waterminx, it is interesting to note the lack of the words "may" or "might" in the sentence concerning taking legal action. This implies to me that it is a genuine Letter Before Action, and their next step will be to submit a claim (well actually it will have to be M&S who do that since I cannot see anything that suggests M&S have sold this debt to any of the DCAs involved.) Whether that means you should be panicking or not then comes down to you, and whether you are going to be scared by the court process. Since you have a very robust case against them you will be able to defend any such action very well. Then when they discontinue/you win you will be able to put this one to bed for good. Personally I am not quite sure yet whether I would prefer my creditors to actually go to court, or whether it would be better just to play the 6 year waiting game. To my mind the problem with the latter is having to keep on fending off DCAs for that period.

If they don't respond to your CPR 31.14 request in time you file the "embarrassed defence", plenty of examples on this site. Part of the defence will then be a draft order for directions (effectively asking the judge to make an order requiring NatWest to produce the documents on which they are basing their claim).

What post is asking is does your agreement (the document you signed) clearly state that there is this final "balloon" payment at the end of the term of the agreement? This is one of those situations where it is probably going to help if you can post up a scan of your agreement for people to take a look at. Remove personal details, but leave the figures in.

Well as ozzywizard says, it would appear that someone within the local branch at Welcome has been creative and constructed a re-write in your name in 07/2004. I leave you to conjecture as to why they would do this...

akuma, I understand your desire to resolve matters speedily. However, before rushing to make a F&F to them I do think you should have confirmed that they do now legally own the debt. Their first letter says they have bought the debt. Therefore I believe you should have recieved a Notice of Assigment, either from them, but more convincingly (if you get my drift) from the original creditor. Could others please confirm that? I would hate for you to give CapQuest your money only to discover that someone else came along later and told you they had no right to it. Unfortunately in this "game" (I do slightly hestitate to call it that because it is about people's money, livelihoods, hopes and aspirations) you do learn to work slowly towards your goal.

akuma, I am having a problem opening your third attachment. It is court first, then bailiffs. Since their first letter says they have purchased the debt I would have thought you should have received a Notice of Assigment. However I am not certain, and would look for clarification from more experienced people. A NoA would confirm that they are entitled to receive the monies (if people think your agreement is enforceable, and I can't see anything wrong with it). If they have genuinely purchased the debt, and people think the agreement is enforceable please be aware they will probably have purchased this for between 10%-20% of the value of the debt. If you have funds available then bear this in mind as you make an offer for full and final settlement.

cleo, if you look carefully you will see that Resolution Legal Services are just another branch of the Gothia empire. You know the score, another desk in the same office, different phone line, different headed paper, same bunch of cowboys. In fact I have had a letters from the same person on behalf of both companies (do the initials BP match yours?).

yourbank, I don't see why the letter on the GLC site should only be applicable in Scotland, can you elaborate please? It makes reference to UTCCR1999 and CCA1974 (as amended), and both those statutes are applicable across the UK (certainly in England and Wales). Also, if their letter was only applicable in Scotland why would they have links to finding legal resources throughout the UK?

For those following this thread, here is a link to a post I have made on the main thread about the Supreme Court judgement: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/oft-test-case-updates/139905-h-o-l-test-232.html#post2716378. Personally I am hoping that we can start a great big wave of court actions that the banks can't cope with again. I have a feeling BigDebtor will be in accord!

Further to my post above, can someone tell me if there are rules about which County Court I must use for my claims? I ask since I can reasonably easily access at least four different courts near where I live, and had thought of filing the claims in different courts, firstly so they would take differing streams through the court system, so they can't end up being lumped together, and to maximise my chances in the judge lottery. I should have added to my post above that I would hope lots of people follow this course of action. I am hoping (this time) to be near the front of a tidal wave of action that the banks have difficulty in dealing with and getting my payout before another stitch-up comes along.

Well, by my reckoning today is 8 weeks since the Supreme Court handed down its judgement, and the FSA lifted the waiver. I guess by now most (all?) of will have received our nar-nar we won, you're not getting your money back letters from the banks. Someone, somewhere put up this link to the Govan Law Centre article: Govan Law Centre: Unfair bank charges: free help to amend existing complaint letters. Personally I think this is a very good letter, and unless anyone can give me good reasons why they think it is a _very_bad_idea_ I intend to send an edited version of it to each of the six claims my partner and I have against three different banks. (The edits will be to head it as a Letter Before Action, to include an indictment about the banks' interpretation of the SC judgement, and a suitable personal section as indicated, and to give them 14 days to pay up.) The MSE newletter this week indicated that the new templates had been delayed (again!), but should be available in a couple of weeks. Therefore, hopefully by the time the 14 days are up the appropriate new templates will be available.

ieuan, what legislation were you intending to use to take them to court to inisist on them supplying the agreement and seeking damages? Would this be under the DPA rather than the CCA? It seems to me this is the course of action the bank's actions are forcing you into. The alternative, as I see it, would be for you not to take action at the moment, continuing instead to let the bank help themselves to the increasing overdraft until such time they decide it has got too big and then decide to take action against you(r son). The problem then is likely to be that you will be defening an action on an overdraft by referencing a lack of agreement on a secured loan and the bank helpling themselves to the increasing overdraft, and that could be difficult.

Hello StarvingArtist, I have replied on your own thread: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/243273-starvingartist-triton-first-time.html.

Hello StarvingArtist, and welcome to CAG Answer the phone once, go through security, then inform them that all future communication must be in writing. Then confirm that in a letter to them (there is one linked from the other Triton thread you came from), adapting as to suit (since by the time you write it you will know whether they have decided to ignore your request or not). I really don't think there is any need to do that, it is a well known fact that Triton are the in-house DCAs (aka threat monkeys) for NatWest/RBS. Do you have any other debts that you are struggling with or is there just this one? If you have others then you would be better entering into a full Debt Management Plan, and that is best set up using CCCS or one of the similar free services. If not then you are effectively trying to negotiate an individual debt management plan for a single debt directly with the company concerned. This could be difficult, but ought to be possible. In your letter to them, explain your circumstances (that is unemployed), give a broad brush of your income and expenditure, offer to pay £5 per month and ask if they will please freeze interest. Please try not to be frightened by their threat to take you to court. That is one of the tools of their trade (and why I used the term "threat monkeys" above). Once you get past this initial stage they can become reasonable to deal with. Also remember that if they do ultimately take you to court a judge will not order you to pay more than the £5 per month you can afford. And they won't get any more interest out of you ever again.

HatH, not that I want to divert your attention away from the important task at hand, that is preparing your set aside application, but I ask because I too have an ongoing dispute with the Co-op. Did you ever get a letter (from the Co-op or one of their DCAs) threatening to serve you the Statutory Demand? If so, did you reply to that letter in any way? I ask because last year I got such a letter from some part of the Gothia empire (Red Castle Recoveries or Resolution Legal Services). I responded with a detailed letter pointing out all the the Co-op had done wrong (very similar to your case with regard to the agreement, default notice and termination) and informing them that should they serve a Statutory Demand I would apply to have it set aside. That seems to have kept them at bay for a good few months.

Garfs, does the client reference in the letter from CSL match the account number that Barclaycard say they have no record of? If so I would sent them packing with a letter saying that Barclaycard have told you that you hold no products with them, enclosing a copy of that second letter from Barclaycard. That should get them handing the case back to Barclaycard sharpish!

I have to laugh at the way they can't even get that contract right! Read it carefully, it says 0.0978p in the £, that is less than a tenth of a penny technically. It should really say £0.0978 in the £, or 9.78p in the £. It is only the fact the the sum to be paid is actually stated directly that the true proportion can be ascertained.

Well they would, wouldn't they?! They seem to be totally intransigent at the moment on admitting they don't have anything enforceable. Have they actually ever sent you a copy of your own agreement? I would send them away with the "why have you been passed this account when I am in dispute with the original creditor?" letter: http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/86-debt-collectors/574-letter-when-account-has-been-passed-on-whilst-agreement-request-is-in-dispute. Adapt it to suit your specific circumstances. Then send a letter to M&S asking them to do you the courtesy of dealing with the matter themselves rather than passing you round the merry-go-round of DCAs, and trying to force their hand to write off the debt or actually take you to court. I had to send the DCA letter to Philips in Darlington by Special Delivery the day before Christmas Eve, and now need to write a letter along the lines I have suggested to M&S.

Moved to Cleo's own thread.

Well what Josie specifically said is that it was a determination of what their response may be to a CCA1974 ss.78-79 request. So what the judgement seems to be confirming is that they may provide a reconstituted agreement to satisfy such a request. Since that has been allowed by the regulations anyway it just seems to clarify that. It does mean of course that if that is what they supply it removes the route for the debtor to put the account into dispute. However, as we all know, there are then other avenues of request (SAR, CPR 31.16) for the debtor then to use to see if they do still have the original (because if they have the original why do they feel the need to reconstitute one?). I would hope that they would still have to have the original agreement to bring a court case against you if you had decided to stop paying them? That I thought is one of the basic tenets of contract law. That being the case all this judgement does is make it more difficult for the debtor to find a legitimate reason to stop paying, and probably allows the creditors greater freedom to pursue enforcement harrassment^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H action. What really concerns me though, as I commented above, is that bit that seems to remove the need (pre 2005) for the actual agreement to contain all the prescribed terms "within the four corners of the agreement", which I thought was a well established precedent (Court of Appeal). And if so, why pre 2005, what changed then?

I don't think I like that bit in red. Is there some more detail somewhere (I have tried Google without success)?

Hello there ruth, do you have any news for us please?

Those look good enough to me. Personally there are a couple of things I would change in the CCA request. In your letter I would just refer to s.77, since that is the one that deals with fixed sum loan agreements. I would change that to "12 working days from your receipt of this request".

caro, thanks for your input. Firstly I think you need to edit a line in your post three up: If the claim is over £5k they can't claim costs if you lose. I think you mean under? Could you also clarify please. Is there such a thing as the Small Claims Court, as referred to by Bigdebtor? Or am I right in thinking, as you have alluded to above, that it is actually the Small Claims Track of the County Court system? Fortunately for my partner and myself none of the individual claims (per account) exceeds £5,000. Finally, I thought I had read, contrary to what Bigdebtor states, that the judge ruled against someone who tried to divide a charges claim for one account into smaller chunks to keep it under the small claims limit, ruling on the second claim that the whole amount should have been included in the first claim?

I would agree concerning the FOS. My feeling is that when the banks write rejecting our claims (my partner and I have 6 pending between NatWest, Halifax and HSBC) I want to send a Letter Before Action setting out the current thinking and giving them 14 days to pay up. Then when they don't go down to the County Court and submit a claim. To date only HSBC (First Direct) have written.