I haven't got to the stage of making a claim yet. Direct Line have now agreed to handle that anyway, but it's still going to take time. What I can't believe is that they'd go to the trouble of defending their decision not to comply with the DPA.

Issued claim in the County Court against Abbey/MBNA for non-compliance with DPA (They'd provided a short list of charges, not all the documentation I'd requested) on 9th Oct. They acknowledged on 2nd November (the deadline) saying they'd defend all of the claim. Sonow we even have a situation where they are defending their refusal to comply with the DPA.

Thanks..I've done this and they've now agreed to fund me. They are taking their time though.8-)

Took my N1 form along to the County Court today to sue MBNA for failure to provide data under the Data Protection Act (they tok 45 days to come up with an edited and incomplete list of charges - no interest etc). Am expecting phonecall this week. In the meantime, has anyone noticed that the post codes they put down on their address are dodgy? CH4 9WW and CH4 9ZZ do not exist. I tried typing them into multimap.co.uk and came up blank. Are they doing this to try and claim that letters to them have not been delivered, and if so is it illegal? Their bona fide post code is CH4 9YR, but even that comes up as a set of farm buildings straddling the Welsh border outside Chester!! M:mad::?

Direct Line refused to pay for me to see a solicitor totake on the banks over credit card charges and damages because 'a credit card contract is not a contract for a service' in the terms of the 1982 Delivery of Goods and Services Act. I called them on this and they took a step back, changed their argument to, 'we need to know how much you intend to claim, so that we know it's worthwhile,' (no provision for them claiming this in my insurance contract). When I called them on this saying that I wouldn't know how much I was going to claim until I saw a solicitor, they changed the argument yet again to, 'we can't cover you because you took out legal insurance after the date of the 6 year limitations period on the charges that you want to claim back. Messing me about or justified? Martin B

Thanks for that, Blueskies. I'll follow your advice with the insurance company. As for the compensation bit, though, I sued a kitchen-fitting firm a few years back under the Delivery of Goods and Services Act, 1982, for failure to provide goods and services to a reasonable standard (this seems to be a 'catch all' Act). I was awarded compensation for inconvenience and 'vexation.' I was wondering if the same would be applicable here. My feeling is that the bank would settle because, as with the simple claim for unfair charges, if it went to court they would be risking being asked straight up what their true costs were. They would refuse to divulge them and so be in breach of the law.

Waheyy...I've just sent my Data Protection Request off to Co-op, myself, so this really gives me hope. MBNA and Citi are going to be tougher nuts to crack though.

Thanks Kevin

What does MBNA actually stand for (i.e. the acronym, not their values;) )? I've never been able to find out.

Hello all...I want to make a claim against Abbey/MBNA for charges under the OFT ruling, but my insurer says they won't cover it because a credit card agreement is not a 'contract'. Surely this is not the point! There's nothing in my insurance booklet which says they can refuse to cover this. Any advice?

Hello fellow sufferers:) ...this is my first time and I'd be grateful for any pointers/ help on two points: 1 I want to claim all my unfair charges back from Abbey Credit Card plus compensation for all the bullying, threatening letters and phonecalls. Has anyone done this successfully? Any tips? 2. I have legal insurance, but when I called the insurance company's help line they hummed and hahd about not being sure if a credit card contract was a 'contract' in the 'legal' sense...said they couldn't take it on if it didn't come under breach of contract. Sounds dodgy. Thanks