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Update: I've registered a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman. They've confirmed that banks are supposed to be looking at progressing hardship claims as it was a condition of the waiver agreement. They've agreed to take this up on our behalf. I've passed them all the details but in a nutshell : Income Expenditure sheet showing finances Fact that County Court waived all Court Fees due to little income Copy of Letter that went to Abbey 5 months ago saying my mum was having problems due to charges, explaining ill health and little income and pleading to get charges back so she could clear overdraft Copy of application to remove stay on grounds of financial hardship Interesting enough, the bank is supposed to let people know that if they are not happy with their decision that you have the right to escalate this with the Financial Ombudsman as an independant adjudicator. Their letter said nothing of the sort so they've broken the rules on this point as well. I'll will be interested to see how they wriggle out of this one. I'll keep you all posted.

Abbey did this to me a few years back, but as the debt was in dispute the debt collection agency were not legally able to take any enforcement action. Just make them aware of the dispute and see how they respond. Might be worth making them aware that you know your rights and that a debt whilst in dispute cannot be legally enforced. In my case they passed it back to Abbey, my court claim eventually got paid and they ended up owing me money which was a refreshing change.

Happy New Year all, Just by way of a quick update, since the court's intervention the Abbey have stopped harassing my mum for repayment although it hasn't stopped them adding interest each month. I took Lula's suggestion and contact Ashursts to see if they were willing to help especially as my mum is truly suffering financial hardship. After emails backwards and forwards, they have responded and said the Abbey doesn't believe my Mum is suffering financial hardship. They also said that Abbey were being sympathetic by not chasing the debt ... seemed to forget the fact that they had no choice ... the court ordered them to leave my Mum alone. I am determined to get this fixed for my mum and will be pressing ahead with the Financial Ombudsman and by whatever other means available. We gave a true breakdown of income and expenditure and it clearly shows she doesn't have enough to live on. (Pension only - essential expenditure like food, electric, council tax ) How they can determine she isn't suffering is beyond me. Wouldn't be so bad but they owe her 5 times what she owes them. Can anyone please point me to the right place to progressing this with the financial ombudsman and how you go about coimplaining to FSA about the breach of the waiver ?

Update - went to court today to get stay lifted. The judge said that before we started that she could not accept a request to lift the stay, but was quite irritated and annoyed that Abbey were pursuing the overdraft balance when it was clear that the amount was in dispute. She also said she couldn't believe that the account had been handed to a debt collection agency when the application for removal of stay was done on the basis of hardship. Wanted to know why Abbey thought this was a good move. Abbey solicitor didn't look very comfortable at this point and blamed the internet for the problem of overloading Abbey with claims !! None of the other arguments appeared to carry any weight ie: Human Rights, Balance of conveniece, UTCCR etc. One result though is Abbey have been ordered to stop debt collection action and any further breach will give grounds to have stay lifted. Tried the man at Ashursts and says he will look into it. Fingers crossed because I want my Mum to have a worry free Christmas !

I made an application to have a stay lifted, although the stay wasn't lifted the judge got rather narked by the fact that Abbey were proceeding with chasing a debt that was primarily made up on charges and that was in dispute. She went as far as making an interim order to tell Abbey to stop debt collection. If they don't comply then she has agreed the stay can be lifted. Might be worth considering if the have put you through debt collection / harrassment via phone calls etc. She said that any legal action brought by Abbey in regard to the debt would have no legal basis and you could simply ask any action to be stayed too. Hope this helps

Hi Lula, It's a hearing to try and get the stay lifted, which is due next week. Court hasn't put any directions on the hearing notice, but I assume that the application which we put together has been sent to Abbey. The application submitted by us was mainly around the hardship / ill health points but followed up with all the other reasons as well. My mum has had no contact from Abbey apart from stock/standard letters, none specifically from legal side of Abbey. At this point in time my mum would be open to an offer. This sort of thing plays havoc with her nerves. I am doing the leg work for her so she has nothing reallly to worry about but all the same its not nice for her. Thanks Lula for your advice, I'll try emailing the contact above to see whether they're willing to play ball. Lee

Thanks Pete Will get my head around the bundle and get this submitted asap. Lee

Hi All Just would like some advice/pointers - or just some encouragement that I am going along the right lines. Couple of years ago, I succesfully got £4K ish back from Abbey by following guidelines here on this website. My mum was widowed 2 yrs ago and is on minimum income ie: small pension and since reduction in income she started to go into the red which Abbey who have penalised her quite heavily. She's not in the best of health and has a habit of sticking her head in the sand but after a while of me nagging she finally agreed to start a new account elsewhere and let me help her reclaim her charges. Basically the small amount she had coming in was being swallowed up by Abbey charges. Intial letters sent to Abbey and standard responses came back. Got the info finally with details of charges and asked for these back. Same std letter from Abbey saying they wouldn't refund, so CC claim started. Luckily, she didn't have to pay the court for application due to low income. Claim was filed and Abbey responded with their standard defence. Then they applied for a stay which was granted without any option to have our say. We've now submitted the N244 and again due to her financial situation didn't have to pay a fee. We did it on the grounds of hardship + other arguments made here ie: human rights etc. She's had a letter back from court saying a hearing has been set for 6th December and assumption is that a copy of her application and witness statement have been sent to Abbey as well. (she received a duplicate of her original application along with the notice of hearing) My thoughts are the court know why we've applied to have stay lifted. Copies would have been sent to Abbey's Solicitors as well. I have asked her to complete an income /expenditure sheet showing current financial status (with copies of pension details/benefits) to prove she is finding it hard to get by. Do we need to submit anything further to the court prior to hearing ? At what point would abbey start making an offer to settle. Is it prior to the full blown hearing - as opposed to lifting of a stay ? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Hi All Just would like some advice/pointers - or just some encouragement that I am going along the right lines. Couple of years ago, I succesfully got £4K ish back from Abbey by following guidelines here on this website. My mum was widowed 2 yrs ago and is on minimum income ie: small pension and since reduction in income she started to go into the red which Abbey who have penalised her quite heavily. She's not in the best of health and has a habit of sticking her head in the sand but after a while of me nagging she finally agreed to start a new account elsewhere and let me help her reclaim her charges. Basically the small amount she had coming in was being swallowed up by Abbey charges. Intial letters sent to Abbey and standard responses came back. Got the info finally with details of charges and asked for these back. Same std letter from Abbey saying they wouldn't refund, so CC claim started. Luckily, she didn't have to pay the court for application due to low income. Claim was filed and Abbey responded with their standard defence. Then they applied for a stay which was granted without any option to have our say. We've now submitted the N244 and again due to her financial situation didn't have to pay a fee. We did it on the grounds of hardship + other arguments made here ie: human rights etc. She's had a letter back from court saying a hearing has been set for 6th December and assumption is that a copy of her application and witness statement have been sent to Abbey as well. (she received a duplicate of her original application along with the notice of hearing) My thoughts are the court know why we've applied to have stay lifted. Copies would have been sent to Abbey's Solicitors as well. I have asked her to complete an income /expenditure sheet showing current financial status (with copies of pension details/benefits) to prove she is finding it hard to get by. Do we need to submit anything further to the court prior to hearing ? At what point would abbey start making an offer to settle. Is it prior to the full blown hearing - as opposed to lifting of a stay ? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Lee

Hi Seminole, Been following the thread, just wondered if there was any update yet ? Lee

Lets hope so, I've modded the initial letter referring to the CC claim and Abbey's legal department which ended up settling out of court. Just have a feeling they will not play ball and use delaying tactics. But then it's their loss in the long run ! Goodluck with your one too !

Just some quick advise please. We have already taken action against Abbey and received a refund of charges. After refund the account was closed. Between the date of claim and getting a refund - they wacked us with a further £450 of charges. I have them all detailed, dates / amounts etc. Has anyone managed to get a further claim paid without the rigmarole of going back through the court process ? Just wondering if it was worth appealing to Abbey and their in house solicitors' better nature which will avoid them the hassle of having to settle a court fee, county court interest etc on top ? Any ideas ? Or is a matter of going through the process again ? Lee

Thanks Alan, The reason for the CCA request is we don't have any information about the old account as it was so long ago. The amount being claimed is £2k which is a lot more than I remember the debt being. I am sure that the original debt and interest was frozen. They definitely hadn't attempted to contact us over the whole 7+ yr period. No doubt the original debt had banks charges galore on it, hence was interested whether the CCA request would get me information on how the debt is made up, from when etc etc. Only issue is that I think we had a standing order set up paying a small set amount per month. It was such a small amount it was almost unoticeable, so although no contact throughout the period asking for more money etc. we had made some payments. We moved banks so was a standing order which never got moved to the new account. So I am guessing the statue barred won't wash as we've made payments on the account ?

Can I ask a question please ? We have a debt collection agency out of the blue chasing up an old bank account we had ( at least 7+ years old ). As far as we know we have not had any contact with the organisation or any DCA during this time. Could this qualify as statute barred ? Are bank accounts also regulated by the CCA ? Also would the following letter apply if writing about a bank account ( as opposed to a credit agreement / credit card ? ) "Firstly, you must supply me with a true copy of the agreement you refer to in this matter. This is my right under the legislation contained within section 77 (1) and section 78 (1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 - your obligation also extends to providing a statement of account. I enclose a £1 postal order in payment of the statutory fee. You are reminded that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not, under section 189 of the CCA 1974. As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued " Thanks in advance Lee