That's very interesting. I have recently had a case against a local council as well, so perhaps I will SAR N Hunter again in a few months and see if they have anything new about me.

Wow, that's an amazing result!!! (we hope) I find it strange that Egg have not been forced to refund EVERYONE who purchased PPI online in 2004. How are we meant to know when they did and did not pre-tick the boxes? We have already seen Egg fined for mis-selling over the phone, so why hasn't there been an investigation and/or fine for the online sales as well? Egg have categorically stated to my friend in writing that the box was NOT pre-ticked for PPI on credit cards in 2002. That case is also with the FOS, so I'm looking forward to finding out if they were telling the truth.

Thanks Coniff. As it is the summer, our doors and windows are often open! I think I will contact the Council (and keep proof of sending).

More than 3 weeks after the hearing date and I have heard nothing. No document from the Court, no request for payment from the Council. My girlfriend has heard nothing either. Contrary to what was reported in the newspaper article, I have NOT settled this - in fact, I have not paid a penny this year. What I am concerned about now is that they may seek some kind of enforcement without warning, and I will incur even more unneccessary costs. E.g. a visit from a bailiff. Anyone know what is likely to happen next? Or what I should be doing?

If it works the same way as for a company, then in fact the CCJ is immediately recorded on the register. If you pay within 28 days then it is cancelled and all trace disappears. If you take longer than 28 days to pay then it can still show as "satisfied" but the a record of the CCJ will remain for 6 years.

You have to wonder if any DCA is going to touch these old Egg accounts. It just takes one letter challenging them and they give up and pass it back to Egg.... who then do nothing for months.

Are you really planning to deny ever having had an account? I'm sure that, even if Next don't have the signed agreement, they will be able to offer some kind proof that you held an account with them. Statements, proof of payments made, delivery notes, etc. It's not going to impress the judge much as to your honesty and reliability if you start off by denying something that is obviously true.

You get 28 days plus a few days as the deemed date of service is later than the actual issue date. You can call the court to find out the exact date if you want, just to be sure. Even if you are late, I think I'm right in saying that Next would have to actually apply for judgment - sometimes companies don't do this immediately. However, best to meet the deadline just to be sure. Hopefully PT will come back and advise, but to be honest if there is no signed CCA agreement and the account was opened back in 2003, there really SHOULD be no way that they can win, even if your defence itself is not 100% perfect. They probably just hope you will ignore the claim and they will win by default. It sounds like they haven't complied with the pre-action protocols at all - i.e. they have rushed to legal action and ignored your letter. I think that may entitle you to seek costs against them. Not sure if you are meant to mention that at the end of your defence or not....

Any advice on the best equipment to buy, and if I can attach it to a mobile phone?

The Council have replied to my Data Protection Subject Access Request today by asking me to phone them to discuss it. I'm not sure I'm under any obligation to communicate in this way, and I don't want to find this leads to any kind of "misunderstanding" in what is discussed over the phone. I think I might just write back and ask them to put their questions in writing, whilst reminding them of their obligation to provide all information within 40 days of my first letter!

Thanks for that suggestion Conniff. I did consider this a while back, but I think I'm probably in the right band. In fact, I'm quite lucky, because my part of town has comparatively low Council Tax compared to the rest of the City as it used to be the poorest part of town.

Excellent as always PT. I have a friend who had a Next Directory account that was defaulted back in 2005. She moved onto a Debt Management Plan for a bit, but after I joined CAG we realised it was unenforceable so we stopped paying. It had been passed to Moorcroft, so we wrote and told them why we weren't going to pay any more. Moorcroft wrote back to say they were passing it back to Next. This surprised us a bit because we thought it had actually been assigned (this it what was implied in statements that came as part of the Next SAR response). I thank you for this thread, as it does clarify the position, and will help us defend if we ever get sued. I have a couple of related questions for you, which I suspect will apply to everybody in a similar question (hence posted on this thread):- 1. Can we get the credit file cleaned up? This shows as a default for 6 years, as a debt still owing for evermore. No agreement = no permission to pass data onto 3rd parties, surely? But I have heard that the ICO don't share this view. 2. Can we claim back the "service charge", which is Next's term for interest. No CCA 1974 agreement surely means no right to levy interest charges? I understand there may even be mileage in the 'payments made under mistake' line, i.e. claim back ALL payments ever made on the account? 3. Could we at least use threat of point 2 to make them do point 1 - a kind of full and final settlement agreement? One other thing - I think Next have given up on these accounts because my friend recently ordered some Next goods online and was given a new credit account with a credit limit of a few hundred quid without even asking! I don't think they've learnt their lesson about irresponsible lending.

I'm so pleased for you that you have sorted this out, it must be a big relief. Councils are out of control in the way they are collecting council tax, and it really could turn into a big political issue at any time in my opinion. If you look at my thread you will see (on page 3) that my case ended up in the local newspaper: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/local-authority-council-tax/201176-summons-how-can-i.html Compared to you, I haven't been treated so badly.

Unfortunately there is joint and several liability for council tax. This means that, even if you pay your share direct to the council, they can still come after you for the amount that the others should have paid. Unfair, but unfairness is par for the course when it comes to councils.

On the questions on appeals, I would be interested to hear the proper answer to this. I think there is some confusion between the Council's own internal appeals process, and appealing against liability orders (a legal appeal). I'm not sure if both types of appeal even exist?

This sounds like a nightmare! And it sounds like the council haven't tried to sort this out at all. When is the court date mentioned in the summons? Your case sounds very complicated, can anybody help you with this, e.g. the Citizens Advice Bureau or a local councillor? When I went to court for council tax there was a team of council employees there to go through all the paperwork and make an agreement with people before the hearing (basically to stop the hearing). If you can't make an agreement then it goes before the magistrate and you show your evidence to the magistrate, who makes a decision.

You must be able to read my mind..... that it exactly what I have just been looking into. Watch this space!

The way this got into the newspaper was as follows: 1. My summons was last week, and I went to court to defend myself, as documented in this thread. 2. Independently of this, a local councillor had taken up the cases of many of her constituents, who were worried about their council tax bills but couldn't sort the problem out with the council. 3. The paper ran a story about how the council's hotline was jammed and nobody could get through to discuss their financial problems, and some people were getting summons. The councillor was quoted in the article as being concerned about this: 4. I contacted the journalist who had written the story, telling him I had some useful background information, having been to court myself last week. I sent him an edited copy of this thread. 5. He ran the story today (post #50) using quotes from this CAG thread! 6. We now wait to find out if this issue will die a death or if it will get picked up by anybody and snowball. The two stories so far have only been on pages 10 and 11 of the paper. But one interesting point is that the head of Revenue Services at the Council was quoted in the first story as saying: I wonder if the claim that there have been no more summonses than usual will turn out to be true???

It is a local daily City newspaper with a circulation of about 30,000. Although my name has now appeared in the paper, I understand that anonymity is desirable on CAG, so this is why I have blanked out the details. I don't really want my real name to become obviously linked to my "militantconsumer" posting name, as I have made many 'anonymous' posts about friend's debt problems on this site, and it wouldn't be fair if people worked out the identity of those friends.

Mission accomplished?

Here is some more reading for you: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/175553-payments-made-under-mistake.html The above thread seems to have died a death, but it makes some interesting points.

Egg have sent us an "Annual Egg Loan statement" completely out of the blue and without any request from us. This shows that £73 has been refunded in January, and therefore the letter we wrote back then has been acted on: The statement also shows that no payments have been made since 4th March, and yet there has been no attempt at enforcement whatsoever. Perhaps their confusion over the Data Protection Request has suppressed the account during this time.

1. I'm not aware of it being in the Consumer Credit Act - I think it comes from OFT guidelines and the Banking Code. 2a. Adverse info & default would be a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office, who enforce the Data Protection Act. However, the ICO have stated that they consider defaults to be a fair reflection of what happened (i.e. credit facility not repaid) if there is any evidence of you having received the money in the first place, which there is. So they take the banks' side on this issue. 2b. Passing onto DCAs when disputed would be OFT via local trading standards, but as you have started legal action they may not want to look into it. 3. This the wrong way around to do things. It is better to start with a CPR 31.16 (as you are doing) and then, if Barclays won't settle out of court, proceed to an injunction to stop them processing the adverse data. 4. There is a certainly legal redress to the area of payments made under mistake. Perhaps if you wrote to them (signed for delivery) stating that all payments were now being made under protest for the sole purpose of protecting your credit rating, but you did not recognise any debt due to them, this would be a useful piece of evidence if you ever came to attempt such a claim - or at the very least you could use it as a bargaining chip in getting the debt written off. 5. As you have commenced legal action this will prevent you starting complaints with most bodies. 6. No idea about this one, but suggest it's not worth the risk as you can avoid it happening using the CPR > Injunction route.

I think there is a danger that this thread could turn into a political debate because a lot of people (myself included) have strong feelings about perceived public sector waste and inefficiencies. On the other hand, "ss002d6252" obviously works for a council and perhaps this is why he/she has used the phrase "someone who hasn't been bothered to pay", which I can imagine is going to wind some people up. Of course, I am grateful for the input of somebody who is in the know. However, I have written a long report about how the day went, and included a lot of comments about the (im)morality of the way that my local council have behaved. But all that "ss002d6252" can do is defend councils because of the amount of time that they have to spend investigating problems - ignoring what you could call the "human" side of the situation. I'm sorry to say that this attitude is symptomatic of what I and others have encountered in dealing with council employees - ignore the human side of the problems (often caused by councils themselves) and just robotically continue making unreasonable demands on the taxpayer. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay my council tax, even if I refuse to set up a direct debit and as a result sometimes forget to pay on time. Thousands of others have real difficulties (not just that they haven't "bothered to pay"). All of these people have been forced to pay a £68 to keep council employees in their cosy employment. The only reason that there are so many summons is because councils know that the law is on their side as there is virtually no defence available to the taxpayer. (under UK law, not European law). That cannot be right, and I am coming round to thinking that the only way to change it will be to campaign on the issue. Watch this space!

I agree that there is a consensus on these agreements being unenforceable. However, an important thing to bear in mind is your credit rating. Have you been defaulted on this account? If not, you will get a default as soon as you stop paying, and this will cause you problems for at least 6 years. Not just in obtaining credit but in getting a normal bank account or joint financial products with other people such as a partner. The only way that I am aware of being able to prevent your credit rating being trashed is to win an unenforceability case in court and then get an injunction against Egg. This is obviously a long and involved process (two processes in fact).