Help needed - Regal Credit Consultants

[EndOfMyTether]

I was repaying a RBS credit card debt via Moorcroft at £30 a month from Jan 06 and then, at the start of this year, after finding this fabulous site, I sent Moorcroft a CCA request for this account. Evetually, in the middle of March 07 I got a letter from them stating that they could not supply the CCA and that they were no longer handling this debt and that it had been passed back to RBS.

 

I immediately cancelled the standing order and figured I'd hear from RBS about it soon enough. I never heard another peep and kind of forgot about it.

 

However, yesterday I got a letter from Regal Credit Consultants Ltd about the outstanding £500 odd quid saying 'we are INSTRUCTED by our client to demand the immediate settlement of this debt.

 

You should forward the amount in full, quoting your reference number. cheques & postal orders should be payable to RC Ltd and sent in the enclosed envelope. Alternatively you may pay by SWITCH/MAESTRO, VISA DELTA, MASTERCARD or SOLO.

 

If you fail to make payment or contact us regarding this matter we will need to explore all options to recover this debt.

 

This may result in us recommending to our client that legal action is taken against you which will add further interest and legal costs to your debt and may be detrimental to your creditworthiness (what creditworthiness I ask myself )

 

We strongly recommend that you DO NOT IGNORE this letter, but telephone our offices as soon as possible'

 

So, given that Moorcroft and RBS have already been paid for and failed to come up with a CCA once this year, what should I do now? Do I send Regal a CCA request along with another £1, do I file the letter and forget about it or do I write and tell them about the previous lack of a CCA (if this is the thing to do does anyone have any suggestions as to how to word the letter?)

 

Thanks

[twofoot]

I'd go for your 3rd option using one of CB's bog of letters. No CCA = no enforcable debt.

[Lula]

Have a look in here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-debt/20758-creditors-dcas-letter-templates.html

[pt2537]

Time to slap regal ,

 

 

 

Dear Sirs,

Account no xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

 

I note that to date you have not complied with my request for a copy of the credit agreement for this alleged debt which you are pursuing me for

The Consumer Credit Act 1974 demands that I be supplied with a true copy of any properly executed credit agreement that exists in relation to the above account. I may ask for this on demand providing that a fee of £1.00 is paid. This fee was sent with my original letter.

 

My request remains outstanding. Without production of the said agreement I am unable to asses if I am indeed liable for any alleged debt to you, nor does it give me any chance to evaluate whether any original agreement was ‘properly executed’.

 

I still require you to send me a true copy of the original credit agreement that you allege exists. As you will know, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a judge is not permitted to make any enforcement order unless the creditor can provide a true signed copy of the original credit agreement. This means that unless you can produce such an agreement, this alleged debt is not enforceable in law.

 

You had until xx/xx.2007 to provide me with the true copy I requested. You are now in default of my request. Any account I hold with you is now in legal dispute. Whilst the account remains in dispute, you are not permitted to ask for any payment, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. Furthermore, whilst the dispute remains, you are not entitled to charge any interest on the account, nor make any further charges to the account. Additionally, you are not entitled to register any information on this account with any credit reference agency.

 

To register information with a credit reference agency, you must have written consent from the customer to collate and share such information. This consent is given in the form of a signed credit agreement, so until you produce such an agreement, you may not do this.

 

The requirement for consent to share data is a clear requirement of the Data Protection Act 1998. any such attempts to share my data without my consent will be met with a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office

 

The time limits, which are laid down in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 are clear. You must supply an executed credit agreement within 12 + 2 working days of a proper CCA request. If you fail to comply with a legitimate request the account enters a default situation and if you fail to comply after a further 30 days you commit an offence. If you continue to try to enforce this debt without complying with my original request you will have committed a criminal offence and your conduct will be reported to the Office of Fair Trading, the Financial Ombudsman and Trading Standards. Any investigation undertaken by them may affect your ability to offer credit in the future.

 

To sum up, I will not be making any further payments to you until you provide me with the document I have requested. Whilst you remain in default of my request, you are not permitted to take any action against this account. This includes adding further charges and passing any information to the credit reference agencies.

 

Should you not have any signed credit agreement in relation to this alleged debt, please confirm this in writing to me.

 

 

I look forward to your reply.

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

 

 

That is what i sent to littlewoods when they failed to comply with my CCA request, now i know that in your case this has been transfered to another debt collector so it will need to be amended to suit

 

 

regards

 

paul

[pt2537]

or this is what i sent to NDR littlewoods debt collection department

 

 

 

Dear Sirs,

 

Thank you for your letter dated 1st October, the contents of which are noted

 

I must draw your attention to the fact that this account is in dispute.

 

I also note your comments that your client has not been able to contact me and this statement is somewhat confusing. I wrote to Littlewoods on the 10th May 2007 making a statutory request for a true executed copy of the agreement for the account numbered ********. The statutory time frame for this request is twelve working days as set out in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983. Littlewoods failed to comply with this request in the required time frame, in fact they did not reply until the 29th June 2007. The document, which was supplied, was NOT a true copy of the original executed agreement and this is very clear. The document supplied had my address printed on the top of the document. The problem this causes is that the account was not opened at this address and therefore it is impossible that the document complied with my original request. I wrote to litttlewoods on the 9th July 2007 setting out the grounds, which I rejected what had been supplied, and requesting again that they supply the documentation that I requested. I enclose a copy of this letter for your records

 

For the avoidance of any doubt I have included section 78(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which states…

 

78 Duty to give information to debtor under running-account credit agreement

(1) The creditor under a regulated agreement for running-account credit, within the prescribed period after receiving a request in writing to that effect from the debtor and payment of a fee of [£1], shall give the debtor a copy of the executed agreement (if any) and of any other document referred to in it, together with a statement signed by or on behalf of the creditor showing, according to the information to which it is practicable for him to refer,—

(a) the state of the account, and

(b) the amount, if any, currently payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor, and

© the amounts and due dates of any payments which, if the debtor does not draw further on the account, will later become payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor.

(2) …….

(3)….….

(4) ………

(4A)……

(5) ………

(6) If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1)—

(a) he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement; and

(b) if the default continues for one month he commits an offence.

(7) This section does not apply to a non-commercial agreement, and subsections [(4) to (5)] do not apply to a small agreement.

 

 

Clearly the agreement which was supplied in no way complies with the requirements of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and I now draw your attention to section 78 subsection 6 which states If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1) he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement;

 

Clearly this is a situation as described in s78(6) Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the debt is unenforcaable at this time. In addition, I draw your attention to section 127 (3) Consumer Credit Act 1974 which states

 

127(3) The court shall not make an enforcement order under section 65(1) if section 61(1)(a)(signing of agreements) was not complied with unless a document (whether or not in the prescribed form and complying with regulations under section 60(1)) itself containing all the prescribed terms of the agreement was signed by the debtor or hirer (whether or not in the prescribed manner).

 

To clarify s61(1) states

 

(1)A regulated agreement is not properly executed unless—

 

(a) a document in the prescribed form itself containing all the prescribed terms and conforming to regulations under section 60(1) is signed in the prescribed manner both by the debtor or hirer and by or on behalf of the creditor or owner, and

 

(b) the document embodies all the terms of the agreement, other than implied terms, and

 

© The document is, when presented or sent to the debtor or hirer for signature, in such a state that all its terms are readily legible

 

Therefore based upon the Consumer Credit Act 1974 this debt as it stands is unenforceable and should this proceed to litigation, a court is precluded from making an enforcement order under section 127(3) unless a true copy of the signed agreement is produced. I will re-iterate that this is clearly not a true copy of the executed agreement between litttlewoods and myself.

 

At the point where this account entered into the default situation as described in s78 (6) CCA 1974 no other charges are allowed to be added until such time as Littlewoods become compliant with my request. As Littlewoods are still not in compliance with my request I insist that the following takes place with immediate effect

• All charges levied since 30th may 2007 be removed from the account and further charges cease until such time as litttlewoods comply fully with my original request or such time as a court makes an enforcement order
  
• All entries which refer to missed payments be removed from my credit file
  
• All collection activities by your company and Littlewoods cease with immediate effect until Littlewoods comply with my request from 10th May 2007 or such time as a court makes an enforcement order

In addition, I draw your attention to the Office of Fair Trading’s guidance on debt collection

 

The OFT guidance which was issued July 2003 (updated December 2006) relating to debt collections and what the OFT considers unfair, I have enclosed an excerpt from page 5 of the guidance which states

 

2.6 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:

 

h. Ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment

 

Clearly your pursuance of this debt falls into this category; in addition I must draw your attention to the fact that this debt is under investigation by ******** of *************** Trading Standards as I have made a complaint as a direct result of Littlewoods failure to comply with the CCA 74 .

 

What I Require.

 

I require that you send me a true copy of the executed agreement as required by the Consumer Credit Act 1974. If you are unable to supply the requested documentation because no such agreement is in existence I require written clarification as such.

You refer to me as an evasive debtor, a remark I find very offensive given the circumstances.

 

I require that you comply with my request within 7 days of the date of this letter. I will not correspond any further with you until I either receive a copy of the requested documents as laid down in section 78(1) CCA 74 or clarification that such agreement doesn’t exist.

 

No other correspondence will be accepted

 

I trust this out lines the situation

 

Regards

 

 

 

that should give you some ideas what to send these clowns

 

regards

paul

[Curlyben]

I'd go for your 3rd option using one of CB's bog of letters. No CCA = no enforcable debt.

 

 

I hear my name I come a running.

One bogg off

 

Edit as needed

ACCOUNT IN DISPUTE

Dear Sir or Madam,

Account number: XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

 

I must admit that I am rather bemused as to why this account has been passed to yourselves, as it is in dispute with the **original creditor/DCA** and has been since DATE 2007.

Not only is this a breach of OFT collection guidelines, but also in breach of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and Data Protection Act 1998

 

My last letter from **original creditor/DCA** was DATE and intimated that my complaint would be

resolved on **DATE**, this obviously hasn’t happened.

As **original creditor/DCA** are now in default of my Consumer Credit Act request, OFT Collection Guidelines, *Subject Access request and have also breached *s10 Data Protection Act request , I consider this account to be in SERIOUS DISPUTE.

 

As you are aware while my Consumer Credit Act request remains in default enforcement action is NOT permitted, under s127 this constitutes a complete defence at law.

 

Now I would respectfully suggest that this account is returned to the **original creditor/DCA** for resolution of these defaults and breaches, as **New DCA** cannot lawfully pursue any enforcement activities.

 

If **New DCA** chooses to ignore my dispute and attempt enforcement, I will initiate legal action and file reports with the appropriate authorities, including, but not limited to, Trading Standards, Office of Fair Trading, Information Commissioners Office, Financial Ombudsman Service and possible court action.

 

After taking advice, I am of the opinion that any continued pursuit is in violation of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 section 40 as well as breaching a number of the OFT Collection Guidelines

 

I hope that this will not be necessary and an acceptable solution can be accomplished.

 

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

I look forward to hearing from you in writing.

 

Yours faithfully

*- Delete as needed

Enjoy

 

Basically as RBS has failed to comply with your CCA the NO other DCA can attempt collection until this is resolved.

[pt2537]

Now i did consider posting that one myself but as always youve beat me to it:D

[EndOfMyTether]

Thanks so much, I'll be sending them a response in the post tomorrow morning.

[EndOfMyTether]

I got the following response yesterday:

 

Royal Bank of Scotland Account XXX

Balance XXX

Our Ref XXX

 

We are in receipt of your recent letter requesting a copy of the signed agreement relating to the above liability. We have requested this information from our client. (In fact, I didn't ask them for it - In my letter I told them that RBS was already in default having failed to provide it in response to a request made in Jan 07)

 

Please be advised that as this above amount is likely to be a historic bank account/loan it is possible that a copy of the signed agreement cannot be provided. In this event your responsibility for the liability remains, although we acknowledge (on behalf of our client) that in accordance with current Consumer Credit legislation no legal action can be taken as part of the recovery process. If you do not hear back from us you should assume this to be the case.

 

Finally we note that whilst the above liability is under our management the arrangement that we have with our client is that no further interest or charges are applied. Upon this matter being passed back to our client, they do reserve the right to apply interest retrospectively.

 

Yours sincerely

for Regal Credit Consultants Ltd

 

Louise Martin

Client Services

 

Apart from fighting the urge to send her a bag of commas, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do now?

[pt2537]

Hmm, well, at this point i would file that letter somewhere safe,

 

there is little to say to them at this point until they either

 

A produce the credit agreement or

 

B tell you they dont have it

 

if they demand payment in the mean time, a call to your local trading standards is a good idea