they will not be there? If they do and I need to fight them, I should win in anycase but does anyone have any advice on angles that I need to have covered against them? If they walk in with my CCA does that count? or do I need to have had time to check it in advance etc? This on its own should not be enough for them to win as the owe me thousands on penalty charges but I would just have to trust that the judge would take the penalty charges in to account.

I am in court tomorrow with this!!! 1st Credit have said they wont be attending - and say they have wrote to the court to advise them they are formally withdrawing the stat demand What should I be expecting in court? - Will I still have to put my case over - or is it just a case of me claiming my expenses? For my expenses what prep work do I need to do and what is reasonable to claim, I was thinking that the research that I have done is probably over 40 hours - is this reasonable? I have not taken any time off work so I assume my only real expense is my time? What advise does everyone have on this?

wow I am shocked, am I doing something wrong on ofcom I can only find 3 things about this company, the first is saying that ofcom approves them, and the 2 are something else, but I can not find the bit with complaints. The bit I am look at is ... Ofcom website - search results: onebill telecom What is the link to find complaints on ofcom about this company.

I have put my complaint in to the OFT, as well as complaining to the district judge about their conduct and requesting a restraining order. They have just edged my account over the £750 mark so that they could send it out, its a clasic example of how these people work. I think they were originally asking for around £400!!! Plus they would not send me a CCA or give me back the £1.5k that they took in charges. I am going to push to get this back next, but I might need some help there as I bottled out when I got to the court stage. As they owe me over £750 can I issue a stat demand back?

Is the rest okay do I just need to take out .. "I believe this to be a frivolous and unlawful action as the demand does not state a county court on it, and nothing has been 'served'."

Is this okay? The debt is totally disputed. This has been raised with the original creditor but despite the bona-fide dispute the debt has been passed on. This I believe to be a completely vexatious and unlawful action and an abuse of the Insolvency service. The original creditor has not completed a section 78(1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 request submitted on xx/xx/xxxx, s78(6) Consumer Credit Act 1974 is active preventing the original creditor from enforcing the agreement at all either with or without a court order until it has completed the request. The debtor is currently going through the process of reclaiming in excess of £1500 of excessive penalty charges. I believe this to be a frivolous and unlawful action as the demand does not state a county court on it, and nothing has been 'served'. I gracefully request that the demand is dismissed, and in light of the frivolous and unlawful nature of this demand and the upset this has caused me and my family, I request the judge order the claimant pay my full costs and makes an indemnity award and orders the claimant to remove any adverse default information that has been put on my files. I also request that the judge grants a bankruptcy restraining order in my favour against this company.

Thanks 42 man Is this all I need to put ? "The debt is totally disputed. This has been raised with the original creditor but despite the bona-fide dispute the debt has been passed on. This I believe to be a completely vexatious and unlawful action and an abuse of the Insolvency service. The debtor is currently going through the process of reclaiming in excess of £1500 of excessive penalty charges. I believe this to be a frivolous and unlawful action as the demand does not state a county court on it, and nothing has been 'served'." Or do I need to explain more about Citi's poor response to my CCA request back in september? and quote the case law examples etc?

Yep the good old Associates

mine would be a very old agreement from about 10 years ago

This is a copy of the thread I have opened in another forum, but I have been asked to put it here as well as it involves Citi The original link is http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/183101-statutory-demand-citifinancial-1st.html#post1973074 I have just got a Statutory demand relating to Citifinance, I am not sure if it looks legit, it lists 1st credit as the creditor and also connaught as the creditor and it is over an alleged debt to Citi Finance! It also says "[your local court]" in brackets for where it should say the court that is supposed to be dealing with it. To have it set aside it says I have 18 days from when it was served To do so I have to apply to the court mentioned in section A - where it does not give a court - it justs says [your local court] and it must be supported by an affidavit, and that the forms are available from the local court?!?!?! This was waiting for me in a pile of post and is dated the 21/1/09 but there is no postage date on the envelope, so according to this it is all ready too late for me to do anything. The alleged debt is for £752 I requested a CCA from Citi 6 months ago and they sent out terms and conditions printed from their website a few months later. I dont owe Citi this money - plus they owe me nearly £1.5k in penalty charges which Citi have refused to pay me. What do I do? Is it too late to do anything? the letter appears to imply that it is too late now, but I have only just got it and have no idea what I need to do and have no time to do it!!!!

Any advice on how to apply to set it aside - will this still be an option or will the court refuse as it is not within the 18 days that is on their letter? Also who do I report them to for abuse of the process? the courts? OFT FAS? As it stands they could claim that they did not abuse the process and had all intentions of following it up!?! Thanks everyone for you help, it will make sleeping tonight easier

yep the blue triangle is there lol Well they have me worried, Citi and 1st credit have already been informed that it is in serious dispute and I thought I remembered 1st credit giving up on it and passing it back as I informed them that Citi had failed to provide a CCA etc. I am just worried that this may stand up and they might say its too late for me to defend myself and its my fault that I did not get it in time etc.

I have just got a Statutory demand relating to Citifinance, I am not sure if it looks legit, it lists 1st credit as the creditor and also connaught as the creditor and it is over an alleged debt to Citi Finance! It also says "[your local court]" in brackets for where it should say the court that is supposed to be dealing with it. To have it set aside it says I have 18 days from when it was served To do so I have to apply to the court mentioned in section A - where it does not give a court - it justs says [your local court] and it must be supported by an affidavit, and that the forms are available from the local court?!?!?! This was waiting for me in a pile of post and is dated the 21/1/09 but there is no postage date on the envelope, so according to this it is all ready too late for me to do anything. The alleged debt is for £752 I requested a CCA from Citi 6 months ago and they sent out terms and conditions printed from their website a few months later. I dont owe Citi this money - plus they owe me nearly £1.5k in penalty charges which Citi have refused to pay me. What do I do? Is it too late to do anything? the letter appears to imply that it is too late now, but I have only just got it and have no idea what I need to do and have no time to do it!!!!

Can anyone advise a friend of mine who has an EGG card. She got a call out of the blue telling her that she owed £160 which needed to be paid straight away. She said have you not been paid by my direct debit? They said no So she ageed to pay as much as she could afford and told she had to pay the rest within 14 days. She then checked her bank statements and found that she had paid the monthly direct debits and had not missed a payment???? She was then told that at one point several months ago she went over her limit and ever since they have been charging her £16 per month which was never covered by the direct debit that she had setup. To add insult to injury she only got bills online and her online system stopped letting her log in last year (we have now found out that this was because she went over the limit then and thats when the charges started and the online system stopped letting her log in to check her account) They are now calling her 4 times a day to try and collect money that is 100% for penalty charges that she does not have. On the 19th Nov she sent a SAR about the charges but they have still not got back to her. What should she do? She does not want bad credit refs, but she believes that she does not owe the money and they will not listen to her explaining that the account is in dispute! Any help? :-?

I moved to OneBill Telecom a few months ago and in fairness I have found that they are fantastic. I felt trying to sort things out with BT was like banging my head against the wall, but I get straight through to a human at One Bill that understands me and sorts out what I need instead of passing me about. My bill with One Bill has dropped to about half the price of what it was costing me with BT and I do not use the phone any less. Yes I do have to pay for the extra features that I have on my line like call minder but I had to pay BT this in any case. I now pay nearly £60 less for my line rental every year and I get my calls for a fraction of what BT used to charge me. All in all it has saved me a fortune and I think I get a better service now.

To me this looks like an application form, but it does say regulated by the consumer credit act. It also says to accept our invitation please complete this priority request form. None of the terms appear to be on this form, but I think I can make out something in the signiture area saying that I aknowledge that I have a copy of the terms and conditions before I sign. Ther terms and conditions that have the APR etc are 4 pages long and have been printed out and sent to me with this form, but they are clearly just printed from a template and have no date to say if they are the latest or supposed to be the ones from the time the form was signed. Basically what I am dealing with is an application form that says I agree with the terms and conditions floating about for the consumer credit act. Anyone know where I stand with this? I would have thought I have a good case but is it as strong as I imagine or am I being over optimistic?

I have now got 5 CCA's returned to me, 1 of them is unreadable but the rest of them are okay. I know there are certain things that must appear on the CCA to make them count. One of these I believe is that it must be a CCA and not an application form, but does the mere mention of a credit agreement make it one as oppose a mere application form? From what I have read the main things that I am looking for is if it states the APR and if it is really an application form. Is there any other things that I should be looking for when evaluating if what they have sent me is an enforceable CCA? One thing that I have noticed is that some are putting a whole stack of T&C information along with the original form which has been clearly printed at a later date. Or putting a copy of a leaflet with it to show the APR etc. On another it was an internet application there is no signature just a tick box that they have ticked to say they received the application online. Any support anyone can offer on figuring out my CCA's would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rory, I am unsure where to go with this now, I strongly suspect at least £12k on my cards does not have a CCA. However I have tried to do the DMP myself and most companies have ignored it, which I can only assume is because I have done it myself or that they do not believe it. So I feel I have no choice but to let the CCCS take over as I suspect that a few creditors are about ready to hand it over to DCA's The problem I have is that until I find another job I can only scrape £35 together which is a fraction of what I owe. This means that some creditors only get offered £1 per month which they are obviously not happy with. Am I therefore best off to let the CCCS do their stuff and then CCA everyone once I am earning again? or if the CCCS fail to make all the agreements.

Hello, I am currently going through the hardest financial time of my life, I have about £32k worth of debts and lost my job about 6 months ago. I have managed to hold off my creditors with the advice and templates that are on this site, in the hope that I would have found another job by now. I have so far put together a payment plan which pro-rata’s the token payments between creditors but most have not replied, and the few that have want more than there share. I have just found the CCCS and have my first meeting with them this week, I just hope I have not left it too late or messed things up with my previous letters to my creditors. I would appreciate as much advice as people have to offer me regarding my circumstances at the moment. I do have a question regarding CCA requests, a lot of my debts are from very old credit cards so from what I have read on here there is a good chance that there will be no CCA. Am I right in thinking that I might be able to reduce a large amount of my debt by doing CCA requests and if so when should I do this? My concerns are that it might get in the way of what the CCCS is going to be doing and it might make creditors less likely to agree a proposal with them. On the other side is it too late now as I have already tried my own proposal and corresponded with my creditors thus acknowledging the debt? Or does this not matter as I would not be disputing the debt, but disputing the fact that there is an agreement between us. Again by bringing in the CCCS does this not also imply that I accept there is an agreement in place? Can anyone help?

Thanks again Chris I am glad I have you on my side I have already sent them a letter like that to which they responded with the letter I put on here saying there is no executed agreement as it does not apply to overdrafts. So I will follow up my complaint with HSBC which was they would not communicate with me to set up a repayment plan. I will also post my SAR to HSBC to see if they have followed the rules to get them out of section V. Once I have that info back I will do another letter pointing out that they did need to follow section V (assuming they have not meet all the criteria) By the way I did the CCA to Metro as they were the ones chasing, should I now send one to HSBC to cover my back? or does the one to Metro back in December cover me? On another note I am about to start getting help from the CCCS and they are going to offer everyone a token payment I suspect, again am I right in thinking that this will not damage my option to CCA everyone? and does anyone have any experience on whether I should CCA everyone before CCCS has made agreements or after. I can understand them telling CCCS to go jump if they have already seen me trying to catch them out with a CCA. Thanks again everyone.

Changed it to add the agreements bit Please supply me with a complete copy of all correspondence, notices, notes, transcripts, specifically any contracts or agreements that you claim to exist between us, and any other documentation relating to my banking history with your organisation.

Do you think I should also send a letter to HSBC pushing my complaint to the FOS? or is it true what Metro say in their letter that this acknowledges the agrement? The advantage to doing so will be that Metro can not chase while I am waiting for my SAR etc

I should send this to HSBC data protection officer not Metro right?