OK we have contacted the Court and they advise that the original creditor was Eon and it is believed the debt was sold onto debt buyer and it is that party that has obtained the judgement.  The court would not give out much information but my colleague paid £10 to have all the details sent to him which will take about a week.

Interestingly, the court clerk asked how he wanted to pay the debt, did he want to pay by instalments etc which is an odd question to ask if the judgement is supposedly satisfied.

Will post back here when full details received.  I would expect the next step to be an N244 applying for a Set Aside.

I think five minutes grace period at the start is not enough.  In some cases you could use all of that time just finding somewhere to park and finding the signs and then reading them.  It should be ten in and ten out.

Hello All

My colleague has been attempting to obtain vehicle insurance and been knocked back as the brokers have determined he has a CCJ.

This has come as a shock to him as he was unaware of any claim.

Having looked into it he has found the following information:

CCJ granted to an unknown creditor in August 2020 for about £1400

The details of the Judgement show him at an old address which he vacated in 2012 (so a back door judgement).

Most astonishing of all the Judgement is being shown as satisfied!!   He has certainly not paid it off as he did not even know it existed.

I have composed an email to the Court for him asking for full details of the original claim as a precursor to making an application to have the judgement overturned which he is sending just now.

Obviously we need to wait for the Court to return details of the original claim but we will be challenging it on the grounds that it was obtained at the wrong address and no defence was possible but if it had been possible to defend then the grounds would be SB.   Also, worth asking the creditor for full documents supporting the debt if they have any but until we find out who it is then waiting for the Court.

Would anyone have any opinion or experience of overturning a Satisfied judgement?

I would advocate that the word "Fine" be removed from these companies communications of any sort.   That would pull in some of their sting.

1 hour ago, hello12345 said:

A nightingale in barclay square.

Very good!!

I usually strongly advocate the black hole technique whereby you never talk to them, email them, or answer their correspondence, just file everything neatly along with the envelopes it came in.   

However, if you don't know who the creditor is or if you even doubt you have a creditor it might be wise to write a very simple letter to Moorcroft advising them of your new address, something like the following:

I am writing to advise you that on DATE I moved from OLD ADDRESS to NEW ADDRESS and I request you update you records accordingly.

Yours sincerely

YOUR NAME

DO NOT sign it.

By doing this they will be able to write to you with their claim, which for the most part can be ignored.  However, if anybody out there is coming after you for a debt you need to receive the correspondence just in case the original claimant, spurious or not, goes for a County Court Claim.   If nothing else then a record of the above letter and the date of posting ought to give you grounds for turning over any future CCJ they get.

But in any case this is 99%  sure you will get any letters before action/claim packs etc.

Also, File EVERYTHING you get.

16 hours ago, danscott666 said:

I paid £20 which in no way could have brought the account up to date. Looks more like a token gesture. I am going to look at all the statements when I can later and see if a default had been already issued which I think it had. I think there would have been a default charge applied to the account maybe £12 or so. 

 

The logic makes total sense. 

When did you pay the £20? was it before the default letter or after?  Exact date and to whom the £20 was paid is key to calculating the SB date.  It could be construed that paying £20 or any figure was an acknowledgement of the debt and could re-start the SB clock.

Important to understand the date but I concur with the other CAGers that it is probably not something to worry about.

As an aside I fought (and won) an argument with Lowells over the default date.  They were trying to assert that the Default date was later than it was but I was able to disabuse them of that idea thanks to having the original Default Letter plus also getting it confirmed by the original lender (Vanquis).  They sent me the exact same copy of the Default Notice as part of their SAR response so I say again a good idea to SAR Mint so you know where you are and you are then ready to rebuff any bullshit from the DCA.

Just to be clear you say your last payment to Mint was 3rd October 2014.

if that is the case there are possibilities:

a). Your last payment was a normal payment as a result of receiving the normal monthly bill and paying some part of it.   If you did not then pay anything else then you would have received some debt collection letters from mint over a period of some months presumably culminating in a Default Notice probably somewhere between month three and month six.   If, following receipt of that notice you did nothing then fourteen days after the date of that notice the statutory bar clock started which means that it probably started somewhere around January to April (but check this by getting SAR sent to Mint).  In this scenario you could have perhaps eight months to go before the stat bar kicks in.

b).  You had not paid the account properly prior to 3rd October 2014 and a DN was issued.  You responded by paying and the DN became voided as you corrected the issue by paying the arrears in which case we are back to a)

c).  You had not paid the account properly prior to 3rd October 2014 and a DN was issued.  You did not correct the situation within 14 days of the DN being issued and as such it came into being.  However, you continued to make some payments but if you did not fully pay the arrears the DN stays in place in which case your Stat Bar clock starts the last time you made a payment and this account will therefore become SBed 3rd October 2020.

Hope my logic is sound but I welcome any other CAGers chipping in here.

To be clear, did you pay Mint until you stopped paying or did you start to pay a debt collector after the account was passed to them?

2 hours ago, Andyorch said:

 

Apparently not so now since a Judge decided to rewrite the Limitations Act and the goal posts were moved in favor of creditors...its from the date the creditor decided to issue a default notice and the 14 days had expired to rectify the breach.

I wonder if it is slightly more nuanced than that.

If an account was previously in good order but then the creditor stops paying then indeed it is some months before the DN is issued and the creditor then has 14 days to put the account right before it becomes defaulted and indeed the SB clock starts then.

However, what if the DN was previously issued (which seems likely since Westcot have this now) and it was subsequently paid for a while before the payments stopped.  If the DN has been issued and payments of any sort stop at some point after this then I would think the SB clock starts with the date of the last payment.

Probably in this case it is a good idea to SAR Mint so the OP can get a proper picture of his situation E.G. what was the nature of his sign up, when did he default (I.E. their records of the DN date) , who it was then sold on to and when that party was last paid.  The best/next thing to do here is establish the SB date.

1 hour ago, London1971 said:

Never Answer the phone to any DCA, all communication should be in writing

 

Is this showing on your credit file still?

 

If so what is the default date?

 

Although it's sounds very much like you should just sit tight and not say or do anything involving this as it will be Statute barred in a couple of months. 

I am a big fan of going dark and letting them do all the work and it has paid off for me almost every time so I agree with London1971 about sitting tight.

With that in mind it is useful to know exactly where you stand.  My understanding of the situation is that if you are in England and Wales then the account will become statute barred six years from when you last acknowledged the debt (five years in Scotland) so assuming you did not enter into any  correspondence during which you said anything like "I owe this money" then the last acknowledgement would be the date of your last payment.

May I suggest you research your bank statements and properly establish the last date you paid and that will give you an exact date to work towards, basically 49-80 days from today (12th August) assuming it goes SB on a date in October.

It is quite possible that Cabot will expire this time in useless threatomatics by sending further correspondence or possibly flicking it out to another low life DCA.

So I think best to find the actual date then open all further correspondence to make sure it is not a letter before action (in which case come back here) and file it till the SB date.

After that you can have some fun with them especially if the documents they provided are indeed bogus.  Might be worth doing a SAR to Mint (now owned by royal Bank of Scotland) to see what they send back.  If you get lucky and they send details of your original application form then Cabot's bollocks will be very nicely on the table.

Couple of weeks late but just donated a tenner, not much but....

No need to post out an acknowledgement.

Hello

I agree with dx100uk.

Send them a CCA request which is a request for them to produce the original agreement that gives rise to the debt.  They have a limited amount of time (I think around fifteen days) to send you the document.   Here are the possible follow-ons from that:

1. They don't respond within 15 days and so you are legally entitled to stop paying until they do send a response.

2. They send a letter saying they have gone back to the original creditor to ask for the document and they need more time.  You (legally) stop paying after fifteen days and don't pay them again until they send proof. (This is the most likely first response as they wont have any of your documentation as they bought your debt as part of 1000 others on a spreadsheet on a CD ROM or USB stick).

3. They send you something that looks like a contract or which might be something else that they want you to think is the contract within the time frame.

After either of the above  whatever they send you should be referred back here for an assessment as they will often send you unsigned documents or made up bits of nonsense.  Even if the contract turns out to be the genuine one it still might not be enforceable due to errors made by the creditor at the time of signing.

The only potential downside to the above is that they could try to damage your credit record but probably it is as much damaged as it can be by this debt already so nothing else they can do will make it worse.

Following on from the above you can continue to not pay them.  I would setup an on-line savings account and pay yourself the money instead which has the advantage of creating a resource in case you need to resume payments in the future.

They may send you further letters either inducing you to resume payments by threat or by offering you a deal.  If the document is not valid then the only deal you need to take is the one you unilaterally entered into at T plus 15 days when you agreed with yourself not to pay them another penny.

It is not impossible that they will send you a letter saying the debt is unenforceable (miraculously I have actually seen one!) and asking you to pay anyway which you will of course ignore as you should not be giving any member of this low life industry any encouragement.

This is great advice. 

From now on I will be opening all letters that come to me.

I am happy to report that the company has decided not to pursue their claim.  Here are the main details:

I sent the letter in post 11 above (but I thank ericsbrother and Emmzzi for their comments that were added after I had already posted).

On the day of the deadline my friend received a letter stating that they were not proceeding with their claim.

In about nine paragraphs they said; the over-payment was a self evident innocent error by the company, Promissory Estoppel was irrelevant, disputed her claims and pointed out they were only raised once they tried to get the payment from her.  That said they were exercising discretion in not pursuing sums legitimately owed on the basis that the parties not make claims against each other as per the letter I sent.

I am pleased that my letter worked even though legally it was on infirm ground but I think the company realised they were going to have to put a lot of management time into this and were unlikely to get a quick return, and I suspect they were also anxious that some of their practices did not come to light.

Whilst I am pleased I also have a nagging guilt because I have some sympathy for the care home (and all care homes) as they have borne the brunt of the Covid outbreak and it has not been at all easy for them to deal with it or their staff.

Anyway, my thanks to CAGers for their input.  This thread can now be closed as no further help is required but can of course be open for comments.

Donation Friday (Payday). 

Hello All

Update:

It turns out she left on 3rd April so she has until the end of June to start any unfair or constructive dismissal claim.  Not sure how that would go as she was not there two years but anyway I have written the following letter for her and I will fire it off and see how it goes. The intention is to get the management to realise that if they pursue their claim they will be in for a long haul with other issues along the way but if they "wipe their mouths" then so will we.  Not sure how well it will go but it is the only shot I can come up with and I think it is worth a try:

____________________

Dear Sirs

Further to your letter of 8th June I deny that any money is due to your firm and I will be relying on the Principle of Estoppel should you wish to seek a court order.

I will ask that the Court recognize that;

a). You have lead me to believe that the money was correct and due which you did by repeatedly paying it and evidencing that fact in a payslip over some eight months.

b). That the overpayment was not my fault which is clearly evident and

c). The money has been spent in order to change my lifestyle to the extent that I relied upon it for a steady income rather than going hand to mouth as I had done in previous employment and used it to settle outstanding debts.

You will have to wait some months for the case to come to court and convince a judge that the above are not true in order to succeed.

I had hoped to move on from the toxic experience of working for your firm, and in particular having sought advice about how I was treated it was clear that a case for Constructive dismissal was (and is currently) possible, though I decided it was better to just move on. But as you seem intent on pursuing the above I must now consider your treatment of me which includes the following:

1. Setting me up with the wrong contract that I knew nothing about for at least 8 months, so my diligent filling in of the actual time sheet made absolutely no difference in hindsight.

2. Demanding overpayment publicly in the company reception and office, as a result the whole company being aware of my private matter, extremely unpleasant pressure put on me at the time.

3. Not keeping me safe whilst working in a risky environment during the pandemic, refusing to give out PPE, such as masks and aprons, when they were already available,  a Clear breach of the Health and Safety at work Act.

4. Demanding I do not protect myself, wearing my own PPE, whilst not offering me an alternative, I was at this point suffering extreme eczema on hands, aggravated by increased washing and severe stress at work being treated disrespectfully on many occasions.

5. Habitually being understaffed and more demands put on staff, eg. people must be ready and out of bed by 10.30 am, which is unrealistic, plus furthermore their choice, breakfast must be ordered by 9.30 am, again low staff levels did not allow for that to happen etc.

6. Demanding I remove my own protective gloves moving a new resident in his wheelchair and with his belongings, who just came from hospital with a coronavirus, escorted by ambulance drivers in their full PPE. Later on it was found out this is the main route Covid got into care homes.

7. Breaking clear government instruction during pandemic, putting residents and staff at risk, still allowing some residents visitors, even during a clear government ban. This resident who was allowed visitors now sadly passed away, so this should be investigated.

8. Not providing any additional PPE, other than a T shirt to protect myself from the coronavirus during lockdown. So I do not claim I am a scientist but everyone knows how Covid 19 spreads and how important it is to be wearing effective PPE.

9. Ignoring my complaint about all this and subsequently allowing coronavirus into the care home. Also ignoring several complaints that some colleagues were getting away with not contributing to the work and it becomes too stressful for other staff to cope, eg myself.

10. Ignoring my sickness notes, that I had a great difficulty obtaining, whilst suffering from migraines at the time, when I explained doctor’s surgery did not operate over the Easter weekend, hence the gap in my sickness note, it got simply ignored and dismissed.

11. My resignation and complaint was altogether ignored and my sick pay for 2 weeks was not paid, so effectively I have been fired.

12. I am still unemployed and not intending to get back to work until my mental health issues are improved.

13. Finally, not allowing me to go on holiday, even though this was requested minimum of 3 months in advance, only a few days out of my requested week were usually approved. I was expected to do the manager a favour and work extra hours, which was not something I could or wanted to do very often.

The above are sufficient grounds to bring a case against you at an Employment Tribunal. I had decided to in effect “wipe my mouth” and move on from your firm but as long as you threaten me with court action I have no option but to respond in kind.

I have until the end of June to start a case against your firm.

I do understand that your firm has faced major management challenges this year and it has not been easy for you either.  Therefore, if you advise me, in writing, by Friday June 19th 2020 at 1700 hrs that you are prepared to withdraw your claim then I will in turn offer a similar undertaking not to commence a tribunal case against you and both parties can move on.

I cannot allow you any more time after this date as I must commence my case before three months have elapsed.

______________________

Bankfodder:

Not sure how much the over payment was but believe it to be around £100 per week over 18 months! making it around £7.5K but will have to come back to you on that.

She left 3rd March.

Yes I agree they are separate issues.   I am just wondering if it is possible to offer the threat of one to get rid of the other.   She just wants to move on and not be enmeshed with dealing with them.

London 1971:

She was paying it back at  £50 per month prior to when she left.  I don't know what the balance owing is.   The letter she has received says that if she cant pay in one lump then contact them to sort out a plan.

Thanks both for response. 

Hello All

This thread is a continuation of this one:

The situation has now deteriorated.

In summary

The lady in question was working in a care home as a carer and from the very start they overpaid her.

When this came to light they insisted she re-pay the over-payment and apparently this was discussed in public so that her colleagues became aware of the situation!

She began to repay at the rate of £50 per month.

As time went on the Covid situation got a lot worse and the home began to receive patients suspected of being Covid carriers.  On one occasion the lady had gloves on to receive a patient from an ambulance and was told to remove them (I have no idea why!).

The lady became increasingly anxious about the situation in the home, her own health and that of her son and began to lose sleep and experience anxiety issues.

She took some sick leave and ran into problems getting sick notes and so the company refused to pay her sick leave.

Eventually she left what seemed to be a very bad environment in which she was unable to cope and predictably the company did not pay her the remaining pay or sick pay.

After leaving she started to feel much better and has now lined up another job.

She has received a letter dated 8th June demanding repayment of the overpaid wages.  Unless this is done within seven days (so 15th June) they will take legal action to recover them.  The letter says that but whether or not they do so remains to be seen.   It seems that as this is in effect a letter before action that some sort of reply is warranted.

The lady does some cleaning for a solicitor who has advised her to send a one page letter which she has composed and the text is as follows:

_________

I am not intending to repay you anything as you have breached the circumstances of your employer’s duties towards me.

Namely:

Quote

 

1. Setting me up with the wrong contract that I knew nothing about for at least 8 months.

2. Demanding overpayment publicly in the company reception and office, as a result the whole company being aware of my private matter.

3. Not keeping me safe whilst working in a risky environment during the pandemic, refusing to give out PPE, such as masks and aprons, when they were already available.

4. Demanding I do not protect myself, wearing my own PPE, whilst not offering me an alternative.

5. Demanding I remove my own protective gloves moving a resident in his wheelchair and with his belongings, who just came from hospital with a coronavirus, escorted by ambulance drivers in their full PPE.

6. Breaking government instruction during pandemic, putting residents and staff at risk, still allowing some residents visitors, even during a clear government ban. This resident who was allowed visitors now sadly passed away.

7. Not providing any additional PPE, other than a T shirt to protect myself from the coronavirus during lockdown.

8. Ignoring my complaint about all this and subsequently allowing coronavirus get into the care home.

9. Ignoring my sickness notes, that I had a great difficulty obtaining, whilst suffering from migraines, when I explained doctor’s surgery do not operate over the Easter weekend, hence the gap in my sickness note, it got simply ignored and dismissed.

10. My resignation and complaint was altogether ignored and a my sick pay for 2 weeks not paid.

11. This caused me further unnecessary stress of not being able to pay my rent and borrowing money.

12. As a result of this I am still unemployed and not intending to get back to work until my mental health issues are improved.

_________

 

I would be most grateful if CAG'ers could comment on the next steps.

The outcome we want is for her to just leave the whole mess behind and move on with her life.  She does not want to pay back the over-payment and neither does she wish to pursue the company for constructive dismissal or any other employment infringements though I believe she would have a very good case given that shortly after she left the care home came down with thirteen Covid cases so she was right to protect herself and they were wrong to prevent her from doing so and therefore forced her to work in an unsafe environment.

I would ideally like to construct a letter that points out the wrong doings of the firm and the consequences to them if the lady decides to go to an employment tribunal or take some other form of counterclaim.  The letter she has written as above I feel does not have enough bite and I would welcome any comments or suggestions as to how to beef it up, perhaps by reference to actual laws for example.

Any other advice, suggestions or even just opinions and comments are welcome as they always are on my threads.

Might be worth writing to the motoring organisations AA and RAC and see if they offer an opinion.  Could help you with the magistrates if it gets that far.

My own opinion for what it is worth (not a legal or driving expert) is that in exceptional circumstances where you don't believe it is safe to continue then you are right to stop.  The fact that another motorist took the same decision is a good indication of how bad the conditions were.

I cannot resist the temptation to add to this thread!

A friend of mine was in an IVA with around ten lenders and I wrote to every one of them with a CCA request to produce paperwork to demonstrate the debt existed.

Not one could do so.

Most wrote back to say they could not produce the paperwork, one sent some cobblers concoction of an application form with no signature and one, in a rare display of integrity,  even went so far as to say that the debt was unenforceable as a result of their own lack of evidence.

100% success rate.

He stopped the IVA payments and has heard no more.

Do yourself a favour and give these blood suckers the big E.   It cannot have a worse impact on your credit score than has already occurred and anyway who cares about their credit score, this is a device by the lending industry to keep you in line.  As long as you live debt free your credit score should not be that important. 

Also, there is no moral issue here.   These IVA companies will simply suck your limited funds into their own bank accounts. 

I get the impression that the judge was really enjoying himself, especially with the liberal use of Shakespeare!   I note the Defendant was connected to the Theatre, I wonder if this may have swayed his honour (not in terms of bias but in terms of doing a proper job?).

He may have lived in Scotland but not sure he was a genuine Scotsman. They have a reputation for no paying out if they don't have to!!

Hello

In my experience if you do not return the directions questionnaire by the correct date then the court will send an order to you that you must complete it by the date on the order or the case will go against you (essentially this is a reminder).

So not to worry.  If you have not received that document then just send the directions questionnaire in and if you have received the order then send the directions questionnaire in before the date of the order.

1 hour ago, BankFodder said:

Why don't you start a new thread and post up the story – even if it is too late to help – there may be lessons that people can learn.

Also, I think we would love to see the threatening letter.

OK will do. 

I will link to it here when done.

Thanks for the comment Bankfodder.

We got to the point of getting a second Hearing to restore our account before it was automatically restored.

We then had a very threatening letter from their Solicitors seeking costs if we pursued them. 

They wanted us to formally discontinue the case which we refused to do. 

This did not put us off but the needs of the business took too much time and it drifted off.

Having said that we got more time just now!

I would like to add my experience to this thread as it may help out somewhat.

In December of 2018 our business account with Barclays was suspended just before Christmas with all our staff wages due on the 20th in time for Christmas.

I spent the better part of the day in the branch where they refused to say anything about what was going on.  Later on I learned the following:

1. If a bank, or a bank employee even, has a suspicion of money laundering or similar they are obliged to report it to the National Crime Agency.

2. If they do not report it and it was later found that criminal activity was taking place then the Bank can be held liable so this is arse covering by the bank.

3. Once they report to the NCA they cannot tell you , the account holder, that they have done so as they will be found liable for tipping you off that an investigation into you was under way. So the lack of any explanation is arse covering by the bank (again).  (Perversely this very lack of notification is the clearest sign this is what has happened and is a great tip off to the potential money launderer that he is under suspicion!).

4. Once the NCA is notified of the suspicious transactions they have a certain amount of time (it is something like ten working days) to notify the bank of whether they are interested in investigating the case.  Something like 10% are of interest which means the other 90% are of no interest.  The NCA will ignore these and once the initial period is over the bank is allowed to release the account.

5. If the NCA is interested in further investigation they have another period of time (something like a calendar month) to investigate after which if nothing comes of it then the account is once more released.

In my case we took court action to try and get the funds released but it was difficult over the holiday period.  We got one hearing which the bank failed to show up for and they subsequently released our account in January at the conclusion of the ten working day term.  As we had taken court action they deemed the relationship had broken down and gave us 30 days to move our account.

I strongly suspect that you are caught in this situation.  They, or probably some stupid computer algorithm has identified a transaction in your account as suspicious, they have notified the NCA to cover their arse and refused to tell you they have done so to cover their arse again.  Is your account closed or just suspended?

In any case you cannot use the Barclays account right now and you almost certainly wont want to use them in the future.

You need to open another account so you can function financially.  I suggest the quickest way to do this is to use one of the new on-line services such as Starling, Tide, Monesse etc.   I strongly recommend Starling as they have a great app, an easy and swift on-boarding process, cash deposits at any post office (so for example I can deposit at ten o'clock at night in my local village coop!).    Business accounts also available.

You will probably 90% certain have access to your funds again within ten working days of the suspension and almost 100% certain to have them back after a month or so if the NCA takes an interest in you.  Once you have these funds back you will need somewhere to put them before you give Barclays a colossal middle finger.

I have found out that Barclays are berks, bastards and other B words.

I certainly would concur with Bankfodder that being loyal to any bank and/or to expect loyalty from them is akin to a cow being loyal to the farmer, you will get milked until you are no good to them and sent for slaughter if it is convenient for the herdsman.

Given the time frames I have outlined above any complaints you make to the Ombudsman or elsewhere will not play out before your funds are made available to you again but it might be worth starting one in case you can get something out of it.

I have around six or seven bank accounts on the go so I will never have my balls on the table with any of them again.

By the way you are the innocent in this, it is the Dickheads at Bastarlys at fault and don't be scared of them.

Hope this helps.