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Philip Hindley

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  1. This topic was closed on 03/07/19. 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
  2. This topic was closed on 03/07/19. 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
  3. This topic was closed on 03/07/19. 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
  4. This topic was closed on 03/06/19. 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
  5. This topic was closed on 03/05/19. 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 their. 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
  6. Thanks Cornucopia for your input, which could be worth much more than two-penneth! I'm sure Ian will find your posting of benefit. As I mention earlier in this thread, my debt with MBNA was sold on to a DCA called First Direct, and I've been so pre-occupied chasing refunds from other banks, that I haven't got round to sorting them out yet. The nugget of information you've provided will, I am sure, be of great help. Many thanks.
  7. Hi Ian, I've never heard of TML, although, perhaps other members have, and would be able to offer the benefit of their experience. It may be worth doing a site search for TML to see if anyone else has mentioned them in their threads. Personally, I'm inclined to think (cynic that I am) that this may just be a diversionary tactic on Westcot's part. If it were me, I would give them until the weekend to make a response to your CCA request, and then, if nothing appears, write to them, reminding them of your request and that they are obliged to provide you with a response within the deadline. To be reasonable, give them a further seven days to provide the information, failing which, you will report them to the Information Commisioner, for non-compliance, and qestion the legality of any debt which they claim has been transferred to them. Obviously this would bring into question whether or not they were able to demand future payments from you, or whether you were legally odliged to make them. You could also mention that, since a proportion of the debt comprised unlawful charges, and that you were confident that you would be able to successfully reclaim them, the outstanding debt would be entering a state of dispute, which would further prohibit them from making claims on you. This, hopefully will elicit some response from them, although I would like to bet, initially, at least, it will just be a "fob off" letter. Let us know how you get on! regards
  8. Hi Sybil! Welcome to the site! There are lots of friendly people here who will always be glad to offer help and advice. Never be afraid to ask. Your story brought back lots of memories. I think we have all been in the position of being made to feel guilty, inadequate and alone, through the intransigence and bullying of one or other of the Banks. Sometimes it is caused by our own financial incompetence, sometimes by unfortunate circumstances, but always, it seems to me, that problems are compounded by the greed of the Banks in never missing an opportunity to impose charges and kick a man when he is down. That is how it has been for years. Like you, finding this site made me feel like St Paul on the road to Damascus! Talk about a revelation! Even now, my dear lady wife (who is as honest and straightforward as the day is long) finds it hard to comprehend that Financial Institutions, in whom we place such implicit trust, can behave in such a selfish and unlawful manner, and get away with it. Now then, Sybil, for you and your husband it is payback time! As you have seen from my thread, all the charges A&L imposed unlawfully, are yours to reclaim. It is YOUR money. They won't make it easy, but for the sake of a few hours of study on your part, plus writing a few letters, the end result, both in financial terms and in the return of self-esteem will be immeasureable. First of all read the FAQs! Be aware that there is a slight possibility that your claim might end up in Court. It is extremely unlikely. From the thousands of people who have made claims against the Banks, no more than a handful have had to get any closer to a Court of Law than their PC. Nevertheless, as long as there is a chance, you need to know about it. Look in the Site Library for the Template Letter requesting a list of all charges applied to your husband's account until the date of its closure, under the Data Protection Act. Send £10, in payment. If it was in his sole name, he will have to make the request. Don't limit yourself to six years. I'm pretty certain that the Statute of Limitations, when applied to Mortgages, is twelve years. They will probably tell you that they only keep records going back twelve years, anyway. They have 40 days to provide you with the information. By now, they will have a good idea what you are looking for. Compare their list with the statements you have available. You are able to claim back anything listed as arrears fees, arrears letters, returned cheque charges or letter charges, although there may be others, pertinent to you, which I haven't listed. Normally you would not be able to claim back Legal Charges. On the one statement I had to hand, when I began my claim, there was an "arrears fee" of £99. On the list of charges which they supplied, however, this had become "legal costs", and I successfully claimed them back. As an observation, Legal Costs (monies paid to a solicitor in pursuing, for example, a re-possession) would normally be charged at a rate in excess of £300, even though they use their own legal dept. In theory, the legitimacy of these charges could be challenged, but I lacked the knowledge and confidence to do so, despite being charged several thousands of pounds, over the years. List all your charges on the Excel spreadsheet, in the Library, and when you know the grand total, send A&L a LBA (Letter Before Action. Again there is a Template in the Library). They then have fourteen days to pay up, or you begin an on-line claim through the Court at Money Claim On Line (MCOL). When you begin the process, start your own thread under Other Institutions - Mortgage Companies, so that people can offer support, help and advice. If there is anything else I can do, please feel free to re-visit this thread, or pm me. Once again, welcome aboard and good luck to you and your husband. Phil
  9. Hi Neil, The 40 day time limit for MBNA to furnish you with the information you have asked for under the Data Protection Act, is calculated from the date of your formal request, which should have been accompanied by the £10 fee, and which they may or may not refund. Having received their initial standard letter, what seems to happen next, in a lot of cases, is that you will receive a partial 'goodwill' refund, credited to your account. Best course of action is to accept this as a partial payment only, and then, when you know the full amount of their charges, send them a LBA demanding the balance plus contractual interest, failing which you will begin court proceedings. If they don't pay up, start your claim via MCOL. Good luck!
  10. Hello Ian, Have you done a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) under the Data Protection Act yet? If not, then send them the Template letter in the Library (leave out the bit about six years) together with the £10 fee. If you quote the account nos. they should be able to send you all the information they hold on you. There is an argument for claiming back charges beyond six years, which I'm pursuing at the moment with Lloyds TSB, but it's a difficult one and I'm not sure if anyone has had any success, as yet. Let us know how you get on.
  11. Hi Ian, I wouldn't. Treat them as completely separate claims, and don't let them try to pass the buck from one to the other. In essence: MBNA imposed the charges; they should repay them: Westcot may not have a legitimate claim on you; it is up to them to prove it. cheers
  12. Hi Joe, As you will have observed, your scenario is very similar to the one which I had with MBNA, except that my debt was sold on to First Direct. I've been too busy chasing the re-imbursement of charges from other banks to sort out First Direct yet, so you are ahead of me on that one, but their turn will come! MBNA were the people who imposed their unlawful charges on you, in the first place, and then charged you interest on those charges. Whatever sum they sold your debt for, will have been related to your total outstanding debt, according to their accounting. If they consider that they made a loss, then they will have been compensated by paying a reduced amount of tax. Therefore, I would have no hesitation in claiming back from MBNA the full amount of their charges, plus contractual interest. This is what I did, and, as you know, received a repayment in full ( having, of course, been given the initial brush-off). Once that is sorted out, you can go after Westcot, and it may well be worth pursuing the legality of their claim on you. I seem to remember it was, I think, Surreyscouse, who was making a similar argument to yours. I will be interested to know how you go on, and, if you get a positive outcome, I may be seeking your advice. cheers
  13. Hi Pombix, Welcome to the forum! Sorry I haven't replied before. I've had a busy day! To start a new thread: 1. Select the forum for the instutution from which you are seeking re-imbursement. 2. At the very bottom left, at the end of the first page of listed threads, click on the box that says NEW THREAD. Type in your query, request for help or story and follow the directions. Look forward to reading your thread soon, regards
  14. Hi Hoople! Do you know how much of your debt is made up of MBNA's charges? If you can arrive at an amount from your past statements, it would help you weigh up the pros and cons of commencing an action to have those charges refunded. My reasoning would be that, whatever charges MBNA have imposed in the past, those charges are unlawful, and, to add insult to injury, they will have charged you interest on YOUR money AND will continue to do so in the future. However, only you , when you have worked out the sums, will be able to decide whether or not to proceed. Of course, if you do nothing now, there is nothing to stop you making a claim in the future, unless there are any changes in the law. Good luck, and I hope things turn around for the better in the near future.
  15. Lists of settled cases pm'd to you, as requested. cheers
  16. Sorry I haven't replied before, Mat. Still trying to work out my response to Lloyd's partial payment. In my case, I haven't, as yet, submitted my documents either to the court, or to SC&M. Having returned my Allocation Questionnaire, and, after some weeks, been given a court date, I wrote to the court, copied to SC&M, asking them to consider making an order to bring forward the date for the exchange of documents. This seems to have prompted the solicitors to make their initial offer, at the beginning of December. The letter I sent is in my thread, http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/459-turning-worm.html, and I see no reason why you shouldn't send something similar. The thought of sending in documents and providing evidence that their charges are legitimate does seem to panic them into making a settlement. You won't go wrong if you check out mjanet's thread, and follow her advice. She has been there, done it, read the book, seen the film and got several of the T-shirts. Good luck,
  17. Hi Mat, My claim against Lloyds is at Preston County Court too, and my date is 29th March http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/459-turning-worm.html Some members have made the observation that claims seem to be settled in the date order of court appearance, i.e. the more imminent the court date the earlier the settlement. That being a reasonable assumption, our chances of an early settlement, one would have thought, were negligible. However, SC&M, Lloyds solicitors, made me a partial offer before Christmas, which I declined. They have written to me, this morning, (haven't updated my thread yet!) to say that the partial payment has been credited to my account. Their reason for not paying the full amount is that some of the charges I am claiming back pre-date the six years imposed by the Statute of Limitations, prior to my issuing my claim on 20th July. Since I first wrote to Lloyds in February, last year, I requested repayment of charges from February 2000. The charges for this period, Feb 2000 - July 2000 are the ones they have eliminated. I shall be writing to them, once again, to accept the offer as a partial payment only. Just need to scout around the site to find information about claiming beyond the six years of the S of L. The point I wanted to make to you is that, as many people have observed, Lloyds DO NOT want to go to court. They may well try to fob you off and delay things as long as they can, but, in the end, you will win. Given my scenario (a court date at the end of March), I wouldn't be surprized if you received an offer soon. regards
  18. Everything crossed, as requested, Matt!! I see Gary is on your case too, so you've no need to worry. I've always found that when you're waiting for something to come in the post it doesn't arrive until you've given up hope and forgotten about it. Letters i didn't want, on the other hand, (bank charge letters, etc) turned up on a daily basis. You've done everything you can, so it's best to just relax and forget about it. I'm sure that, having returned your Allocation Questionnaire, you will get an offer soon. Remember that whatever you get will be a bonus, which, had you not found this site, you wouldn't have had anyway! What amazes me is that Lloyds/ TSB have any customers left!!
  19. Thanks, Martin, although much of the credit for the "legalities' should go to GaryH, who I see is taking an interest in your thread. You're in good hands. I haven't heard anything, as yet, from the Court about bringing forward the date for exchanging documents (don't really expect to!). Since my Court date isn't until the 29th March, I was very surprised to receive an offer from SC&M much before then, even if it wasn't for the full amount. Perhaps they want to get their desks clear before Christmas (not much chance of that, the rate new claims must be hitting them!). In your case, they're possibly hoping the fee for the Allocation Questionnaire will put you off carrying on with your claim, and it may be that returning it might precipitate an offer. I'll keep my fingers crossed
  20. Hi Mindzai! Good luck with your claim. I was a little concerned that you had quoted passages from my letter to SC&M, verbatim, before I had chance to send it to them, but as GaryH has said, the material in this forum is there to be used for everyone's benefit! I will be particularly interested to see how you go on with your claim for overdraft and contractual interest. regards Phil.
  21. Hi Molly! I may be wrong on this, but I've read a thread somewhere that says, for a mortgage, you can claim back twelve years! It doesn't matter that the account is closed. I successfully claimed back charges from Alliance & Leicester dating back to 1995, even though I redeemed the mortgage and closed the account in 2003. Check out my thread at http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/mortgage-companies/3200-alliance-leicester-mortgage.html Good luck, Phil.
  22. Thanks Gary, You don't think I'm starting to sound like a Bank do you???
  23. Received my first communication from SC&M, on Friday. Contained the usual utterances about my claim having no foundation because there had been no breach of contract, and that the fees were for services in paying, or refusing to pay, overlimit amounts. However, to save costs, which, whoever wins, could be greater than the amount at issue, they were prepared to offer to settle my claim. Unfortunately the amount that they were prepared to offer was approx 12.5% less than the full value of my claim. Accordingly, and with grateful thanks to Gary, from whose previous threads I have borrowed shamelessly, I intend to send them the following: Philip Hindley v Lloyds TSB Bank PLC – claim number xxxxxxxx Thank you for your letter, dated 5th December, the contents of which I have noted, in particular your defence, that the charges, arbitrarily imposed by the Bank were “fees” for services rendered, and not penalties imposed for breach of contract, as I have submitted to the Court. You mention the Contract between the Bank and Myself, and in so doing, imply that this contract should have made me aware of the “fees” (penalties) that the Bank charged for their “services” (breaches of contract). On the 6th March 2006, I made a Subject Access Request, under the Data Protection Act 1998, in which I specifically requested a copy of the aforementioned contract. This has not been forthcoming. I was, in fact, informed that, since I had been a customer for some twenty-three years, the original contract had been destroyed. If you have had sight of this original contract, signed by me, in which I have agreed to the Bank’s regime of unfair fees and penalties, then I would appreciate your letting me have a copy, as a matter of courtesy. I believe that it is a high possibility that the terms and conditions of my account contract explicitly describe the fee’s, as to be applied in instances of breaching those terms. I am aware that this is true of the contracts of other Lloyds TSB customers. I refute your argument with regard to the Bank’s interpretation of its charges, in its entirety. The Bank contends that the charges levied are legitimate fixed price contractual services, which are therefore not required to be a pre-estimate of loss incurred on my part. I would submit that this contention is merely an attempt to ‘cloak’, or disguise, their penalties in order to circumvent the common law and statutory prohibition of default penalty charges with view to a profit. I believe a 'service' to be a provision of knowledge, skill or other transferable facility that benefits the consumer, and one that the consumer agrees is at a reasonable market rate commensurable with the service provided. I believe it to be inconceivable that the charges levied to my account by the Bank could be any form of ‘service’, rather than a penalty. I am sure that you are aware of the statement from the Office of Fair Trading (April 2006), who conducted a thorough investigation into default charges levied by the British financial industry. While the report primarily focused on Credit card issuers, the OFT stated that the principle of their findings would also apply to Bank account charges. They ruled that the default charges at the current level were unfair within their interpretation of the UTCCR’s. With regard to the ‘cloaking’ or disguising of penalties, the OFT said this; “4.21 The analysis in this statement is in terms of explicit, transparent default fees. Attempts to restructure accounts in order to present events of default spuriously as additional services for which a charge may be made should be viewed as disguised penalties and equally open to challenge where grounds of unfairness exist. (For example, a charge for ‘agreeing’ or ‘allowing’ a customer to exceed a credit limit is no different from a customers default in exceeding a credit limit.) The UTCCR’s are concerned with the intentions and effects of terms, not just their mechanism”. Your letter also implies that, were I to ‘lose’ my claim in Court, my costs could “easily exceed the amount in issue”. Again, as you should be aware, my claim has been allocated to the Small Claims Track and, since it is my intention to represent myself, my costs, should I lose, would be limited to £220.00, being the cost of filing my claim and the Allocation Questionnaire. I remain supremely confident that the Court will find merit in my arguments, in which case even these minimal costs will become the responsibility of your client. I look upon your inaccurate statement as yet another attempt to intimidate and coerce me into accepting your inadequate offer to settle my claim. Whilst I appreciate your offer of the sum of £xxxx in settlement of my claim, I am happy to accept this as PARTIAL unconditional settlement only. My full claim, as detailed in the accompanying list of Charges, is for £xxxxx, comprising a principal sum of £xxxx plus statutory interest of £xxxx (to date) plus Court costs of £220.00. Interest is accruing at a rate of £xxx per day. With regard to the conditions contained within your letter and which you ask me to agree to: 1. I agree to the FULL amount of my claim being paid into my Select account 2. I agree the payment of the FULL amount will be in full and final settlement of this claim 3. If you and your clients are confident in the legitimacy of your defence, I see neither a legal necessity for a confidentiality clause, nor for any reason to request one. Confidentiality is a service, which I am prepared to offer, but this would be subject to a separate and negotiable fee. 4. I am happy to maintain my account with the Bank within the agreed terms, providing that those terms are not unlawful and unenforceable. 5. Should the Bank arbitrarily extract unlawful “fees” from my account, in future, then these will be contested with the same vigour. Please let me know as soon as possible if your Clients are prepared to settle on these terms, so that I may either inform the Court of settlement, or otherwise continue preparing my documents for exchange, Yours sincerely, Philip Hindlley I'll be sending a copy to the Court, as well, to incorporate into the file.
  24. Hi Vicky, I may be too late to help you with this, but, depending on the model of camera, you have a good chance that this will be repaired free of charge. Sony provided the CCDs (the bit that converts light into an electrical signal) for several different cameras, both of their own and others manufacture. Unfortunately there was a recognized design fault, which has resulted in hundreds of digital video cameras ceasing to function. My father in law had this problem with his Canon DV630i camera, which was two years old. I found this http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200489&page=26&pp=15, which although appertaining to Canon , mentions the same problem with Sony, and I'm sure you would be able to do a search on your specific camera on this site. I sent my father in law's camera to Plymcare, 01752 303555, mentioned in the link, and it was back in three days repaired free of charge. Excellent Service!!!! Hope this is of help! Regards
  25. Hi Gizmo!, It looks like A&L are following the same track they tried with me. Be wary of them trying to pass of arrears charges (which you can claim back) as legal charges (which you probably can't). As a rough guide, their 'legitimate' solicitor's charges tend to be in excess of £300, so any legal fees less than, say, £150, are probably arrears penalties. Check out my thread at http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/mortgage-companies/3200-alliance-leicester-mortgage.html Good luck
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