Thank you! My friend has passed on her thanks to all of the advice you have given her. Thanks guys - you are all fab! Bel

Thanks Guys, With hindsight I've just told her that this might be a blessing in disguise. She has it in writing from Satan's Bank that they should have cancelled the PPI years ago and that the relevant department would be in touch. They never did. That admission has a knock on effect on the DN not by a few £100 but by at least £6000... in her favour! She also has a statement where they took their calculation of the PPI off. Her complaints has still not been responded to in full. I'm sure if a carefully drafted letter to whoever now owns this points all this out and confirms that she will be taking them to court for the return of 8 years worth of PPI plus interest , having paid peanuts in the £ to buy it from Satan, I'm sure they won't want to be paying out any more! What do you think - she would rather just be shot of them Bel

That was my first thought Brig but I thought they legally had to send a letter advising her of this? Also having admitted that they had applied PPI when they shouldn't have, taken it off, how can they add it back on and then sell it on??? How dodgy is that! Bel

Hi All, Very odd! Just had a call from my friend who has received another statement from Santander. She has been away for two weeks and it arrived the day she left. This one shows the PPI back on the balance but here's the odd thing - the balance was then zeroed! A credit was applied to the balance so it now stands at £0. I asked her what else was in the envelope and she said nothing. No deed of assignment or anything. I asked her if she had received any other letters from DCA's etc and she said no. Should she be cautiously optimistic? Bel

I forgot to say that the letter also stated that they have stated that they will either pass or sell the debt on for collection and pass on default information to the CRA's

Ok, A little bit of movement. My friend has called to say that Santander have now sent her a termination notice for the Flexible Loan (which they have now called a Personal Loan) for half the amount that was on the original default notice. She has still to hear from them regarding the PPI as promised by the sender of below who said that the DN was perfect. I think she should ask how they came to this figure as afar as she is concerned, she had originally indicated her wish to cancel the PPI 8 years ago via their contact manager to which they say they have no record. A rough calculation on that basis with 8% interest comes to a lot more than what they have reduced it by. Also, they have still to respond fully to her letter of complaint. What should her next steps be? Thanks, Bel

Hi Brigadier, Just double checked iwth her. It states an amount but no date to pay that amount by. Are you about to say that that still makes it sound even without the date? However........ whilst we were talking, we suddenly realised that as Santander have now acknowledged that they should have cancelled her PPI at least 2 years ago, if not more should they find the communications from cahoot, then it goes without saying that the amount shown on the DN is wrong as it includes incorrectly levied PPI charges and interest on top to whenever they stopped charging interest. She has also had a look thought the information that they sent for her SAR and it doesn't go back far enough, even though when she sent it, it covered the time when she asked to cancel the PPI via the cahoot account messenger. What are you thoughts on them completely blanking the Notice of Arrears from andyorch? Thanks Brig, Bel

"However, when looking at the remedy date, I noticed that there wasn't one! In it's place it said that the remedy date was 14 days from date of service, nothing else! No you must pay by 20th Feb or we may do X, Y or Z."

Hi Brigadier, The DN had no date on it at all in which my friend should take action by, that's what I found so strange! I have the email address of the CEO, worth a punt to him do you think? Bel

Hi All, My friend received a response from Santander today in response to her letter of complaint. There is absolutely no acknowledgement or response at all to the Notice of Arrears 2006 failure even though that was the main part of the letter. She had asked for PPI to be cancelled over 5 years ago via the cahoot message system and it wasn't actioned. Santander say that they have no record of this request! When she last wrote to them two years ago, she asked for it to be cancelled again and it still wasn't actioned. We mentioned it in the letter and they have responded by sending her a cheque for £70 by way of an apology for not actioning it before and that it being referred to the relevant department to be further investigated. Should she cash the cheque? They fobbed her off about the unfair increase rise because no error has been made as it is a flexi loan and is within the T&C's She had queried why her statements said Flexi Loan, yet the default notice said Fixed Loan and their response was it looks like a fixed loan as monthly interest has been suspended as it's in default. In response to the defective DN notice and state that having reviewed her account, they have not breached their requirements under the CCA 1974 and the default stands even though there was no date on it. They have then referred her to the FOS as they have nothing further to add! She still has to hear back re the PPI and why it was not originally cancelled but what would you suggest she does in the meantime? Thanks all, Bel

Thanks Andy, She sent the letter on Monday and we will wait to hear back from her/Santander. Thanks again for such a detailed response. Bel

Wow, Thanks for this Andy. As you know from a previous thread any help directly or indirectly that helps me stick it to Santander makes my day! Ok, I will be going round tomorrow tomorrow morning to help her draft her letter. My original basis was to state the following That the DN is defective as it fails to show a specific remedy date That the amount shown to remedy includes incorrect amounts That the amount shown includes unfair interest and charges Basically point three is based on the unfair interest rate increase that they had been paying out on. Is it still worth having a go on this? With reference of the Arrears Notice Penalty, what you are saying is that as Santander failed to send monthly letters saying that you are in arrears by X and your monthly payments are Y and hadn't done so since say January 2010 to today they have no legal right to ask for what exactly? The payments and interest due during that period or the whole outstanding amount? Are you also saying that they cannot enforce the agreement at all now even if they were to go back and take off payments and interest accrued during that time to December 2009? Sorry for firing these questions at you but I just want to make sure that we cover as many bases in the letter as possible to give Santander very little if anything at all to come back with save to say, no worries Mrs X, we're writing this one off! Thanks Andy, Bel

Hi All, Today a mother at the school gate looked really upset and burst into tears when I asked her what was the matter. Having got her back to her home and made her a cup of tea, she showed me two letters from Santander. It appears it's a small world in that she too had a Flexible Loan account with cahoot and it was transferred to the loan account when Santander took it over. She had buried her head in the sand and had not paid them in over 3 years. Her statements had been arriving with no monthly payment amount set etc and had received no other chasing calls, letters in all of that time. She then received a default notice last week dated 30th January and the original balance has more than doubled. She then received another letter yesterday saying that in 28 days, they would register the default with the CRA's if she didn't start paying. I explained to her what had happened to us and that we had written back to Santander a couple of years back, challenged the rate increase and the refund had paid off what we owed. However, when looking at the remedy date, I noticed that there wasn't one! In it's place it said that the remedy date was 14 days from date of service, nothing else! No you must pay by 20th Feb or we may do X, Y or Z. Have the regulations or requirements changed on this as I thought a properly created DN MUST have an actual date quoted for it to be compliant??? In addition, are Santander now playing hardball with refunds on the old cahoot Flexible Loan rate refunds and have stopped paying out? I'm going to help her draft her response etc but wanted to double check on the above two questions first. Many thanks, Bel

So sorry to hear of Martin's passing and have happily donated to the memorial fund. Bel

Hi Andy, As it's only the balloon payment due, there are no monthly payments. We either have to stick to our guns that they have no right to the car as they defaulted on a defective DN, pay the balloon payment or hand the car back. Bel

Andy, I haven't a clue. We got a statement of account but that was almost 8 or 9 months ago when we were in arrears and the duplicate fees and thus interest was showing. Is it worth asking for a breakdown of what exactly the balloon payment includes? Bel

No I wish, £4000 is the balloon payment that was due at the end of the contract. However that amount does include interest on fees that were duplicated

Hi Andy, There's approximately £4000. We are disputing the lot due to the reasons mentioned above. All arrears have been paid.

OK CB, thanks for that - I'll send that now. Bel

Thank you Andy, SCF had threatened legal action prior to our complaint to the FOS but we had not received any official court papers. The FOS responded by saying that they cannot uphold our complaint as they believe that SCF had acted fairly and also becasue the arguaments that we had used were outside their legal remit. Those arguements were as follwos: That the default notices were defective as they included incorrect amounts and unfair interest That they did not get get our written consent or agreement to reinstate the agreement after it was terminated The FOS has agreed in writing that the amount son the default notices weren't accurate but that SCF still had the right to serve them. The FOS stated that SCF had the right to reinstate the agreement if it suited them commercially. The FOS also stated that my legal arguments may well stand up in a court of law, but these were outside their remit. They have stated that we are within our rights to disagree with their findings giving our reasons why and that we have until today to do that. I am confused because on the one hand they have turned down the arguments that we have based our complaint on, but on the other hand, they agree that they may well stand up in court. We just want to make sure that whatever we come back to the FOS with, it cannot be used against us by SCF should this go to court. We also wanted to see if there were examples of previous complaints to the FOS that were similar to mine but were upheld. We haven't made any further payments as we had paid up-to-date and only had the balloon payment to make. The balloon payment fell due after they had terminated on the two defective DN notices. Hope this helps? Bel

Thanks Andy, No peace for the wicked eh??

I suppose I should also wait to see what SCF have to say but would be good to let the FOS know of my displeasure!

Thanks CB I'll wait to hear from you or AndyOrch Bel

Interestingly, please see sections taken from the letter Incorrect Default Notice '..I acknowledge that amounts stated in some of the default notices issued by SCF may not have provided you with fully accurate figures for arrears owed (given the duplicate charging mistakes made). The material fact remains however, that arrears were still owed. As the terms of your finance had been breached by contractual payments not being met on occasions where default notices had been issues, it follows that SCF was therefore still justified in is having issues these notices. In other words, I do not believe that the incorrect figure stated on default notices issued to you would have had any material bearing on SCF's legitimate entitlement to issue these in the first instance' Reinstatement Of Terminated Agreement '...given that the courts represent a higher authority than this service, I am unable to specifically comment upon the factors that a court might consider. I would instead recommend that you may wish to seek independent legal advice in this regards or consult your nearest CAB. On the issue raised about your being reinstated onto your finance agreement following a termination notice being issued, I believe that SCF is entitled to reinstate the agreement should it reasonably choose to do so. I consider that this service would view such an action as even being positive and sympathetic to your circumstances, as doing so would allow you to both retain possession of the supplied vehicle and continue with the agreement as had originally agreed. Ultimately, given that the finance contracts had been breached due to non-payments, I believe that whether or not SCF chooses to reinstate your agreement is a commercial decision that it is entitled to make.' Bel

Hi, Have finally heard back from the FOS who say that they cannot recommend our complaint against SCF be upheld. What he does say however is that the points that we had raised were legal points and that the FOS does not have the remit to judge on this, they can only assess and consider if SCF have acted fairly and reasonably. He also stated that the legal points that we raised may well stand up in a court of law. What are you thoughts? Bel