This topic was closed on 10 March 2019. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

Well, I checked our account this morning, and Abbey have credited us with just over £1800 as promised! Looking back over my thread its been almost exactly 6 months to the day, I started on this journey. Although I have been a regular visitor to this forum, I haven't been the most prolific poster, but have gained invaluable help from the various people posting regularly and would like to thank stalwarts such as alanfromderby, LIP, johnni2bad, Whizzkid Lisamellor and Karnevil! To anyone just starting this fight, I would suggest: read as much as you can on here, follow the steps recommended (I did and at each step the predicted response from Abbey was bang on the target!), don't panic about small errors and don't try to "over" communicate with Abbey. Stick to YOUR deadlines and let your actions speak for themselves. They WILL fold!! Well no big plans for this money, except it pays off the overdraft and completes my "Year of Finance" leaving us debt free and able to start enjoying some of our income: planning to go on our first holiday for 3 years in 2007! Any mods reading this, could you change my title to something appropriate. Cheers Docdros

Yaaaayy! :):):) I know I sohuld post on my own thread, but no-one ever seems to read mine! Tried phoning Christine on that number this morning but got an automated reply. Luckily I had emailed Paul Denham from DLA and got a reply.Although he didn't supply with an address for Christine he must've forwarded the message to her, cos she contacted me. Turns out my case has been "settled in full" and a letter is on its way!!!!!! I'm gonna "hang fire" until it arrives then post in my own thread, but I just had to share this with someone HURRAH!!!! docdros

Congratulations lisa!!! Will try ringing that number tomorrow. Would save me faffing around with a court bundle! Enjoy the taste of victory!!!

Just wanted to ask this again as I could find no definitive answer on the forum search. When exactly does the 6 year limit date from, as my 50% offer from DLA Piper is querying my claim for May and June 2000. I included these months as my first letter to Abbey was in May this year, but can I only claim 6 years prior to the Online Moneyclaim date? I would really appreciate a reply as I need to fill my AQ and return it soon. I have emailed DLA Piper but had no reply as yet. Paul Denham is "out of office" until Thur 30th August, and the proxy he refers to (Jodie Bilsland) is not replying!! Docdros

Just sent the following email to Paul Denham: "Dear Mr Denham, I aknowledge receipt of your letter dated August 18th., as well as a copy of your client's defence. Unfortunately I must reject the offer of 50%. I will accept no less than 100% of the amount in question (including interest and all fees incurred). With reference to your comment regarding interest on charges before 21 July 2000 (although confusingly, your defence actually refers to claims before 26 June 2000), since my first contact with your client regarding this matter was the 12th. May 2006, I have included charges dating 6 years prior to this date. I have yet to receive my allocation questionnaire, and am aware of the fees involved with submission. I therefore invite your client, in the interest of saving them further costs, to settle this claim for the amount requested. I would be grateful for an acknowledgment of this email and would be happy to supply any further relevant information on request. I look forward to your reply Docdros" any thoughts/comments welcomed (bu&&er! just noticed I spelled acknowledge wrong! Not v. professional!)

Hi all, sorry for being quiet lately, just got out of hospital after a nasty chest infection, leading to pneumonia! However a few days after getting out I got my 50% offer from DLA Piper etc... Suffice to say I intend to politely turn them down, but before replying I had 1 question. When I first wrote to Abbey in May, I claimed charges from May 2000. However, the letter from DLA et al says the statute of limitiations means I can only claim after July 2000 (according to their offer letter) or June 2000 (according to their actual defence)?? So when does the 6 year limit apply from? First contact with Abbey? Date of online claim? any help appreciated Docdros

Hi Lisa, Yeah I meant to reply to you, but haven't been very active on the forum lately! How did you get on with the word limit on Moneyclaim online? Or did you take it into court? I'm also trying to figure out how to attach a statement of charges to my claim. Anyway, good luck to you too! :

Hi all,Got a reply from Abbey today with the usual yadda yadda, just before I filled in my Moneyclaim form online (tonight). Am tempted to reply to the "relationship has broken down....close the account....warning with something like " Since I have been forced to take this matter to County Court, I am currently reviewing my relationship with your company and may give you notice to close the account" (since we have both got parachute accounts opened and the Abbey o/d is not in use now). They also offered to waive fees totalling £115 as a "goodwill" gesture (roughly 10% of claim) as we had not had any recent charges refunded. This makes me wonder from a legal viewpoint..... how can they offer to refund fees if they truly reflect their costs? How do they justify this to shareholders? (Any good as a legal argument, Mods and legal eagles?) Anyway, I will be filling in the particulars of calim tonight and will post here later for tips/advice. Have been reading around but any pointers to useful threads welcome Docdros

Typed up the following letter today. Will post on Monday barring any advice to the contrary: "Sunday, 02 July 2006 Your Ref: 467707 Marc Winder Head of Complaints Complaints Abbey PO Box 5129 Milton Keynes MK9 2YN LETTER BEFORE ACTION Dear Mr Winder ACCOUNT NUMBER: 22054053 I am very disappointed that you have failed to respond adequately to my letter of the 15th. June. I do not consider a standardised letter and a photocopied “Customer satisfaction” leaflet to be “sincere dialogue” as requested in my previous letter. I now understand that the regime of 'fees' which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law. I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I calculate that you have taken £978 plus £136.36 which you have charged me in overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. Total £1114.36. I am enclosing a copy of the schedule of the charges which I am claiming. Furthermore, I refer you to a letter dated 19/6/06 from your Business Manager, Bank services (Pam Speed), regarding my subject access request. I repeat my position in my response dated 31/5/06: The £10 sent to your company was in order to cover a Subject access request under the Data protection Act, 1988, not a payment for multiple archived statements. I therefore consider that you have failed to supply me with the requested information and will be taking action accordingly as stated in my letter of 31/5/06. I therefore have included an estimated claim of £200 for bank charges for the period of May 2000 to November 2002, for which you have failed to supply me with information. This brings the total amount owing to £1314.36. I reserve the right to include interest charged on this estimated amount at a later date. I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus my costs and without further notice. This letter has been sent by first class recorded delivery, and therefore should have reached you by 4/7/06. I therefore expect your reply by 18/7/06 Please be advised, I will ignore all offers of partial payments for these monies and am willing to pursue this matter to a satisfactory conclusion. Yours faithfully, XXXXXX " I then included a pasted copy of the spreadsheet worked up by Vampiress I believe (many thanks btw) Re microfiched movements: I recieved more printouts about a week ago, covering Jan 05 - Mar 05, for which I already had statements and The previous printouts were for Nov 99 to Jan 00 so nothing of any use! Docdros

Well, today I received a lovely letter from Ms speed re: microfiched " movements". Oddly she thanks me (or rather my wife) for a letter dated 8th May ,received on 10th May, when I didn't send anything on that date! Anyway: "Dear Mrs. XXXXX Thank you for your letter dated 8th May 2006 which we received on 10th May 2006 requesting information on your bank account. We have used the £10.00 fee that you have sent with your Data Protection Act Request as a payment for the microfiche records that you need. Please find enclosed the requested movements. If you have any questions please call us on the above number. Yours Sincerely P.Speed" Now, this letter is dated 19th June and I sent my template reply to the microfiche letter on the 2nd May. I also sent a prelim letter on the 15th June. Furthermore, the printouts enclosed date from Nov 99 to mar 00, when i asked for data from Jan 00, so not quite the data I need, even if I agreed to the £10 being used as it has been. Lastly, 10th May-19th June = exactly 40 days so if they can do it this way, why not via Data Protection Act? Anyway, should I reply again or just wait for DPA expiry date (23rd june) and then start proceedings? Maybe a phone call to gee em up? docdros

Quick update on my Wescot scuffle: Got a reply accepting we are not liable for the debt, as well as this assurance that the wife's credit file would not be affected: "Also, as the date the account entered default was over six years ago,this account should no longer be shown on her credit file." Didn't stop them trying to chase the debt in the first place though did it?! Turns out my sister in law has also had a run in with these jokers so watch out for them peeps! Didn't get my invoice paid, but to be honest, I am happy the matter is closed and a credit check on my wife's file shows no entries, so I am happy to let it rest there. docdros

Got our DPA fob off letter today. It seems to be subtly different from what others have received (with a couple of cunning changes), so I will repeat it in full below: "Dears Mrs XXXXX, Thank you for your letter dated 12th May 2006, which we received on 16th May 2006, requesting information on your bank account. I also acknowledge receipt of your £10 fee. I would like to advise you that under a Data Protection Act Request, you will only receive the transactions that are currently held on our systems. Any earlier transactions have been archived onto microfiche, which is not covered by the Data Protection Act. These archived transactions will therefore not be supplied to you under a Data Protection Act request. We can however supply details of the transactions held on the microfiche on payment of an administration fee. The fee is as follows: - £5.00 for 1 mopnthly statement that has been archived £10.00 for multiple monthly statements that have been archived. It is clear from your request that you require the transactional information that is held on the microfiche records. In order to avoid any additional delays, we will therefore use the £10 that you have sent with your Data Protection Act request, as payment for the microfiche records that you need. You will receive these shortly. If you don not want us to do this please call us on the above number. Ant transactional information that is held on our systems and has not been archived, will be forwarded to you free of charge, under separate cover." the letter is "signed" by P.Speed, Business manager, Banking services. Now it seems to me that I am being gently deflected away from the nasty DPA route to a BETTER way in which Abbey will fulfill my request "shortly". I also find it a fortuitous coincidence that my £10 cheque would cover their admin costs perfectly under this new way! I am slightly miffed that they seem to be telling me what I wanted to spend that £10 cheque on, but I guess the banks know best eh? Edit: After advice from Spiceskull, I'm gonna send the basic template letter, I was overly complicating things. I have, however included my intended addition and would welcome comments as although I agree with Spiceskull re: keeping things simple, it did seem this paragraph would allow people some hope of actually getting transaction info, without being deflected from a DPA request: [end of Para 4 from standard letter]......I expect this to be provided within the time period for DPA compliance. I do not appreciate your attempts to deflect me from my Data Protection Act request and your patronising assumptions as to how I wish to spend my money. The £10 cheque included in my original letter was for a Data Protection Act request, and any attempt to use it for other purposes will not be looked upon favourably. However, since you so kindly offer to send me the information I require via an alternative route, I am quite happy to send you another £10 cheque on the strict understanding that you can fulfil this offer within 21 days (a reasonable interpretation of the word “shortly” as used in your letter). If you cannot offer me this guarantee, I ask that you return the cheque. In any event, my Data Protection Act request stands. Docdros.

Not yet. But it's more about standing up to bullies at this stage. Also the wife's credit score is important (still need to check that yet). Glad you like the "Pratt " line. I was quite proud of that. Couldn't figure out if the guy was genuine or just p***d off with me! I did manage to ask if it was with one "T" or 2, though. This response seemed to cover both possibilites

I hope this is not considered thread hijacking, but having read this thread, I had to write of a similar experience with a company called Wescot credit services. My wife was contacted last november with a notice of debt, based at an old address. She contacted Wescot and was told the debt (£125) was due to an old catalogue account. Having wracked our brains to remember using the company we realised the account had been opened after we moved from that address (only two doors away, up the street). Also some of her security details were wrong (e.g. date of birth). My wife then received a final notice (£205) and attempted to clear the matter by phoning the company and then the police. She got a crime number etc. and Wescot said they would accept copies of our Council Tax bill for the period as evidence we were not liable. We duly got this and sent them a copy. However, the muppets decided that this was evidence of liability, since the address on the bill was the same street as the liable address! Having recently joined this forum, I was now in a position to fight back! I phoned their call centre to clear the matter but failed to convince their agent, or her line manager of the difference in address. The line manager got quite sniffy eventually and agreed to "cancel the debt". However, by this time I was fuming and demanded they write back and confirm the debt was never ours. The guy had the nerve to ask for more copies of correspondence so I told him to check with their correspondence dept! I then gave them 5 working days to send written confirmation and having failed to get a reply sent the following letter: Dear Sir/Madam Further to my telephone conversation of the xx/5/06 and in accordance with my stated intentions in that phone call (and your implicit acquiescence to those conditions by failure to reply to me by Friday xxth May, 2006), please find below a bill for my costs involved in settling this matter. This balance is due in 14 days of receipt. If any balance remains outstanding after the XXth of June, 2006, I intend to pursue this matter further, as well as writing to the OFT and relevant ombudsmen to complain about the harassment inflicted upon me and upon my wife, by your company. As an act of good will, I will recount the pertinent points of that phone call, but please be advised, should this matter require further correspondence on my part, I will be charging administration fees of £10 per letter. Having sent you evidence (in the form of a Council Tax bill) that my wife and I were not living at X2 (note the 2 in the address) XXXXX road on the Xth of XXX, 1998 but at number X6 (again note the 6 in the address) XXXXX road, I believed this was sufficient information for you to realise that we have been victims of Identity fraud and are in no way liable for the amount in question. (In fact I am happy to accept your agent’s acquiescence that we are not liable for the amount as mentioned in the phone call of the XXth). However, having received this information, your company then sent us a form stating in the additional comments: “Above confirmation shows that you were living at X6 XXXXX road on X/X/98 (Start date of this account)” correct up to this point, but continues: “Therefore you are liable for this account” Incorrect…Clearly someone has failed to distinguish between a 2 and a 6. At the beginning of the phone call I verified with your call centre operator that the address at which the account was opened was X2 XXXXX road. Therefore I urge you to check your data. We did indeed live at X2 XXXXX road, but moved 2 doors away to number X6 when our Landlords returned to live at number X2. We have strong suspicions as to whom opened the account in my Wife’s name, but quite frankly, that is not a matter for us to deal with. So, after attempting to clarify the situation with your agent whose name I was given as Mr. Pratt, (unfortunately I did not ask for a first name, but I am assuming you do not have any other Pratts working at your company), it was agreed that the debt would be “written off”. However, this is insufficient action to remedy the situation. I also requested written confirmation (by Friday XXth. May, 2006) that my wife’s credit file has not been affected by this affair. If any entries have been made to her file, we demand that they be fully retracted (NOT simply amended). We will be checking her credit file with the CRAs but will allow you 30 days in order to complete any retractions required. Furthermore, I require written confirmation that this debt was never incurred by us. I am not asking for an apology for the treatment we have received, but I do require financial restitution for the time and effort this matter has demanded from me. Therefore; current outstanding balance: 1 phone call on xx/5/06 £0.42 This letter (1st class recorded delivery) £1.00 2 hours of my time at £10p/h £20.00 Total £21.42 Please note, I am not charging you for previous phone calls or mail sent out, but reserve the right to do so (as well as apply interest on the debt at a reasonable rate) should this matter not be resolved to my satisfaction by return of post and within the timescale specified. I will accept cheques in the name of Dr XXXXX. I look forward to your prompt reply Dr XXXXX (For, and on behalf of Mrs XXXXX) Sorry for the long post but I hope this may help somebody. I also now realise that this debt was statute barred and that Wescot were playing the same "fishing" game as Mackenzie Hall. Docdros