Sorry keith, it is definitely a waste of time and totally frustrating to people like us who have to take time off work, not to mention all the time it takes compiling evidence and submitting the required "bundle"... I agree that it could have been done by post; it seems that the court just wanted to justify its £120+ fee.. My supposition is that the law would not be seen to be fair and just if the hearings dont happen, even if it is only for the judge to grant the stay; the court has to be seen to be dealing with each case on an "individual" basis, even if the cases are virtually identical and the results are going to be the same.

Hey psm, I am inclined to agree with you; what was very apparent to me today was how easy it is to forget that the courts are seeing hundreds of these cases on an almost daily basis; there is no arguement that the judge is not aware of and any order made is purely discretionary.. I'll be very intrigued to find out if anyone manages to not only remove the stay and get awarded damages....has anyone? I also agree that there was a "performance" element to today's proceedings; the judge kept interrupting the rep until he said the "magic words"; then she started nodding after which she turned to me to say that she was satisfied that the stay was applicable to my case; all before I even opened my mouth... Obviously she has heard all the arguements and the "hearing" was just a matter of formality; actually it felt more like she was a school teacher testing the rep "student" Thanks for all your help psm...all the best on your case..I'm very curious to learn the outcome... S

I would like to thank you all for your support; I walked in that room today as ready as I could ever be thanks to all your help and messages... Sx

Hey guys, Here as promised is a report of what happened at my hearing today: In a nutshell, the case was stayed. The judge did her best to deliver a persona of fairness by being quite stern with Abbey’s representative, telling him that she basically needed no schooling in the facts or reasons for requesting a typical “stay”; she expected, however, that the rep explain to her how the reasons for the stay were relevant to the specific details of my case. I basically watched as she chided him like a school child for repeating facts she was already aware of and the general attitude of reps who tend to come in expecting an automatic nod from the judge. The rep was reading word for word from a document he had been given by bank’s solicitors; a document she was quick to note had not been sent to me at all. There seemed no satisfying her, until he mentioned several articles in the document which, she explained to me later, covered all the points that my case would raise if it was heard today, in the OFT test case; which was enough for her to grant the stay. I went very well prepared indeed; but once she was satisfied with the rep from Abbey, she shot down all the points I attempted to raise, i.e. that the crux of Abbey’s defence was a BREACH OF CONTRACT one and could be addressed in the hearing today, Abbey’s slip shoddiness in not responding to the order of the court to send me their bundle, etc.. The judge used the blanket “…it is difficult for lay people to understand how the law works” statement, which I found totally patronising, then went on to explain how her hands were tied by her knowledge that the test case was going to cover all the elements of the case (as provided in the statement read by the rep); that the test case with the OFT was not just about the UTCCR Act and how it relates to banks’ Terms and Conditions; she made it impossible for me to air any other objections by raising the point that if she was to hear the case and make a ruling, the bank would immediately appeal on the grounds that it has proven in documentation submitted to the court that every point to be considered in my claim will be covered by OFT test case and that it is better for all parties that we wait for the test case ruling. She did press the rep for details (apparently for my benefit) of exact dates of when the test case would be heard to avoid any further prolonging the case and ordered that after the judgment, the bank be given a maximum of 14 days to officially inform myself and the court of the result and it’s proposed course of action (and time frame) in fulfilling what the High Court might order; should it go to the appeal courts, the bank would have 7 days to inform and propose a course of action once the appeal is concluded. To be honest, I had kind of switched off at this stage because it was obvious that today’s hearing was all about the STAY. It seems to me that whatever aspect of the case would get heard in small claims, rulings would be appealed on the grounds that the court did not concern itself with all the details of the case. Nonetheless, I did walk away feeling angry at what I considered a waste of time; why go for a hearing when a letter would suffice (I’m referring to the stay)? Apparently, I am one of the slightly more inconvenienced ones because the agreement on trying the test case was only made on the 27th (I think) of July which means that the stays have to be applied for individually until or unless a blanket ruling staying all claims for penalty charges against the banks is made. The odd point or two above is just personal opinion and my perception of how my case was dealt with today... ...that said, I couldn't help but be amused during the proceedings; I do have a tendency of looking like I've just left college, I look a lot younger than I actually am; I could have slapped her for for all the effort she was putting to explain what "law" was and how the legal system works - she must have thought I walked in with my mum having done my homework!!!!

Hey KnellyK, thanks! Will definitely report back......

Thanks guys!!!! Gearing up....... S

Thanks for the information psm, it is most helpful... I do have the "breach of contract" arguement in the defence/correspondence from Abbey; I have copied the arguements you used from your thread and will be taking that with me too... I have also used Gary's template on applying to have a stay removed. Thank you so much; the points you raise are brilliant and all the best on your case... S

Thanks dsilverstein, I'm working on that...I'm so sure that they are going to be playing that card on Monday....

Poppynurse, which court was your hearing going to be at?

Hi Jo and thanks for the support... I'm getting ready, preparing all arguements.... Will submit a post to outline outcome, whatever it may be S

Going to court on Monday, Abbey sent me the standard "applying for stay" letter, checked with court who told me no such thing had been granted and case was still going ahead.. Abbey has not even bothered to submit a bundle of any kind, nor made any offer... My bundle was submitted on time... Monday should be interesting..

I received the same letter lisam and I called the Court Manager to double check what the deal was. I was told that unless I had heard directly from the court on the issue, I was to assume that the case would still be heard on the date allocated. My hearing is on Monday at 2pm... Abbey has not submitted any bundle at all...

I also read somewhere on this site that to change anything, there is a form one should use; the form should be taken in on the day of the hearing with the amendments with the fee and an apology should be made to the court. Is this a potential course of action? I just want to get it right.. Instinctively, I just feel like writing to Abbey and the court, informing them of the amendments.... S

Thank you for your advice guys..... I dont know where my head was that day... Ordinarily if the dates were just out (2004 instead of 2003), I would have just left it as Charleyfarley has suggested...but I did not even add up the figures I originally submitted correctly...even though I added it up a thousand times... I just dont want things to come back and bite me in the ass...I am happy leaving the amounts the way I've submitted them..but does it matter that the total I wrote at the bottom of the table I prepared is wrong....apart from showing that I dont add well, will this count against me? I dont want Abbey refuting my claim by arguing that the dates are wrong...although that has nothing to do with what the arguement of the case is based on... S

Hi, I have been given a court date - 20th August. I had already started preparing my court bundle and discovered a made a mistake with some dates on my schedule of charges and missed one charge I want to claim. What is the procedure for submitting an amended schedule of charges to the bank and to the court? Do I have to fill in a form for the court, to make the change and will this require a fee...? S

Can anyone help please?? I am waiting for my court date and discovered I'd made a mistake on my schedule of charges - I put the wrong date and missed an amount... Do I write to Abbey and the court with an amended schedule of charges....? What is the process? Do I have to fill in another form for the courts and if so, do I have to pay an extra fee? Thanks for your help, Shembu

Hi there... I have gone through most of the process so far; I was recently informed that my case has been transferred from Northampton to Croydon County Court and the Northampton Judge instructed for the AQ to be dispensed with. In anticipation of my pending court date, I started preparing my court bundle, double checking everything, to discover that I had indicated the wrong year some of the charges were made - basically 2004 instead of 2003, 2005 instead of 2004...I also noticed I missed an interest charge (approx £30), so my calculations are slightly off. What would be the recommended process for amending this with the courts and the bank? Thanks, Shembu

Hi Mandyk... I am doing the same with Abbey at the moment.... I received their "defence" too...if you check out other posts on this site (and there are plenty going round!), you will see that this is not unusual. A lot of the banks these days are taking the process as far as they can in order to intimidate claimants. Read up on the posts that take you through the step-by-step process of claiming your money back; it helps to note that the advice given is to start the claiming process with the assumption that your case COULD end up in court and this cannot be treated as a "get rich quick" scheme. The next stage for you is to wait to hear from the court who could send you an Allocation Questionaire (AQ) {there's lots of information on this site about it} or, as in my case, the court might decide not to send one; in which case you will be informed when your court date is and given a period of time (14 days) in which you need to prepare your "court bundle" - all the documents you will be using to support your claim in court {again, there is lots of help here on preparing your bundle from start to finish}. You are advised to start preparing your bundle now - you need 3 copies of everything - one for yourself, one for the court, one for the bank; organising all the paperwork, numbering and indexing it to make it easy to read, presentable and professional takes time and it is better to get it started rather than trying to get it done and sent off in a panic before the deadline... Keep the faith; the bank does not want to go to court; just do your bit and they'll have no choice to give you what is rightfully yours. Shembu

Hey guys, Thanks for your advice and thanks Bluecity for your help... I kind of figured it was a delay tactic... I am confident that I have provided all the information required.... I'll just leave it. They can see that my schedule is accurate when they compare it to their records. Cheers

Hi all, I started my process against Abbey sometime last year and went through all the various stages: prelim letter, LBA, both of which generated negative responses from the bank...I once the given periods had expired I did not submit my court claim straight away because I could not afford the £120 fee... Now, a few months later, I have paid for and submitted the claim. Interestingly enough, the day before, I got a random letter from Abbey which contained the application form to request my old statements; I had never ever asked them for this form or even mentioned it in any of my correspondence last year, because I had been prudent enough to save ALL my statements of the past 6 years. Now, with another 4 days to go for them to respond to my claim, I received this letter: ...... We are in the process of reviewing this claim and preparing our response. A defense will be filed in due course. In the meantime, we note that you have claimed the sum of £1151.22 in respect of charges that you say have been made on your Abbey Account. We appreciate that you may have previously forwarded details of your claim to our internal Complaints department however, we do not have access to that information. To expedite the processing of your claim could you therefore please provide to us: (i) your account number (ii) details of how you have calculated your claim by date and amount of each charge claimed; and (iii) details of how the interest is calculated, showing how interest is calculated by reference to each charge. As you will appreciate, you will need to produce evidence to the Court regarding these amounts, and this information should have been appended to your claim form when you filed your claim. We should be grateful if you would provide such details to us as soon as possible. It would be helpful at this stage if you can provide e-mail and telephone contact details to us. We look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully Abbey National plc I am unsure as to how to respond to this, as I have not come across anyone else receiving a letter like this in the threads I've read... My initial feeling is to ignore the letter. However, I dont want to jeopardise my case. Even though the account was closed last year, they obviously have all the information they need on the account itself; they have my address and name and should be able to find all the details they need. I am bearing in mind though that the process was started late last year and perhaps too much time has passed in terms of them keeping the details of my requests on file. In short, I'm not sure. I have fastidiously followed the process. I did include a schedule of charges with my correspondence to Abbey and, when I submitted/paid for my claim using Money Claim, I promptly posted 2 copies of the schedule with a covering letter to the indicated address of the court office. Any suggestions, ideas or advice would be most appreciated. Shem

Hey guys, Know it's been a while, but here's an update... I called Comet the following morning to find out what I could do to get a better machine. I was told that according to the records in the Beyond-Economic-Repair Department, there was nothing to indicate that they had communicated with me about giving me a new machine! I was told to go to the store I originally purchased it from/took the damaged machine to they would have all the details on their "system". I took the morning off work and made my way to the store straight away - I just wanted the situation resolved! Armed with every document I had been sent + proof of ID, I informed a sales assistant that I was there to pick up a new machine and showed him the relevant letter. I was passed on to a manager, who called the number indicated on the letter, even though I told him I had called and advised to go to the store. Cut a long story short, I was told that I had already been informed which machine I was being offered and they were not going to change it because they thought it was a close equivalent to my previous model. I explained that I was not happy with it because the processor was very different and I was outraged that they were offering me this machine even though they had machines that had the processor of the original model. I pointed this out and finally they offered me a Sony laptop, lovely model that was worth £1000... but I was not sure if it had all the details I needed and I felt I was too emotional to confidently analyse the model. So I asked if I could have a model I had spotted and looked at in detail earlier; it was the same price (£1000). Finally, they agreed (!!!). They then went on to say they would order it for me and it would be delivered at a later date. I totally refused. I went ballistic then...I told them I had been told to go to the store that morning and was not going to leave without my machine considering I had to take time off work...They wouldn't believe me... What eventually saved me was the fact that I noted the name of everyone I spoke to and when; because they were not going to budge until I named the people I spoke to, especially the one I spoke to that morning. This was enough to convince them that I was there on their advice... I had to wait for 1/2 an hour for the paperwork to be faxed over from Aon Insurance - but eventually I walked away, completely emotionally drained, but with my new laptop! My only remaining task is to get an updated Certificate of Insurance covering the new machine...They have made no effort so far to send it, so I am going to have to contact them and request it. Suffice it to say, I am glad it is over (well nearly!). Never ever ever buy anything from Comet...or any store that does not have branches conveniently located on the high street, because it makes access more difficult - you main contact will have to be made by phone or mail which makes it easier for them to take their time about it and not offer practical solutions that efficiently meet the needs of the customer.

True, my contract with Comet does not cover accidental damage... However, I purchased Extended Warranty Insurance with the original machine. On NONE of the documentation I have, including the Certificate of Insurance, does it mention what the name of the Insurance Company is... All documentation has Comet's name on it and if you call any of the numbers indicated on them, they all lead to Comet. Today, I called the Insurance Company (Aon). There is no direct number available and I had to call Comet's Extended Warranty Line and I was put through to someone who claimed that I was speaking to a representative of Aon (!!!). I was told that I should call Comet Head Office and ask to speak to a member of the BERT Team (Beyond Economical Repair Team - do they really exist?!?) to tell them I was not happy with the "equivalent" machine they were offering. So, nothing new there - everyone's is passing the buck again. Comet Head Office told me to call the Insurance Company in the first place. Now I'm being told to call them back.....Will call them tomorrow.... I was also told that if I was asked to go into the store to make a selection, I should mention a procedure called "AA3A". Apparently it is the procedure the Store Manager is meant to follow if the customer is unhappy with Comet's selection. Let's see what happens!

Hey guys! Thanks for all your help advice.... I agree with the points you've raised. I would give the insurance company a buzz on Monday to see what their response would be and take it from there. I truly believe it is Comet's responsibility; none of the documentation I received from Comet ever indicated how to contact their "3rd party" insurer, or even what it's called. Definitely a classic case of passing the buck. While I accept that I the price of technology can change suddenly, anything with the same specifications and features as the last machine I had costs a lot more than the £800 machine they are offering. I neglected to mention that the original machine had developed a fault late last year and because, according to them, it could not be repaired, they had given me the opportunity to go to the store to get a new one; only they did not have the original model anymore so I was told when I got there to pick a similar model... The closest they had was a £1200 model which I selected. This happened in January 2006... So, this is partly why I am unwilling to believe that the same model brand new would have depreciated by £400 in 8 months. Plausible I suppose, but more unlikely than likely in this case....The technology on that machine is still cutting edge... I'll post an update. Thanks again for your support!!

Hey thanks! guys!!! Good luck on your case Doyin22; would be cool to know how yours turns out........

Bought a laptop from Comet in 2004 for £1300; also purchased their 3 yr Extended Warranty... Whenever laptop was faulty, I would just have to call Comet and who would send a postage sticker and arrange for a courier to pick up the machine at my convenience. Imagine my surprise when, because my laptop was accidentally damaged and I needed to make a claim, I was told I would have to take the machine to the nearest Comet store, instead of the usual pick up. I took it in....that was over 3 months ago... I was originally told it could take 4-6 weeks; after 6 weeks, I called for an update; that was the first of many phone calls...Eventually, I was told that the wrong machine had been picked up for repair and it had taken them the whole of 4 weeks to locate and send off the right machine... Well, more phone calls; no satisfactory response; then I started writing letters...the initial letter of complaint; the Letter Before Action...stating I was no longer going to be satisfied with just a repair or a new machine; I deserved to be compensated for all the trouble they'd caused me.. Now I've received a letter saying that they were sorry for the delay....basically the matter is out of their hands; they use a third party for their insurance policies and it was up to them to decide how long things would take and what the final decision was. They even had the gall and to say that it was not their "usual" pracitce to accept items for repair, even though the only reason I did that was because they told me to...They are happpy to replace my laptop..oh..but they wont compensate me... I called the Customer Services Dept. and they basically told me that they were standing their ground and if I was unhappy I should contact the insurance company ( even though the Insurance documentation does not indicate who this is and has Comet stamped all over it ). Spoke to Consumer Advice group and Citizen's Advice Bureau and they have told me to write them a letter giving them 7 days to reconsider or I will take them to Court. Out of curiousity, I called the number I had been given to find out what machine they were offering; turns out, they dont have my model anymore; they were offering me an "equivalent" replacement... I asked for the details of the new model so I could check it out. It was £500 pounds cheaper and clearly an inferior model. It was still HP and the same size ( screen, disk space) but did not have some of the features of the previous one. I called back only to be told that "equivalent" means that the new machine should have the same specifications as the old one ( not sure what they which specifications they were referring to) and the cost should not be used as an indicator. Going to call Insurance Company on Monday to talk to them about it; if response is unsatisfactory, I will consider court action. We'll see what they say!