My husband pranged his car in January after skidding on ice on a country lane and turning the vehicle over. There was substantial damage to the side of the car and due to the engine being upturned for some time this resulted in it 'blowing'. Undrivable (due to engine failure) we arranged for our friend to tow the car back to our private property. My husband claimed on his insurance - Groupama - who immediately sent an engineer to view the car, deeming it a 'write-off'. He liaised with Groupama over the phone and negotiated a settlement figure and agreed that he could keep the vehicle in order for him to sell the parts for spares. He received a letter from Groupama with his settlement cheque stating that the vehicle was a Category C write off, that his insurance policy was now terminated and that in order to re-insure the vehicle, he must apply for a VIC. He was also asked to surrender the MOT. The car in question has stayed on our land ever since, until this week, we finally found a buyer the spares. Yesterday my husband and a friend, pushed the car (remember it has no engine) from its resting point to another position (still within our land) so that the buyer could easily push it on to a trailer. He then popped to the shops, returning 45 minutes later to find it clamped! It was a DVLA clamp! What a nightmare, the buyer was due to turn up within another hour, and my husband had to go to a funeral, so his secretary called the number on the warrant to be told that the vehicle had been clamped as it had no TAX and had not been declared SORN. She was told that regardless of the vehicle being on our private property, they were allowed to clamp the car. Obviously due to the iminant arrival of the buyer of the scrap he needed to have the clamp removed asap so the secretary paid £260 fine. We were under the impression that as the car had been written off that we did not need to apply for SORN as it states this on the Direct Gov website: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/UntaxedVehicle/DG_069727 and as my husband had surrendered the MOT, and the vehicle cannot be insured until it has passed a VIC then it would have been impossible to tax it! Anyway, husband called the DVLA this morning, to be told that there was no record on their system of the car being written off, only that it had been involved in an accident and that it was my husbands resosponsibilty to SORN the car. My question is this - surely it is the responsibilty of the Insurer to notify the DVLA that the vehicle is written off? Don't they have to log this fact with the ' motor insurance anti fraud and theft register' and the 'Motor Insurance Database' ??? What should we do next? Ideally we would like to claim back the £260 from the DVLA Any ideas????

sorry i forgot i already posted this question!

Hi Surlybonds, Sorry I am confused! Out of the 10 loan applications we made, we actually only entered into one contract. I assume therefore that we cannot diassociate ourselves from each other as we have a current agreement together, however, is it still possible to remove the other applications?

Hi I have a question that I hope someone can answer. I have received my first credit report from Experian as I was concerned having received Default Notices from a loan and credit card. Expecting to see the word 'DEFAULT' in big black letters all over the show - I was surprised to see that it is merely a number 8-9. I notice on a couple of other accounts the code shows 2 or 3 which suggests that I am behind on payments which is a bit bizarre as I think I am up to date with most so I will investigate those, but with regards to the default thing - pehaps the banks were threatening me with Default but haven't actually entered anything?! Or do different CRA's display the default in different ways? Also, if a account shows as 'settled' how can the payments code still show as 3 (which I understand means 3 months late?) surely once settled this should show 0 again? confusing or what?! any help gratefully received.

thought he might inspire me!!!

de association from the 'lenders' ??? or from my husband?!

Certainly feels that way! I've only just begun, but I want to make sure that I understand exactly all the various implications of the claim process - feel like I have read about 100 books in the last week! Think it will be all worht while when we get our money back!!!

PS. do you think it is worth writing to the loan companies and requesting that they remove data from CRA's???

Hi, they show up on the credit report under financial associations with the type of association listed as "Joint Application" in each case. Basically we applied online to about a load of leanders.

Hi Y'all. I have just received my credit report and wondered if anyone could give me some advice. My husband an I were shopping around for the best deal on a loan for our car and unbeknown to us these our applications all show up on our credit reports even though we have not proceeded and taken up the credit. Is there anyway that we can remove these from the file? I have since read that when looking for a loan you should ask for a quote not an application eek! If only we knew....

When I sent the prelim letter in May, I had not fully prepared myself and read up enough on the step by step process. Had received letters from Bcard saying they were dealing with complaint. I know I'm a naughty girl for not doing my research and letting it slip, but have been reading loads this past week and ready to take them on. Thanks for your advice.

Hi Caro, Thanks for picking up on that! I was a bit confused about another claim I am making against Barclaycard - I sent prelim in May and have only just received response. So I know now that next step on that one is the LBA. Feel like I am getting to grips with it all now. If I win all my claims, I will have paid off half my debts! What a great feeling that will be.

thanks for your help. much appreciated

Hi, Received a letter this morning saying that the account has been closed. Will be looking for an alternative parachute now then!

Hi Caro, Thanks for your message. It's great to know there's so much support of this site. Having sent off the SAR. I found a few more statements last night, so I think I now have them all back to when the account was opened in September 2004. Total charges = £2216 !!! Do you think I should wait until stuff comes back from SAR in case there are any discrepencies? Or carry on with LBA and schedule of charges?

Hi Y'all. So I faxed and sent letter to Mercers CC'ing them about the Default Notice. Then I thought, I will just check with Barclaycard to see if there are any outstanding payments due (the letter from Mercers said there was) so I called BCard, and guess, what? They have credited my account with £200 not the £120 they originally offered! No outstanding payments required. Balance of the card is not with the credit limit. Anyhow, I still intend to contest this as found a few more old statements and total charges now totals £324, still missing 2 months, but I think I know where they are, once I have these I will complete the schedule of charges spreadsheet and write a nice letter back to Carl Nuttal... presumably they will then take their £200 back?

Pheonix, I'm probably being a bit dumb, but I've read S10 and I don't fully understand why it is in breach, could you explain for me?

Forgot to say... Preparing letter accepting offer as part payment, but informing them of my intention to claim for full amount and requesting that default is not applied to the account.

Hi Y'all. Since deadline is 07.09.06 I have just faxed Mercers to inform them of the dispute. CC'd fax to Barclaycard too. Awaiting response. Also still waiting for copy of my credit report from Experian, to see what other delightful tricks the other lenders have pulled. Went into Barclays today as default letter from them (sent the same day I paid in installment!!!) I thought that I was up to date but turns out I missed a payment in January that they had stopped including on statements. Idiots. I made the payment today and they have told me that no further action will be taken. Bizarre. Personal banker was very helpful. Polite and non-judgemental, how refreshing!!!

Hi everyone. When I first started thinking about making a claim for unfair bacnk charges last year, I took the advice on here and set up a parachute account with FD. In the end, I got too busy - moved house, got married etc, and decided that I didn't have the time, or bottle to make the claims. I took on a part time job to make some extra money for the wedding etc, and had this paid into the account, telling myself that I would not make use of the overdraft...famous last words. Things got a bit out of hand and I ended up spending the money AND going into the overdraft (which had a limit of £500). After the wedding I got a new full time job with more money, so I gave up the part time one, and thus stopped paying into the First Direct one. By this time Christmas was upon us and money tight again so I thought it wouldn't hurt to wait until the new year to clear the OD. Boy was I wrong. To cut a long story short. In the 3 months that I had not made any payments into the account, the charges from FD pushed it further over the OD limit to about - £700 (about £250 in charges). I then phoned FD as I was concerned about the state of the account and the charges, they said that they were also concerned and after a discussion with the helpful call centre person, we agreed that I could pay £100 into the account each month to get the OD paid off. Which was fine, I duly paid for 3 months, but then I forgot to pay one months, and received a letter telling me that I was misusing the account and that they were closing it with immediate effect and that I should pay the balance. Phoned and told them that I could not pay the balance, and again they agreed that I could continue with the repayments. 3 months on and I have now brought the account up to date. But have not received any affirmation as to whether they are definately closing the account. I would really like to keep the account as a parachute as originally intended. Is it worth my begging them not to close it? The thing is, I would really like to claim for their charges, but I'm presuming that this will **** them off and risk them closing it anyway. So should I just put and shut up? Or move on and try applying for yet another account? What a mess.

Hi Everyone. Here goes, my second claim. Only part way through my first, but having read so many positive posts on here, I felt the confidence to make a start on number 2! Sent first letter last week requesting information and received neccessary Data Protection forms yesterday. Duly completed the forms, wrote the cheque and sent back straight away by recorded delivery. Fingers Crossed. The account is only 2 years old, so I do have most of my statements. My calculations so far suggest that they owe me around £2000. Look forward to receiving all the files and asking them to "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!" Isn't it a horrible feeling when you add up all those horrible charges??? If it weren't for the bloody damn things I wouldn't be in the situation I am in now. I dip in and out of my overdraft each month but never more that £500, but it's having a knock on effect on my credit cards (x4) which I haven't used for over a year (decided to make a concerted effort to clear them) but since A&L keep whacking on the charges which then make me more overdrawn, I then can't honour the DD's which in turn has caused no end of Unpaid DD fees with the Credit Cards, which have in turn pushed me over those limits, resulting in yet more bloody fees. Talk about Domino effect. I'm earning in excess of £30k a year and I seem to be living on £400 each month, because A&L etc are supping up my hard earned dosh. EEEEEEEEeeeek!

Hi Guys, The initial letter I sent was in May, and it included the template paragraph threatening court action, however, I did not entitle the letter "LETTER BEFORE ACTION" sorry to be so naive, but does this matter? Thanks!

Thanks Pheonix, I will research some more before responding.

Hi Everyone. I have now received a letter from Carl Nuttal, saying that he disaggrees with my legal anaylsis supporting why the charges were unfair/unlawful, but without admitting liability he is willing to offer a goodwill gesture to credit me with the difference between the charges I have incurred and the £12 fee recommended by the OFT, this amounts to £120 approx half of the charges applied to my credit card. Presumably I should now send the letter accepting this gesture as a part-partment but do not accept as full and final payment? Also any suggestions about the Default. Does the fact that we have been in correspondance about this disoute mean that they cannot issue the default??? I'm confused!

I received a coincidental letter from Barclaycard after my initial letter quoting the Consumer Credit Act!!! Bizarre huh? Am still waiting for a decent reply from my letter first sent in May. Lazy so and so's. Have defaulted my account now even though I have been making payment (albeit late ones) but I don't think they are allowed to do this as we are in dispute. Anyway. Good Luck!!!