OK a question here regarding the meaning of working days in respect of an application under CCA 1974 for a copy of an origional agreement. If companies, such as GE Money, work six or even seven days a week(I am sure I have had phone calls from them on a Sunday) then under the act do these count as working days? Or is it considered to be the standard working week, ie five days Monday to Friday? I sent in my application on 5th September and so far no agreement so I am unsure if they have now defaulted or if they have a few days left. Advice would be much appreciated.

Mention it, mention it.

"While you are correct that you are entitled to a copy of the agreement the term “copy”, under the provisions of the Consumer Credit Act, does not require it to be a facsimile or exact replication of the loan agreement originally signed. Specifically the copy can exclude signatures and dates of signatures. In effect there is nothing to stop a lender providing a document from the information he has recorded in his records in another format so long as the “copy” is recreated and has the necessary information that would have been in the original" What a load of rubbish. The act specificaly states 77 Duty to give information to debtor under fixed-sum credit agreement (1) The creditor under a regulated agreement for fixed-sum credit, within the prescribed period after receiving a request in writing to that effect from the debtor and payment of a fee of £1, shall give the debtor a copy of the executed agreement (if any) and of any other document referred to in it, together with a statement signed by or on behalf of the creditor showing, according to the information to which it is practicable for him to refer,— (a) the total sum paid under the agreement by the debtor; (b) the total sum which has become payable under the agreement by the debtor but remains unpaid, and the various amounts comprised in that total sum, with the date when each became due; and © the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor, and the various amounts comprised in that total sum, with the date, or mode of determining the date, when each becomes due. (2) If the creditor possesses insufficient information to enable him to ascertain the amounts and dates mentioned in subsection (1)©, he shall be taken to comply with that paragraph if his statement under subsection (1) gives the basis on which, under the regulated agreement, they would fall to be ascertained. (3) Subsection (1) does not apply to— (a) an agreement under which no sum is, or will or may become, payable by the debtor, or (b) a request made less than one month after a previous request under that subsection relating to the same agreement was complied with. (4) If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1)— (a) he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement; and (b) if the default continues for one month he commits an offence. (5) This section does not apply to a non-commercial agreement. Note the word "executed" ie signed. Not executed = not valid and not complying with the act. If I were you I would write back to them and point this out.

OK this may seem a bit rambling but please bear with me. Can a I firstly state that I have no intention of trying to avoid my debt but merely to use the following as a vehicle to make Egg and Capquest back off a bit to try and give myself some breathing space. In 2000, if not earlier, I applied online for an Egg Credit Card. I recently had some financial difficulties and ended up defaulting on the agreement and Egg passed the matter over to Capquest. I am sure that a portion of the debt arises out of unlawful charges and I have just discovered that Egg applied the infamous PPI to my account which I am sure I didn’t request. When challenged on this they just sent me a screenshot stating that this was showed that I did. I have made an application for the original signed agreement under CCA 1974 and this started me thinking as to where I would stand if they only sent me screenshot copies of the agreement, ie the pages that I filled in online. After some research I found that the 1974 act was amended in 2004 to take into account “electronic signatures”, however as my agreement predates this if Egg cannot produce a signed copy of the original agreement I do not think that they can rely on this amendment to prevent me claiming that this agreement is unenforceable. Could I please get other peoples opinions on my reasoning.

The DPA request will end up with the Co=Op as they own Smile. I did mine by secure message authorising them to debit my account and it took a while and a few phone calls to get them to get there act together. To be fair when they did they agreed to start the 40 day clock running as from the date of my secure message as, in their words, "it should have been actioned from there". Anyway best idea is to send a cheque and avoid the hassle.

Ehrm the poll may be up but I can't vote on it for some reason. Anyway Halifax denied receiving both my preliminary letter and LBA. So I sent them copies and a futher five days to respond. That one was sent by Special Delivery and they actually acknowledged it, outside the five days mind you. By then I had already gone down the small claims route.

Simple question, do I have to acept settlement in full if they offer? My reason for asking is that I have issued against them but they have not yet responded. In the past few months I have missed a few payments and made some late ones. These have been entered on my credit record. My arguement is that once the charges are removed and the amounts that I should have paid have been recalculated then I am probably in advance of the payments that I make, if that makes sense. If, as I fully expect them to, they make an offer for the full amount that I am claiming can I refuse on the basis that I want to obtain a judgement in my favour as the first stage in forcing them to repair my credit history. Bearing in mind that this has not formed part of my claim. Hopefully I will be able to insisit as part of the settlement that they remove any negative credit information but I want to be sure before I start talking to them. Any advice welcome.

Thanks for that Lou. Just spoken to Smile who have confirmed that they have deducted the £10 from my account as requested and that I should get all the statements in the next couple of days. Then watchout Smile!!!

It seems you and I are in exactly the same boat, even down to the amounts claimed from Mid 2004:) . Good luck in your quest to get YOUR money back.

Well having started matters with the Halifax I have decided to move onto Smile as this is where most of MY money has gone in the past six years. DPA letter sent by secure message on 18 May, checked twice by phone and they have confirmed this is satisfactory, but I thought I would check the statements that are available online - 2 years worth roughly. Total unlawful charges of £1,450 in 2 years . Right I want MY money back. So my questions is this is it worth sending a preliminary letter now for the £1,450 reserving the right to obtain a further refund once I know the further details through the DPA request or should I wait till I have all the available information? As an aside does anyone know what interest rate I should claim back from Smile(not the 8% court rate obviously). Gotta say the more I use this site the more I love it.

I sent my DPA request by secure messaging and then followed up with a phone call to ensure that this was ok. I was told this was not a problem and they would action this as soon as possible. One thing though don't forget to authorise them to take the £10 charge from your account otherwise they will just use this to delay matters.

Thanks for the advice. Guess I start my claim tommorow :-|. Bit of a daunting prospect but I am sure with the information I have learned here everything will turn out ok.

Could really do with some advice here guys.

Ok I have been lurking around the site now for a while and back in March I decided to take on the first of my banks/credit card companies the Halifax for £430 + interest. I sent my first letter, cribbed from the template on this site, on the 15th March giving them the standard 14 days to respond. No answer. I then wrote a second time on the 30th March. Once again no answer. Now I let matters slip then until this month. When I phoned last week to see why they had not responded I was told that the had no trace of either letter. I immediatly sent them by SD copies together with a third letter giving them five days to respond or I would take court action. They have still not responded and the five days are now up. When I phone them I am told that my letter is in the system and I will receive a reply shortly. So what do I do now? Do i give them a chance to respond? or go straight ahead and take the matter through the courts? What I don't want to appear is unreasonable to the courts. So anyone got any advice please.