Bit of a long story this one - opened an a/c with LLoyds Bank in 1987 at age 16. Was in the forces at the time and had to have an a/c for salary. Lloyds granted me a £200 overdraft soon after opening the a/c (still under 18 @ the time). Was discharged from forces after about 18 months and couldn't clear the balance. Same old story - charges & interest spiralled and ever since have been dealing with various DCA's & paying sporadic payments which were never enough to even cover the monthly interest piling on. Sent an SAR to LLoyds in 2006 but statements they sent back were only from 2000 onwards so they don't show any bank charges only interest being added to the tune of about £50/month. £1150ish debt is now owned by Phoenix Recoveries who have finally issued a County Court claim. I have sent the standard CPR information request to their solicitors but what do I do next? Can't claim statute barred as I have had contact over the years and can't claim unlawful charges as I have no evidence of these charges. I have paid back many times the original debt over the years and would really like to avoid having a CCJ if possible. I would think it very unlikely that proof of my ever opening the a/c or statements from nearly 20 years ago could ever be provided so is this a possible route to me claiming the debt doesn't exist? Thanks in advance.

Probably had a default years ago from Citi. This debt dates back to about 1996. Have paid sporadically over the years but no default recieved from Crapbot. They sent loads of letters threatening court action tho so can't say I wasn't warned adequately. The original loan was taken out through The Associates who were eventually taken over by Citi. The loan office where I signed original agreement was closed soon after I took it so I'm guessing that original agreement is long gone. Have paid back much more than I was supposed to including loads of charges.

POC as follows: The Claimant is part of the Cabot Financial Group and has purchased the debt scheduled below, now held under ref. no. xxxxxxxxxx. Despite requests for payment the sum of £1597.89 remains unpaid. Citigroup acc. no. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx And the Claimant claims the sum of £1597.89; And Costs Question - surely these chancers should have all the paperwork required prior to trying to enforce a debt? I would have assumed they would need at least a copy of the original agreement from the OC to convince them that the debt is real. It should then be a simple matter to provide me with copies.

New developments on this one. CCA response came back saying that they were contacting OC (Citi) to get stuff out of archives. Also sent a CPR 18 request for all the documents. Gave them a time limit of 10 days as I would obviously need these to formulate my defence. Sent acknowledgement of service back to the court so thought I had all my ducks in a row. Issue date of claim was 28/5 so defence due into court by 2/7 or they get summary judgement. Got another letter yesterday from Cabot dated 6/6 saying my CPR 18 request timeframe is unrealistic and they will try to respond within 30 days. Now is it just me or are Cabot planning to send the documents I need for my defence 4 days after judgement?

HP is covered by CCA 1974. Don't know about hire agreement but as generally not credit I would think it unlikely. APR must be on HP agreement. HP is non-cancellable if signed on trade premises but cancellable if sold at your home or on the phone for a limited period. HP can be terminated as soon as you have paid half the total amount payable - this figure should be on the agreement but you have to give the goods back. Hope this helps you.

Spoke to a nice lady at Cabot last week 20/5/08 to chase up a CCA I sent some time ago but stupidly not sent recorded so they obviously denied receiving it. Told her I disputed the amount owed and I would be sending another one. Duly dispatched with a paragraph in the letter asking for no enforcement action to be taken as the amount was obviously in dispute. Imagine my surprise when I recieved a claim form from Northampton County Court this morning. Question is - Can they do this?

If it is definitely a loan you can force the finance co. to remove the HPI entry, it shouldn't have been put on there in the 1st place but a lot of these sharks do it anyway. They flog you a personal loan to avoid giving you the termination rights that come with Hire Purchase often with no explanation so most people think they have Hire Purchase and then still put the car on the register. Phone them and threaten them with solicitors unless they remove it.

Fairly new company called Blue Motor Finance who's rates are more reasonable than most & will unlike most do a 5 year term getting you into a better car. Generally only available through motor dealers but google them & give them a call.

Sounds like a loan to me.

Hi all. Am also with this fine company. Missed 1 payment in December and had the usual letters, calls etc. I am only 1 month short of being halfway through agreement and asked the last obnoxious caller to send me a breakdown of what is required to voluntary terminate the agreement (1 payment!). Everything changed at that point - they are now being very nice to me and have offered to put the missed payment on to the end of the agreement so no overpayments etc. required. These companies are terrified of getting the car back halfway through as they sell at auction and only realise about a third of what is still owed by you.

What type of agreement is it? HP, Conditional Sale or Personal Loan? When was the agreement taken out and what sort of deposit did you pay? You may have a way out of losing all this money depending on the type of agreement.

Have an HP agreement with Funding Corporation for a car which has been paid for nearly 2 years on the button & have never had reason to speak to them. Due to problems with December pay I missed a payment on the 26th of December which I was going to sort out this week but have been working silly hours as half the staff off with the virus thing that's going around. Very surprised to recieve a call from my wife who is joint on the agreement to say that they sent us each a letter today & have defaulted us. Can they do this after such a short time? If so it seems a bit draconian considering the effect a default can have on your credit file. Would appreciate some help on this one.

Lewis Group are a subsidiary of Cattles PLC. They also own Welcome Financial Services & Shopacheck.

Dealer is liable for the roadworthiness of the car - here is the section of the Welcome 'Dealers offer & Warranty' page of the Welcome finance doc that applies. (4) we are the holders of a valid licence as a credit broker under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. (5) the goods are in a roadworthy condition of satisfactory quality and fit for their purpose and comply with the provisions of the Road Traffic Acts and all relevant regulation made thereafter. Where required a valid test certificate is held. (6) the goods conform in all respects to any representations, descriptions or stipulations which may have been made by us or our servants to you or your customer or which may be implied. Welcome only do HP at dealers so it must be an HP agreement and S75 would apply as the dealer has made the introduction

When did you take out this loan as this type of insurance has only been regulated since Jan 2005? What are your personal circumstances - i.e. are you employed/self employed? Do you have a good/non-existent sickpay scheme at work?

The FSA website gives a step by step here if you want to make a complaint.FSA - Consumer Information - How To...

The ERC is only £118 so I'm not really bothered about that. Just want to p*** them off as much as possible. Was only a few weeks ago I had a tearful pregnant wife calling me at work telling me they were going to reposess our house - all for £300 at the time.

Have just noticed this thread. Nellie - if you signed the finance docs at home they are non-enforceable in their entirety. Finance docs must be signed on trade premises and the dealer must sign a 'Dealers offer and Warranty' confirming this is the case before the dealer is paid by the funder. I have scanned a sample of this document which I completed this morning. If you need a fuller explanation of the legalities send me a PM. The scan is here with the relevant text underlined. ImageShack - Hosting :: dealersofferpc7.jpg

The sale of general insurance such as service cover is covered under FSA regulations. To conform to FSA regulations they must have done two specific things at the time you took the policy out. Firstly they must provide you with a document called an Initial Disclosure Document setting out their regulator/complaints procedure etc. They must also have completed a Needs & Demands statement with you which you have to sign. They are bound by law to keep a copy of this document and can be audited by the FSA at any time. If you didn't get the IDD or complete the N&D they don't have a leg to stand on. The alternative is to go down the mis-selling route. They are legally bound to tell you that any insurance products are optional and cannot imply that the granting of credit is conditional in regard to whether any related insurance products are taken by the customer. I'm sure if you think really hard you will remember that nice salesman telling you that you wouldn't get the credit unless you took the cover can't you! Either way you will have to make a complaint to the FSA. Brighthouse sales staff are heavily targeted to sell this cover as it is one of the most lucrative profit centres for these operations. I can't even remember the last time one of my electrical appliances broke down so these policies are generally pure profit for the retailer. Good luck.

Im just about to start a claim against SPML for late payments, arrears mangement charges etc. on a secured loan. Already got a list of charges and had a bit of back & forth with them over penalties being unlawful etc. Didn't really want to push it too far until new mortgage sorted out. Same old story - wanted to change DD day due to job circumstances which they refused. Only comes to about £500 of which £100 is for a visit from a debt councellor. This visit never actually took place as I spoke to the gentleman and told him that I was disputing the arrears and not to bother turning up. Seeing as this visit never took place can I claim this back as well? New mortgage completes on Friday so I have no fear of reprisals. The cheeky b*****s even threatened a repossesion at the £300 arrears stage (£300 is 0.2% of the property value of which we have equity of about £60,000). The new mortgage is clearing the balance including the arrears. One thing I never thought of is that in adding these arrears to the new mortgage and repaying it over 20 years they will end up costing us a fair old chunk of change. I had the funds to repay the arrears but refused out of principle and it's too late to do this now as all the redemption statements etc. are now with the new lender and I don't want to go through the whole rigmarole of obtaining these again. What I'm thinking of doing is working out how much the £500 extra I'm having to borrow is going to cost in interest over the new mortgage term and sending them a claim for the £500 plus this amount. Any thoughts on this? Would this be likely to cause a judge to immediately throw the case out?

Watching this thread with interest. I have also just sent an LBA to halifax for charges plus contractual interest after a success on the joint account with statutory interest. I reckon they will fold like the proverbial pack of cards at the last minute. Can you imagine the press if a judge ruled for you on the Limitation Act issue - even if it is only Small Claims.

Bump

We had worked out the interest at 8% and were preparing to do the N1 for just under £3000 but after reading some of the threads regarding claiming contractual interest we have decided to go forward on this basis at 18.9% (authorised rate) which takes the claim to just over £4000 (most of the charges in 2000 & 2001). Realise that we will have to send them a new LBA to reflect this enclosing a new schedule of charges but we're at a bit of a loss as to how to compose this letter. If anyone could help with this we would be very grateful. We have used Vamp's spreadsheet to work out the charges so the figures are OK.

Have started a new claim against the Halifax on behalf of my OH. Got statements. Wrote to them asking for charges of about £2000 to which they have offered £650 in full and final settlemrnt. Have written back telling them she will accept as a partial refund. In the meantime they have added 2 more £39 charges - the first charge put her 59p over her limit at which point a cheque was presented for just £1.00 and they have charged another £39 for bouncing that! This just makes us more determined to fight these greedy crooks. Moneyclaim going in on the 20th.

Any BW's know how far back Lloyds records go?