my oh has just received a letter from the court, with a date for a hearing for his application to lift the stay. rotten swines have only arranged it for his birthday. the district judje has given directions that it must be heard on notice (what does that mean?) so we now have to send an additional £30. which would be affordable if the bank wasnt still applying charges to the account at a rediculous speed. what do i need to do next to prepare him for court? lolly.

thanks for your reply, freaky. i heard you were poorly. shouldn't you be taking it easy? in answer to your question, though, i contacted the cccs, but hsbc would't accept any of my proposals and passed me on to metropolitan as a result, which is what prompted me to go down the cca path in the first place, so if anything, i was the one who took retaliatory action. does this mean i dont stand a chance? the way i saw it, if they have no cca, then they cant pass it on, anyway.

sorry i pressed send too early! it continues to say; we would also point out to you that you have been informed that the account is closed. the debt was passed on to metropolitan collection services who are the banks debt recovery agents on 1st august 2007. you therefore oew the bank a debt of **** in respect of the account including interest as of date of closure. although there is a debt owed by you there is however no longer a live agreement in place under which the bank can be seen as a creditor and therefore sections 77 and 78 of the consumer credit act 1974 do not apply. we look forward to receiving your continued repayments. failure to continue making these payments shall leave us with no alternative than to continue recovery action against yourself. what do i do now?

i have received a reply from metropolitan, saying; thank you for your recent letter....... in respect of your request for a copy of the original signed agreement...we confirm that it has not been possible to locate these agreements. RESULT! however there is more than sufficient evidence of your entry into an account with the bank and the variation to the terms and conditions of that agreement over the years. your continued use of that card is evidence of acceptance of those terms and conditions BUT YOU DONT HAVE AN AGREEMENT SO IT DOESNT MEAN SQUAT!

hello can anybody help? a year ago my oh phoned orange to arrange our annual upgrade. he enquired about the free broadband offer and was informed that his package wasn't high enough to qualify and they reccommended increasing the package, which would take it to an 18 month contract. we have both got our phones on the same bill and so he increased my talk plan slightly so i had more minutes. he phoned up today to upgrade my phone(as another year has now passed) only to be informed that they were both 18 month contracts. the guy on the phone told him that it is a bit of a grey area, as we should have been informed that mine had increased, too, but basically it seems to be our word against theirs. is there anything we can do to prove it?

BUMP!!! Any advice at all?

hello, i am considering whether to go down the mortgage charges path, but i don't quite know where i stand. i have a few questions. 1) this is an old mortgage, dated march 95 to november 98. am i going too far back? 2)do i do exactly the same as a bank charges claim? 3)is there anything specific i need to be aware of ie;certain legislation to quote? 4)i have seen warnings about holding back on claims until more is known- does this include charges, or just exit fees? 5)has anybody been successful-since the test case announcement-or does that not affect mortgage claims? 6)has anybody had to go to court yet for solely claiming late payment charges? if anyone has these answers i would be very grateful, lolly.

thats a shame. by our reckoning the majority of it is unlawful charges, we thought we might be able to clear it, but with no statements we're a bit screwed. we also considered the cca route, but if it is definitely a mortgage we cant do that either, although i read somewhere that mortgages under £25,000 are covered by cca. i think it will be well documented, though. it was a nice dream while it lasted!

Bookworm, why do kamikazee pilots wear helmets?!!!!!!!

oh has informed me that the second mortgage is actually an equity release loan- does that make it a mortgage, or a loan?

trouble is it wont be on statements, as when we changed the mortgage, they suggsted consolidating other non hsbc loans,ie goldfish credit card, nationwide personal loan, etc along side the mortgage. it wasn't the best move on our part, but i was pregnant with our first baby, and although things were okay at the time, we were worried that we wouldn't cope on one full time wage with an extra mouth to feed, so when it was suggested, we jumped at the chance. not very clever!

okay i have amended that and will post a letter to each, recorded delivery today. lets see what happens next! got a thick letter from them yesterday, thought it might be the credit agreement, but it turned out to be all my statements.(i hadn't even asked for them) i looked through and had £36 in late payment charges in total. i cant have been that bad as a customer, then(for my credit card, at least!) it makes me so mad. i have been with them for 25ish years- first sign of trouble, they don't want to know. i'll show em!!!!!

hi shazza. hsbc have updated the online banking system for some people. you should have received a message telling you it was going to happen. not all people seem to have had it changed, yet though. my oh's is new, but mine is still the old system. second to last is the same as fifth; it is just designed to confuse non customers.

i've been sitting and thinking away over recent years and thinking back to not so long ago when we changed our mortgage over. i'm sure it isn't possible because somebody would have picked up on it by now, but if some of your mortgage was made up from consolidation of debts and charges, would you be able to do anything to reclaim those? i'm only wondering because alongside our mortgage we have an additional mortgage payment which is purely that.

will this do? Dear Sir/Madam Account Reference: Please be aware that THIS ACCOUNT IS IN DISPUTE. In response to your letter dated 4 August 2007, I would like to inform you that HSBC are in default due to non-compliance with my CCA s78 request, which means that the outstanding balance is unrecoverable. You cannot transfer the debt to a third party, or enter any defaults on to a credit register without a signed credit agreement. Additionally if I have not received the CCA by 28th Sept you will be committing a statutory criminal offence. As you are aware, A credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued.Furthermore, please ensure that any contact by yourselves is made in writing only to the above address. Telephone calls and personal visits will not be accepted and viewed as harassment.Please note: OFT response to failing to provide agreement: For your information, the general effects of sections 77-79 requires the creditor/owner(in the case of a hire agreement) under an agreement for (fixed-sum credit, running account credit and hire agreement) to provide the debtor/hirer with a copy of the executed agreement and a statement of account on request.If a creditor/owner fails to comply with a valid request within a period of 12 days(not including the date of receipt of the request) he may not enforce the agreement at all.This prevents enforcement with or without a court order. If a default lasts for a month(for example a calendar month) it constitutes an offence.A ‘true copy’ of an agreement principally consists of the terms and conditions of the agreement and the statutory content of the agreement. The name, address and signature of the debtor do not have to be provided. Additionally, the creditor must supply the total sum paid under the agreement by the debtor; the total sum which has become payable under the agreement but remains unpaid; and the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor (the latter two must include the various amounts comprised in that total sum and the date when each is/was due). However, the copy must be a copy. It need not be exact on immaterial points, but it cannot be a conjectured reconstruction. If the trader has no original copy, the trader will have difficulty showing that he has complied with the regulation by supplying a ‘true copy’, since nobody would know what was in the original. When the trader comes to enforce the debt in court, he needs to have a signed copy of the agreement in order to enforce. As the law stands currently he cannot otherwise.In summary, I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS DEBT AND THEREFORE REQUIRE YOU TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS BY PROVIDING THE REQUESTED DOCUNENTATION BEFORE I CORRESPOND FURTHER. i have noticed that at the bottom of their letter it says 'Payment Services Bereau is a trading style of Metropolitan Collection Services Limited'. does this mean it still belongs to hsbc. im sure i have heard somewhere that they are just their own collections department.

this is really strange. i have just checked with credit expert and there is no sign of a default, only a couple of late payment entries. i dont get it....

the muppets were great. i have yet to meet anyone who didn't take a shine to that cute little kermit! my kids are into the fraggles, not quite the muppets, but still very entertaining.

its time they realised, that thanks to the likes of CAG, we know what we're dealing with, now. i've lost track of the times in that past where i've sat back and accepted everything they've thrown at me. not any more. they can't rely on our ignorance getting them what they want. they will have to start to do things properly.

that sounds a bit dubious. sounds like they are in need of a signature in order to make up a credit agreement.

hi chrissie. i have found that a good way of dealing with this kind of problem is by issuing your creditors with a cca request. you will find a template letter floating about in one of the debt forums. basically they must provide you with a true copy of the credit agreement from when you first borrowed. if they cannot do this( and most companies don't seem to keep copies, or even provide one to begin with), then after 12 working days after they recieve your letter, they are in default. this means the debt is unenforcable, and they must stop adding charges and interest, and cannot chase you for payments, until they provide the agreement. hope this has helped. lolly.

thank you, you have no idea how useful that is to know! apologies, once again for hijacking

sorry to hijack, but i have just read this thread and had to jump in as it is the first i have ever heard of getting a copy of telephone calls. i have an ongoing complaint with my bank and they will not accept any of my arguments, saying that they have not said or done anything wrong. i have been so frustrated that i have no facility for recording phone calls to prove it. so a S.A.R covers phone conversations, too. is this right? is this the case with DCA's, too, because there are a lot of people out there going through hell as a result of so many unscrupulous dca's. it would make it a lot easier to report them.

i completely agree, shanks. i just wanted to clarify for wobbles benefit, simply because i have been having similar problems myself and there can be quite a lot of conflicting advice on the subject. i'm pleased to see we are singing from the same song sheet- i would hate to cause offence to anybody.:grin:

shanks. you are right that if they cannot provide the agreement the debt becomes unenforcable, but only until they can provide it. some people seem to be making offers just to know for sure that the debt is at an end. it is also a moral issue to be made by each individual, as although the debt is unenforcable, the debt does still exist, and therefore morally is down to you to pay it.

do i write back to this new company or hsbc? also, since going through all of my paperwork, i have discovered that they have issued a default. can i request that they remove it in the same letter, or as it was issued before i sent the cca, does this mean i have to just accept it?