You actually read it all ? OMG thats impossible lol hmmm interesting question. I actually can't recall ever seeing them include their right to 'sell' an agreement in T&C. They usually put that they will process data to third parties but thats a different matter. IMHO I see no reason why they can't 'sell' a debt as its no different to any other commodity. IF they legally hold the rights to the debt then they can also dispose of those rights.

What me, the great dragon scared of facing some bank or CCP (or even a building society ) across a court ? Pistols at dawn is my moto lol

np rhsymonds, I just wanted to put the record straight wherever your following the CCA sec 77/78 path you have ot make sure every T is crossed and i is dotted or they will rip your case to shreds. It's still very early ground in this line of attack and I would hate to see anyone stumble as court can be a costly affair. Sometimes we need to make that point a lot stronger than we like to. I am a director of 2 companies (just sold the main business of one of them) and at the moment I am establishing a national service department for the buyers. Then of course I spend most evenings researching and compiling my cases for court and helping others on CAG, MY normal day is about 15 hours plus CAG Yes is very tiring but I cant think of anything better to do with the time than make these companies squirm If you need any help at all just PM me or post on the main CCA thread, you cant miss it as its about 260 pages long now and either myself or one of the regulars will pop over

Will somebody please remind me regularly not to visit the other CCA thread I made a post trying to help and got told by a newbie to take them to court and he can understand if I am frightened of going to court lmao

One thing I am not afraid of is taking them to court, as many on here will testify. On the contrary I think many will testify that I am more than prepared to break open new ground In fact all 3 of those you mention will I am sure tell you I dont take prisoners lightly. I am simply playing around with both these companies as I currently have a case in court which is NOT as simple as bank/credit card charges and that is taking up a lot of my time at the moment. breaking new ground can be very time consuming. There is no legal limit as to how long they take to reply, just a guideline that any complaint can be referred to the FOS after 8 weeks. Which is probably what I will do once the April guidelines come into effect. When the FOS have finished their investigation ( which will cost both companies £450) I will have a settlement on the other case and I can then devote enough time to persue both of these in court. It's not a matter of being afraid of the process, but more a matter of picking your own time and place for the fight. I work roughly 15 hours a day and simply dont have the time to devote to more than one complax issue at a time. To even attempt to do so would be the equivalent of financial suicide. When I issue in court it's at my time and choosing, not theirs. I also make sure I have all the facts and evidence I need in advance, which is why when I do issue I know I will win the case if they do go to court. I do hope Abbey are reading this thread Oh and HSBC are unlikely to actually appear in court over a simple charges claim. They WILL attend though if you turn around and tell them you don't owe them anything. Never forget that even if they don't have a properly executed agreement the debt can still be proved and still exists. None of the CCA threads are about avoiding a debt, they are more towards making the companies operate within the laws of this country.

In theory the process is very simple, but we are talking about money the financial institutions regard as their own, so its never going to be simple. I have been swapping letters with several companies now for over 6 months and getting nowhere. The delay of course is down to them taking 2 months to reply. I'm now getting to the point where I am almost ready to issue proceedings against them, which will probably happen once another complex case is settled in June ( or earlier if they pay attention to a Judge

Hmmm the mailer shouldnt even mention an application as its supposed to be a true copy of the agreement. If they are relying on an application form as the agreement then the mailer should be a true copy of that application as long as it's properly executed). Oooops do I see their argument that the mailer complies with sec 85 flying out the window ?

I just posted on it Rhia

ok without knowing the full story here I have to make a few assumptions. From what is posted it looks like MBNA sold an account to link financial which in itself is probably incorrect. From my experience they sold it to a company called Asset Link, which then passed it onto Link Financial for collection. This mob are very much like Cabot, so immediately we have one financial controller passing data to another WITHOUT your explicit or implied consent. It's not unusual for a CCP to refund a claim back to the account, which can be a good thing as it does reduce the outstanding debt. Is the cheque correct figures wise? and have they complied with all of your claim? ie removed any default if it was on the claim form. I used to advocate returning any partial payment cheques but now I simply hold onto them and write an acknowledgement but tell them the claim isnt satisfied. I would also demand that if they do credit any of the claim back to the account that it MUST be made in the form of a payment and that non payment flags are reset. To be honest I don't think a court would support you if full payment has been made, even if part of it has been used to settle the account. If time permits I'd slip a sec 78 request under their door hope this helps

Totally off topic (but thats my perogative ) Has anyone any comments on this breaking news story Probe call into Brown's tax move - news.uk.msn.com Looks like financial matters are getting on top of certain people at last.

The Uk has been slow taking up on this story. It was announced several weeks ago in the USA and I heard about it early Februaryfrom an announcement in an IT trade journal.

Jon is it ok to call you now ?

Yep it was a late night post lol and I edited it now My goodness smoothy you must be almost as old and senile as me to remember that little lot. I have always thought it strange how some things never change in the world of politics. You did miss out the 3 day week although we dont have that in force at the moment. I also seem to remember that we had far less accidents at work inthose days so maybe it's time to throw out the health and safety act (which incidently has been massively expanded thanks to europe) which has now developed into such a state that its almost impossible to actually do any work.

I have already written to IM Rhia and got nothing but political drivel. He seemed to overlook the fact that he and others in parliament are only there because people like me have started and payrolled constituency parties for years. WE THE PEOPLE put guys like him where they are through selection processes and the ballot box and it's time they started to respect that we also have the ability to remove them from office. I started into this purely to try and recover charges from a bank, your dead right, it escalates to the point it almost took over my life recently. I am taking risks I would never have dreamed of taking a few years ago, but I do it out of an overriding desire to bring these companies to task. I do NOT advocate avoiding any legitimate debt any of us may have, but I refuse to make anybody wealthy out of my pocket if they refuse to comply with the law of this country. I work hard for my money, I work long and stressful hours. If I break the law then I expect to be punished for it. If I dont comply with a legitimate agreement I aslo expect to suffer the consequences. I think I have the right as a tax payer to expect them to comply as well. I also expect the authorities to act on my behalf when needed.

The whole business world is changing rapidly. business to business contracts are now more about added value in a contract than they are about the base contract. This attitude is eventually going to find its way into business/consumer relationships. Personally I am now starting to ask for and expect added value in everything I buy and negotiate to buy, and that includes financial services.

Rhia you have taken the words out of my mouth I have been thinking the same things for months now, and if there is anybody reading this that is in a positon to act upon Rhia's word you wouldn't do much better than to pick a team from CAG to spearhead the clean up project. Our financial services sector is in a mess through greed and outdated attitudes. When the CCA was introduced in 1974 it was intended to stop the high street loan sharks from making money at extortionate rates out of those who could not afford it. The Act mostly had the desired effect but we are now left with 'reputable' companies that are having the same effect. When the former Governor of the BoE stands up and admits to creating a house price boom so they can stay within their monetary policy it's a sorry day. They may not include house prices in the inflation figures but it's the biggest inflationasy pressure the man on the street faces, and can destroy marriages and families in one foul swoop. That's part of the reason I am persuing an ERC claim. I consider any profit made on the value of your house is being eroded and taken by the building societies in the form of ERC's. Surely there must be somebody in government that has the courage and conviction to create a team to investigate PROPERLY the way these companies manage their business.

I already have the letters of complaint typed and printed

That's the thread Oh and its 250 + pages now Pam

Thanks to both of you for your kind comments. Mrsfoot have they settled your claim out of court now ? if so please PM a few details to me Paul, I can see it's given a lot of encouragement but I must stress this IS NOT a final result its just the first battle in what could still be a nasty little war. They were determined to take this case into multi track and they lost that round, simply because they couldnt convince the judge that the legal arguments were as complex as they claimed, I on the other hand convinced him the arguments were in reality very simple. I firmly believe that if I do the work I need to then I can win this case. It may not be a huge amount but if just one case is proved to be a penalty then they have to start looking at some big repayment bills where ERC's are involved. They made this personal by making threats against me and then compounded it by making the same threats against others in CAG. like you several people have withdrawn claims against Abbey so mine ended up being the first to step into a court room. They want this as a test case, I have already spoiled that for them. But if I win they should fully realise it will become a test case for the ordinary person on the street. After the emotional highs and lows in dealing with this case over the last few weeks I need better suspension on that surfboard

thanks for all your comments I think I need to state now before we get too carried away, this was an allocation/direction hearing only. Abbey had made a draft directions order which included moving the claim onto multi track, and also involved another 6 months of messing about before a final hearing. Their reason for wanting multi track was the'complex legal arguments' involved, The real reason was to try and scare me off, well it didnt work last time and it didnt work this time. Nobody scares Tam I simply told the judge that I dont consider the legal arguments at all complex as the charge IS an indemnity and not the price of the product. I have proof that its an indemnity on their own paperwork. As its an indemnity the clause that triggers the ERC is therefore an indemnity clause in disguise. On the basis he accepts Abbeys letters as evidence (at least 2 letters saying the same thing) that this is an indemnity charge despite their sworn defence statement claiming it is not an indemnity then the UTCC fairness tests immediately have to be applied. I have always known in my own mind this was a penalty, and without realising it Abbey actually gave me the evidence to be able to prove it in court. The Judge has not examined the papers yet but despite heavy argument he immediately allocated it to small claims, so he must have partly believed me. Abbey also wanted 4 hours for the final hearing and when I said that 2 would be more than enough he split it down the middle. This is NOT a final victory by any means and I still have lots of work to do (with help from zoot and a few others) but it does show that Abbey did not get it all their own way, in fact they got very little they wanted. What I consider even more important is that on 2 occasions the Judge looked directly at their representative and asked point blank why it had not already been settled as it was only for a couple of thousand. Also while he typed up the directions order he again at least 3 times made references to settling it before the final hearing. Basically we have to exchange documents in 4 weeks and statements of case in another 4 weeks with a final hearing in about 3 months time. Thats half of what Abbey wanted. The Judge wants this case settled and if that doesnt happen he wants it resolving ASAP. What has happened as a result is that where I was worried about this claim since the recent losses against sub-prime lenders and subsequent threats of high costs claims when/if Abbey win, I now firmly believe that I can win this claim IN COURT. Yesterday's hearing (which DLAP claimed they would stroll through) was about 20 minutes and I came out on top by winning every aspect that came up. My ex wife came along (yes we are actually friends now lol) and even she was punching the air as we walked out of the court. She probably wants a % of anything I get back as the divorce was the reason I had to remortgage lol. So not a total win but Abbey should now know that the judge expects them to negotiate a settlement, and if they dont I have a feeling he wont be very pleased. It's given me a huge confidence boost for this claim and I believe it shows that we can win ERC claims (although every ERC claim will be different) if we do enough work towards it. I do not at this stage advocate anybody starting a new claim for an ERC though. There have been bad results and the risks can be high. I'm just a stubborn old cuss that wont lie down at somebody elses beck and call even if it does cost me in the end. My claim was too far advanced to pull out without losing a lot of money anyway so, even though I was tempted, I decided to see it through, hopefully I can go on now and win the next few rounds and give everyone something to really cheer about.

thanks Paddy, they actually made this personal when they started scaring people off, but they tried it with a couple of us that dont scare very easily and are intelligent enough to see through their tactics. what was a simple claim for me has now become a crusade for everyone they threatened.

I'd be more worried about how wet and smelly the fish is first thing in the morning:o

What all that and a scotch drinking cook? Methinks somebody has been sniffing the bottle too much

awww birdie I believe you plus with 4 blackbelts to my name you dont need another bodyguard:grin:

No it wasn't Cap 1 but they did send me nothing but the signature box, which I will be following up in due course.