Quick update on this for anyone reading:

I submitted my defence at the beginning of May but since then nothing has happened with it. It is just sat there on MCOL.

Although yesterday I received the second of two begging letters from Overdales offering a payment resolution. Neither has been responded to.

I'm assuming that the claim is going to just be sat on MCOL indefinitely? My only issue is that I am moving house at the end of the month so need to make sure an address update reaches all parties.

Amazing! Thank you! 

Thank you @dx100uk. I'm comfortable with the court process, my worry is this letter contains completely different details as to what they have launched the CCJ for. Only the account number and the monetary total are the same, everything else is completely different. 

Hi guys,

I need a little help here. I submitted my defence on MCOL on the 02/05 and it is showing as received on 03/05.

Today I received the attached letter from Overdales and a few things are alarming. First of all, all of the information on the letter is totally wrong! The previous bills and evidence they have sent me is for an account with statement dates of 2018 and defaulting in 2019. The last payment showed doesn't match up and the mobile number is different from everything they have provided previously too! Nothing other than their reference number and the cost of their claim matches anything at all that they have previously sent me!

Secondly, it says that there would be statements enclosed with the letter but there was absolutely nothing other than this double sided letter. In fact, an account containing these provided details would be statute barred I think?

Any ideas on what I should do with it? 

2022-05-20 overdale have defence begging letter to settle.pdf

Thank you for your guidance @Andyorch. I have now submitted my defense via Mcol

Thank you so much @Andyorch! And thank you too for the advice DX! 

Thank you Andy, I appreciate your help. This was complied using templates and other similar (but not exact) threads. Could you possibly provide any further detailed assistance? I'm feeling a bit in over my head with this.

Sorry, the claimant is Lowell.

My Defence:

 

1. The claim is for the sum of £476.10 due by the Defendant under a Three Mobile account with a reference of XXX.

2. The Defendant failed to maintain contractual payments required under the terms of the account agreement.

3. The debt was legally assigned to the Claimant on 26-11-20, notice of which has been given to the Defendant. 

4. The claim includes statutory interest under S.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% per annum from the date of assignment to the date of issue of these proceedings in the of £38.09

5. The Claimant claims the sum of £514.19

1. Paragraph 1 is accepted. I have, in the past, entered a contract with Three Mobile, however I do not recall the exact details, nor do I recall any outstanding balance. I have requested the claimant verify the exact details of this claim by way of a CPR 31.14. The claimant has admitted that they are unable to obtain, or provide me with a copy of the agreement. The claimant states that they cannot do so because it is a telecommunications account and is not regulated by the CCA 1974. To date, no terms & conditions, proof of a signed contract, or electronic signature regarding the alleged account has been received. The claimant has only provided a single generated statement related to this alleged account.

2. Paragraph 2 is noted, again I do not recall any breach and I have never received the stated Default Notice. stated that they are not obliged to provide a copy of a default notice as it is a telecommunications account and is not regulated by the CCA 1974.

3. Paragraph 3 is denied. I do not recall having received a Notice of Assignment, as stated by the Claimant. They supplied under CPR 31.14 an alleged copy which is not from Three Mobile as you would expect, but from Lowell stating that this alleged debt was being sent to Overdales Legal Limited, one of their “approved Debt Collection Agencies”. This seems to have been computer generated using a *template* the letter is not dated and there is no date identifying when the debt was sold to Lowell . I additionally received a document from Overdales Solicitors titled Notice Of Acting which is dated 15/10/2021.

4. Paragraph 4 is denied because the claimant is misleading the court in its pleadings. The defendant has denied the debt at each request as the claimant has failed to provide proof of the debt in the form of an agreement and a default notice. The claimants sole purpose in purchasing this debt was to litigate and secure a*County Court Judgment and therefore Pre Action Protocol was never followed correctly and should be considered in deciding the outcome of their claim.

Therefore, the claimant is put to strict proof to:

(a) show how the Defendant has entered into a Agreement/ Contract; and

(b) show and evidence the Defendant was sent a Notice of default and termination notice/demand notices; and

© show how the Claimant has reached the amount claimed for; and

(d) show how the Claimant has the legal right, either under statute or equity to issue a claim.

5. As per Civil Procedure Rule 16.5(4), it is expected that the Claimant prove the allegation that the money is owed.

6. On the alternative, as the Claimant is an assignee of a debt, it is denied that the Claimant has the right to lay a claim due to contraventions of Section 136 of the Law of Property Act and Section 82A of the*Consumer Credit*Act 1974.

7. Subject to the above, should the alleged amount claimed include an early termination charge(s) amounting to the total balance of the remaining contract, OFCOM guidance on unfair terms in contracts for communication services Section C73-78 clearly states that any Early Termination Charge, that is made up of the entire balance of the remaining contract, is unlikely to be fair, as it fails to take into account either the fact that the provider no longer has to provide or pay for provision of their service, or that the consumer can not use or benefit from the disconnected services.

9. By reason of the facts and matters set out above, it is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief claimed, or any relief.

I received the Claim Form from Northampton County Court today!
 

Name of the Claimant ? lowell

sols - Overdales Solicitors

Date of issue – 04 APR 2022

Particulars of Claim

What is the claim for –

1. The claim is for the sum of £476.10 due by the Defendant under a Three Mobile account with a reference of XXX.

2. The Defendant failed to maintain contractual payments required under the terms of the account agreement.

3. The debt was legally assigned to the Claimant on 26-11-20, notice of which has been given to the Defendant. 

4. The claim includes statutory interest under S.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% per annum from the date of assignment to the date of issue of these proceedings in the of £38.09

5. The Claimant claims the sum of £514.19

Have you received prior notice of a claim being issued pursuant to paragraph 3 of the PAPDC (Pre Action Protocol) ? Yes

Have you changed your address since the time at which the debt referred to in the claim was allegedly incurred? No

What is the total value of the claim? £654.19 (including court fees and costs)

Is the claim for - a Bank Account (Overdraft) or credit card or loan or catalogue or mobile phone account? Mobile Account

Do you recall how you entered into the agreement...On line /In branch/By post ? Online

When did you enter into the original agreement before or after April 2007 ? After

Is the debt showing on your credit reference files (Experian/Equifax /Etc...) ? Yes

Has the claim been issued by the original creditor or was the account assigned and it is the Debt purchaser who has issued the claim. Overdales claim the debt was assigned to them 26/11/20

Were you aware the account had been assigned – did you receive a Notice of Assignment? I honestly don't recall

Did you receive a Default Notice from the original creditor? I received a copy of it via a SAR request, but I don't recall if I received one at the time.

Have you been receiving statutory notices headed “Notice of Default sums” – at least once a year ? I am not sure. I don't have any in my files

Why did you cease payments? The account was taken out for a partner. After a breakdown in relationship she stopped paying the account. But the account was in my name. 

What was the date of your last payment? 28/09/2018

Was there a dispute with the original creditor that remains unresolved? No

Did you communicate any financial problems to the original creditor and make any attempt to enter into a debt management plan? yes, but their pressures for payment were more than I could realistically afford.

I have done the AOS on MCOL already.

The defence I will be using will be Ofcoms guidance on Early Cancellation Fees. Though I am not sure how to present it.

I already have the results of a SAR from both 3 and Overdales. However, the contents of the SAR from 3 are completely absent of details regarding the account Overdales are claiming for.

Do I still need to submit a CPR 31:14 to Overdales, and if so, which form should I use?

The ones in the guides here seem to only relate to Current Accounts or Credit Cards etc.

 I've familiarised myself with those threads and I am not worried about following the process. Just so long as I properly follow the process.

Just yesterday after not contacting them, I have received from them a re-sending of the original LOC. 

Going to just sit on this one and see if they move further.

Quick update on this. I finally received the statements from Overdales. I received the paperwork for the SAR from Three a while back. 

Essentially, the debt is almost entirely an "involuntary cancellation fee" according to the invoice sheet Overdales sent through.

So now I guess I just wait for the next step...

Quick update: I received a letter from Overdales acknowledging my response. They included a double sided page, one side from Overdales confirming the debt is a £416 early termination fee and £59 airtime debt.

The other side is a Lowells headed notice of assignment. And a separate page is a non-headed page that looks like it was typed out on MS Word which is apparently a Three notice of assignment.

Account is hold whilst they grab the rest of the requested details from Three. I'm also waiting on SAR results from Three too.

PDF of the pages is attached 

OverdaleLowell2 (1).pdf

Yeah the forms from post 4, not theirs! 

Managed to get the account number from 3s Live Chat today, but they refused to tell me a breakdown of the total figure. So I've dropped them a SAR this afternoon.

Reply forms filled out to be posted in the morning to Overdales. And on to the waiting game now...

9 hours ago, Bazooka Boo said:

And just to put your mind at ease. I have 3 ''letters of claim'' that oversnails have sent me all with their arbitrary '30 day' time limit before court action, the first one they sent was in June, still no court..... 

Thank you for this. I'm not worried at all. At the end of the day if the worst happens, they can't take what I don't have! . Having read other threads extensively, I'm pretty confident that it'll turn out okay! 

Hi,

 last month I received a 'notice of acting' from Overdales for a Three debt Lowells had been trying to chase. That letter was ignored and a couple of days ago I received a 'Letter of Claim'. 

The debt itself is for £476.10. The contract was taken out for my partner in April 2018, but we separated shortly after. She promised to continue paying the bill and had the logins to do so. When the letters came through from Three to say she had missed payments, she then promised to cover the bill. In the time since, we now have no contact. It may also be worth mentioning that I currently have a long standing Three mobile account fully paid and up to date.

I know that I am on the hook for the bill, however I am a single parent supporting my full time wage with Universal Credit and I genuinely can't afford to pay it. I also can't afford to have a CCJ on my account as I will need to move home in the next 12 months.

I don't want to deal with these people over the phone. They also sent an information sheet, and a reply form. The reply covers various tick-box sections, asking me to confirm if I own the debt, how I intend to pay, if I'm getting debt advice and finally for documentation. They have also sent an income and expenditure form.

My question is; should I just enter into an arrangement with these people, or is there a way around this? I have uploaded a PDF of the actual LOC. 

Thank you for any and all help.

Letter of Claim15-11-21.pdf

Hi Guys. 

In 2016 I had a PDL with The Money Shop.

Due to financial difficulty I stopped paying it in January 2017.

Recently out of the blue I started receiving emails from CRS about the debt. They were duly ignored.

Within them was an email about sending me a Letter Before Claim (they didn't) as well as a couple of repeated emails about the implications of a CCJ. They have my address and I haven't moved since the debt was accrued. 

A couple of days ago I received a letter from AJJB Law being very disappointed in me for not replying to CRS and telling me that their client is entitled to possibly pursue proceeding without further action.

Usually I would send an IRL claim to InstantCashLoans, but with them in the hands of Administrators that is no longer possible.

Also worth noting that on my credit file the debt is marked as owned by ICL - Trading as TheMoneyShop. This has been marked as 'Delinquent' every month since Jan 2017. There is no default registered.

So, whilst I am kind of sure that I'm still safely in the 'ignore these chancers' category, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on if I should perhaps tackle this in a different way?

Also, if the debt on my credit file is just marked as delinquent when will it fall off, if ever? 

Okay, so an update on all of this as I finally received a letter back yesterday.

This is the letter I initally sent:

Account: ******

Sort Code: *****

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

I am writing to lodge a dispute with regard to this account, which is currently in default. The total balance outstanding is currently £795.56, the entirety of which is made up of bank imposed charges, levied between the dates of 30/10/2011 and 21/03/2012.

 

On 30/10/11 I was charged a £6.00 Unpaid Item Fee and again on 02/11/11 a further £42 was levied. Prior to these charges, the account was in credit with a balance of £2.44. and has since not been used further by myself. The bank induced charges placed my account into a negative balance which you then began to charge a monthly ‘Unarranged OD Fee’ on from 02/12/11 until 21/03/12. These charges, along with a ‘Default Notice Fee’ of £30.00 amassed the total outstanding balance.

 

I would point out to you that under BCOBS you have a statutory duty to treat me fairly and have regard to my interests. It is clear that by deciding to pursue the course of action which you did, you acted completely against my interests and completely in your own interests, in order to maximise your opportunity to apply unfair charges against me, in order to maximise your revenue stream.

 

I object to these fees because it is your own charges which you have levied against me which have put me into overdraft. It is your charging scheme, it was designed by you, and it is intended to provide revenue for all parts of your personal account operation. Therefore your imposition of these charges on me can not be said to be ‘un-arranged’. You have imposed these charges upon me deliberately, in full knowledge of the state of my account and for your own purposes. It can never be said that the overdraft on my account was in any way unauthorised or un-arranged.

 

I need hardly point out to you that any reasonable person would regard treating unauthorised borrowing charges as themselves unauthorised as inherently unfair. Furthermore there is no contractual provision in your terms and conditions which allows you to treat your own charges as unauthorised borrowing. This means that there is an ambiguity in your terms and conditions which you have decided to interpret in your favour and against my interests. This is a violation of your statutory obligation under BCOBS, which require you to treat your customers fairly and to have regard to their interests. Clearly you have not done so here.

 

I would also like to bring to your attention the update of my registered address which took place in November 2012. My address was registered as ****. This fact was only brought to my attention whilst checking my ‘linked addresses’ on files provided by credit reference agencies. I have never has an association with Leicester, much less registered an address there. I telephoned your call centre and was assured by your operative that they had no record of any communication with me with regards this update and he subsequently changed the information.

However, due to you reporting this information to credit reference agencies as factually correct, I am now ‘linked’ to this address through my credit history. This constitutes a clear breach of the Data Protection Act with regards to data accuracy.

 

Both issues have had a negative impact on my credit history and will continue to do so for a period of six years from the date the default was registered. Once again, this is an unfair representation of myself as the registered default is entirely bank levied charges and further constitutes a violation of your statutory obligation under BCOBS.

 

In order to resolve this matter you must remove the outstanding charges from my account, remove the registered default from all credit reference agency reports and remove any registered address links to **** that you have previously reported. Failing this, I would invite you to take legal action against me to force me to pay. If a court determines that your charges are fair and the manner in which you have applied them is not a breach of your statutory obligations under BCOBS then I will of course, pay the outstanding in full.

 

I look forward to hearing from you presently.

 

Yours Faithfully

Op

Natwest agreed that the address change was wrong and out of order and have agreed to purge all of my credit files of this link. That's all well and good.

However, they have upheld that their charges are all in line and fair. They completed overlooked the fact that their returned item charge placed the account into overdraft and then they bean to charge monthly unauthorised overdraft charges on their previous charges month-on-month. They simply quoted back to me the terms and conditions that I signed:

6.31 Unarranged Overdraft Usage Fee

 

An Unarranged Overdraft Usage Fee will be charged for each day on which there is an unarranged overdraft of greater that £6 on your account at the close of business on that day. This is charged 21 days after the end of the charging period (or the next business day if this a saturday, sunday or bank holiday)

 

Unpaid Transaction Fee

 

An Unpaid Transaction Fee will be charged if: you informally request an unarranged overdraft by issuing instructions for a withdrawal or other payment ; and the payment cannot be met from the cleared balance in your account or any any unused overdraft; and we decide in our discretion not to make the payment. This is charged 21 days after the end of the charging period in which we decide not to make the payment (or the next business day if this is a saturday, sunday or bank holiday)

Then did the whole 'hope you are satisfied, if not talk to the FOS' spiel.

As far as I'm concerned, they did not even acknowledge anything in my letter regarding fairness or the fact that charging upon charges is unethical. I know that I should continue to fight this but I'm unsure how to further proceed?

Any help at all would be massively appreciated!

Thanks

I've managed to put together a decent letter but is there a particular address that I can send my letter to?

Okay, I'll set to work on it. Thanks again!

That's very interesting. Looking at it, the first charges were placed on 30/10/11. The default notice was charged on the account 22/02/2012. However, according to my file the default was actually registered on 31/07/2012.

Many thanks for that DX. I've had a read and think there are definite grounds to argue it. Ideally I'd like them wiping and the default removing. However, I'm not sure how to begin, are there any templates for this type of thing?

Hi All,

recently I have been trying to rectify my credit history and

upon checking my files was shocked to discover that I had a default on my file

for an old Natwest Account I had stopped using in 2011.

I was certain that I left the account in with a few pounds worth of credit

and transferred all of my outstanding payments to my new account.

As it was just a basic account with no overdraft, paperless billing and was used almost exclusively online, I just left it as it was.

Checking the details I was shocked to find that the address was registered as in Leicester,

when I have always lived in Leeds and the default was for a total of £795.56!

I called them immediately and

Natwest told me that the address had been updated in November 2012.

However, he also admitted that they had no record whatsoever that I had communicated in any way a change of address.

I had had Mail Forwarding for three months from my old address to my current one

when I moved in November 2011 and know that I never received anything to say the account was overdue.

I also never updated the address further as I didn't use the account and it was just kind of forgotten about.

the guy updated the address from Leicester for me.

He told me he couldn't how the £795.56 had accrued but that he would order statements from their archive and post them to me.

I have received them today.

The following is a breakdown of the final transactions on this account:

15/09/2011 - Card Transaction - £2.70 - Balance: £2.44CR

03/10/2011 - Charges - Returned Item Fee - 6.00 - Balance: -3.56

02/11/2011 - Charges - Returned Item Fee - 42.00 - Balance: -45.56

02/12/2011 - Charges - Unarranged OD Fee - 60.00 - Balance: -105.56

03/01/2012 - Charges - Unarranged OD Fee - 186.00 - Balance: -291.56

02/02/2012 - Charges - Unarranged OD Fee - 186.00 - Balance: -477.56

21/02/2012 - Charges - Unarranged OD Fee - 114.00 - Balance: -591.56

22/02/2012 - Charges - Default Notice Fee - 30.00 - Balance: -621.56

21/03/2012 - Charges - Unarranged OD Fee - 174 - Balance: -795.56

Now first of all, these charges seem incredibly high.

Second of all, if not for the charges, the account would not have gone overdrawn and eventually into default.

It feels ridiculous that for an initial spill-over of literally a few pounds, I should end up paying £795!

My statements also do not inform me of whoever or whatever tried to take a payment causing the 'returned item fee's,

nor can the department I spoke to apparently see this information :/

Is there anything I can do about this mess?

Any help or advice is most welcome!

I'm trying to get details on an old defaulted account so I can add it into a DRO. I emailed Wonga CustomerCare on the 10th:

Hello,

 

I am emailing to request details on an account that has appeared as a default on my credit file. I do not have an account number but can provide the following details regarding the debt in question:

 

name: xxxx

address: xxxxx

d.o.b: xxxx

email:xxxx

account started: 20/11/2010

default balance: £493

 

I would like to request a statement featuring the account number and the default amount in writing please. My address should also be amended to:

 

xxxxxx

 

Kind Regards

The next day I received this reply:

Dear Op,

 

After reviewing your email, it seems clear the best way to get this matter sorted is over the phone.

 

Please call us on 020 7138 8331. We look forward to discussing your account and trying to help find a solution for you.

 

You may also find you can get things sorted by using the options in the ‘my account’ area of our site.

 

Best wishes,

 

Collections Team

0207 138 8331

To which I replied that 'At this time I would prefer to communicate by email or post, and not under any circumstances by telephone'

They replied with "We have tried calling you today unsuccessfully (they don't have my current number, and are not getting it) and then continued the email with precisely the same reply as above!

So I sent an email of complaint to customercomplaints@wonga including the previous correspondence and a request that someone be able to help me. I received a reply from their complaints address.... an identical email to the two before! If I reply again I'm going to be met with another automated response so do any of you fine folks have any idea on any other address I could forward my enquiries to. I refuse to call them or allow them to call me for simple fear of the endless harassing calls starting all over again.

Any help or advice appreciated

Once you are finally out of debt you will feel much better, I was not trying knock you in anyway, everyone has their own way of dealing with things. The best way forward for you now is to look to the future and stay straight.

 

with most of your debts have you checked them out for charges that can be reclaimed? Its money in the bank for you.

They're predominantly PDLs with one or two default contracts in there. I don't think there's anything i can claim other than a reduction in charges. But even then they'll be written off by the DRO so will not be paid either way.

So just to be clear - would I need to resend the SAR and another £10?