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Barclaycard/Mercers insider info - probably valid for other DCAs


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Heather, if you haven't already I would start your own thread as you are more likely to get responses. You need to respond to the claim within 14 days - depending on how much is owed, how much is interest and charges, and whether they are likely to have a valid agreement will affect your decision whether to fully defend (which costs nothing) or counterclaim for the charges etc? If you acknowledge saying you are defending or counterclaiming you then have a further 14 days. If you need more information to prepare defence/counterclaim then the 'guys' have some great letters to send.

BANK CHARGES

Nat West Bus Acct £1750 reclaim - WON

 

LTSB Bus Acct £1650 charges w/o against o/s balance - WON

 

Halifax Pers Acct £1650 charges taken from benefits - WON

 

Others

 

GE Money sec loan - £1900 in charges - settlement agreed

GE Money sec loan - ERC of £2.5K valid for 15 years - on standby

FirstPlus - missold PPI of £20K for friends - WON

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Sorry chaps it wasn’t just a hit and run I just get quite busy and don’t always have the time.

Anyway Heather my statement about Barclaycard not taking people to court was true as of around 4 years ago when I left them. They may have started taking people to court but if it is true then you have just been severely unlucky. As of 4 years ago Barclaycard had around 50,000 accounts in their debt collections department at any given time (Lord only knows how many it is now!). Think of the cost and administration needed to take everyone to court. In the long run it would be a complete waste of time. The very first thing we were told when going through the 2 week training was that Barclaycard had never taken anyone to court because it is simply not worth it. they did say they were thinking about making examples of a few people but to my knowledge this never materialised. They taught us everything even how to [problem] credit card companies by targeting specific retail outlets.

As I have already said though the worst they could do was get a CCJ and you would have to pay back whatever the judge felt you could realistically pay. In most cases it would never be anymore than 10% of your disposable income so you have nothing to worry about. My advice would be to call the court and check with them that it is an official document and has been legally applied for. I would not put it beyond Barclaycard to use this as a scare tactic and send out papers that look like court documents when they really are not.

Also my mistake guys you are probably right about the 6 years, I just had in my head that it was seven (it has been 4 years or so). The way it works is that any default notice on your credit file will remain on there for life unless you get it removed. The explanation behind the 'in 6 years you are Scott free' idea is that any lenders can only have immediate access to the last 6 years of your credit file. They can request information beyond that period but it has to be at special request and I believe there would be a cost involved so they never bother.

If you have paid off any debt relating to a default notice make sure you check it has been removed by the lender on your credit file. If not call them up and demand it is removed immediately.

Barclaycard often left it until the customer phoned before bothering to remove these. Also to answer another of your questions usually Barclaycard would adopt the customer is always right policy. I think the reason behind this was because they knew what a [problem] they was running and if anyone bothered to complain they would try and keep them happy. They rely on people not complaining though and will do nothing until someone does.

Another point is speaking to the manager really helps. The managers (or team leaders) are generally speaking the biggest bunch of Muppets in the buildings. They have very little phone experience and often when a customer became irate they would immediately cave in just so they did not have to cope with the hassle. The official line when you say 'put me on to your manager' will be ' I am the person managing your account and anybody else you speak to will only say the same as I have'. But do not accept this as that person has a leader who 9 times out of 10 is weak and you can take advantage of it. I cant tell you the amount of times I would spend 45 minutes refusing to refund a late of over limit fee only for my moronic team leader to cave in within a couple of minutes.

Letters you send generally get unanswered unless they are pressed. The girl dealing with the mail for my team had the intellect of a 5 year old and certainly had no understanding of the debt recovery laws involved. They want to get you on the phone when they know you are vulnerable and most likely to give in to their demands. See over the phone they can usually get away with saying pretty much what they want but in letters they must choose their words carefully. They keep recordings of all the phone calls they make and you can request transcripts from them if you feel you have been spoken to unprofessionally and keep it as proof if you do for some reason end up in court. :)

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Apparently BC are running a little late in producing CCA's!!!!!

 

They say that they have a lot of people requesting the same documents at the moment and it is going to take them at least 8-10 weeks to get the paperwork out.... (their words)

 

thats good well over the limit......... especially bearing in mind that our request was sent in back in Oct last year.

 

Gonna complain to ts etc now as Mercers are still calling and writing after money.

 

Sytra

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Rock n Roll, you are a prince... or a princess!

 

thanx.

 

Had a horrendous year in 2007 following an accident & surgical complications.

 

Trying desperately to catch up ...but all those default & other notices are depressing & taking up my slowly recuperating life.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Rock n Roll, I've just got some stuff back from Barclays as part of an SAR request and wondered if you could translate something for me, as it appears on the statements of three accounts they've sent details of.

 

This is it.....CHRGOFF PRCH PRIN BALM and then it shows a nil balance outstanding.

I'd be very grateful if you could explain it to me.

All the best, Patma

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Hi Rock n Roll, I've just got some stuff back from Barclays as part of an S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) request and wondered if you could translate something for me, as it appears on the statements of three accounts they've sent details of.

 

This is it.....CHRGOFF PRCH PRIN BALM and then it shows a nil balance outstanding.

I'd be very grateful if you could explain it to me.

All the best, Patma

 

 

The Data Protection Act requires that information is presented legibly; this means that the Data Controller has to provide an explanation of any abbreviations. If Barclays have not sent a key with the data, then they have not properly complied with your SAR.

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Thanks very much for your input, PriorityOne and Scarlet Pimpernel. It looks as though I'll have to get back to them and remind them of their obligations. There's no explanation of the abbreviations and none of the payments I continued to make for most of last year after the nil balance appeared are shown either. Also my SAR asked for everything they hold on me and a stack of computer printouts showing monthly balances doesn't come anywhere near it. LOL. All the Best, Patma

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I had mercers chasing me for around £300 for creditcard debt even though i had made anarrangment to pay i back at £1 per month which i kept up. My barclycard was got from littlewoods personal finance, Due to being harrased by mercers i made a complaint via trading standards, i got a nice letter from barclycard saying they were investigating my complaint. a few weeks later i got a phone call, from a nice lady from barclycard, i explained to here what was happening and was told leave it with her and she would sort it out, this is because of my original agreement. This lady rng me back with in 10 minutes after speaking to mercers and ticking them off, they broke the rules by contacting me without being told to do so. I have had calls from littlewoods personal finance, who is the original creditor,they were told i have a administation order for littlewoods a copy was set to them, so far they have kept quiet.

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Hi Foxydog1, welcome to CAG.

 

I am fairly new to CAG myself, so not really knowledgable enough to answer your question. However, it would be best if you started your own thread, in the Legal Issues section of the site, as it will then get the attention it deserves. Please give as much detail as you can of the circumstances.

A couple of hundred years ago Meyer Amshel, (1743-1812), founder of the Rothschild dynasty is reported to have told his five sons, “Let me control a nation’s money and I care not who writes its laws”.

 

PLEASE NOTE - I am not a legal expert, what I have written is my own opinion garnered from reading this forum and consumer legislation, and my own experience of the judicial process.

 

If I have been helpful, please feel free to tickle my scales!!

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afternoon,

 

this is my first ever post, so i hope it all works ok.

 

i had an account with barclays up until 2001, when i lost my job and it all went horribly wrong for me. i moved from that address and have subsequently moved again.

yesterday, i received a letter from thames credit, who are acting on behalf of aktiv kapital, who are the new legal owner of the debt. they are demanding nearly 8k, for what can have been no more than a 4 k debt (im pretty certain that was my card limit). they sent a similar letter 18 months ago, and we sent a load of ID stuff off and heard no more from them.

so my questions are:

1. how long is this debt 'alive' for? it must be at least 5 yrs old.

2. can i go back to these people and say prove its me. show me the account opening form, or, as they have sold the debt on, is that a non-runner.

3. what do i do now?

 

i know u must think that i am out of order not paying my debts, but the only people i shafted were banks. i have recently received 3 of these letters (for debts i did owe) and that i should pay. but, if it hadnt been for barclays feckign me over in the first place, i wouldnt have been in the awful position which i found myself in.

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debts are statue barred after 6years. you can ask for details from the debt collection agency,who have your debt. debts can be barred if after 6 years you have had no contact with the original company,or debt management company and you have not stated you owe the debt. If you dispute the debt then you should put it in writing,but do not say you accept the debt is yours until they prove you owe the debt and or you have Made a payment in the last 6 years,which means you would have to wait another 6 years without any contact from them or you. otherwise you are liable for the debt. you can check out other peoples threads on this site, you will may find others are in the same bost as you and have dealt with their problem. put the debt collectors name into the sites search engine for posts if any relating to that company. otherwise do not let it rest and in no way accept the debt until eveidence is sent to you. goodluck

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  • 4 weeks later...

Great post Rock n Roll...

 

My Barclaycard account was being handled by RMA (NCO Europe) who i found out were creaming £30 out of every £100 for themselves without me knowing.I was paying £100 every month without fail.

 

After advice on here on how to handle RMA the account was eventually handed back to Barclaycard with an outstanding amount of £3000 who just simply closed the account and i have heard no more,9 months ago now.

 

Has anyone got any advice on what to do from here ? It is just showing on my credit file as account closed with £3000 owing.Do Barclaycard give settlement figures ? I would like to come to some conclusion but not sure of next step.

 

Thanks

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Just to correct a couple of inaccuracies for anyone viewing this thread in future (not really read the whole thread, just these couple stood out):

 

my statement about Barclaycard not taking people to court was true as of around 4 years ago when I left them.

[........snip........]

As I have already said though the worst they could do was get a CCJ and you would have to pay back whatever the judge felt you could realistically pay.

Two contradictory statements - a CCJ (County Court Judgement) means they've taken you to Court! Ergo, they do take people to Court....

 

People, there's a lot of good advice on this site, in various places - if you find yourself in this position, there are plenty of good threads to get advice from....

 

The way it works is that any default notice on your credit file will remain on there for life unless you get it removed.

 

Not true - defaults are removed from your credit file 6 years from the date of the default. See these links to answers from the CRAs:

Experian

Equifax

 

Now for those of you who are unsure I just want to make sure you know that any debt you have through credit cards is unsecured. They cannot send bailiffs to you house, or put you in jail, or visit your work and so on. The absolute worst thing that can happen to you if you do not pay them is for them to take you to court and get a CCJ placed against you.

 

Ok, the first part of this is almost correct - they cannot put you in jail, pr visit you at work, etc... however, once they've got a CCJ, they can send bailiffs to your home on a Warrant of Execution if you don't make payments as ordered by the Court.

 

HTH

 

Cheers

Michael

Please note that the right to reproduce any part of any post I make on this forum is restricted under copyright law.

 

Please see the following copyright statement

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I think that the 7 years referred to earlier is in regard to the US system of 'Charge Off', which roughly equates to a UK default. What it refers to is that the creditor has charged the debt off the balance sheet and that is what shows on the US credit record (for 7 years).

This would indicate that the creditor maybe using US software.

Having looked at my S.A.R. I notice that at around the time the debt was 'sold' to a DCA, some weird CHRG OFF FEES etc came up. I think this refers to unpaid late payment fees, unpaid interest and unpaid principal amounts. The addition of which equals the debt claimed.

 

Newborn

Beaten:

RBS: £4,500

AMEX: £4,200

Barclaycard Visa: £12,100

Barclaycard M/Card: £12,600

(Including the numerous DCAs they have set on me.)

PPI reclaims (into my bank account): £25,000

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Cabot tend to buy a LOT of Barclaycard debt. Very cosy the pair of them are, too. If they were people rather than companies, I'd suspect them of sharing the same duvet. ;)

 

And the chances of Cabot managing to pull an actual agreement from the Barclaycard corporate hat is minimal.

 

But do bear in mind though, that if you DO take the advice, and tell BC to shove it, you'll then be lumbered with having to deal with Cabot, or someone very similar. Who MAY try to chance their arm with you in court.

 

That in itself CAN be fun, though. :D

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Cabot tend to buy a LOT of Barclaycard debt. Very cosy the pair of them are, too. If they were people rather than companies, I'd suspect them of sharing the same duvet. ;)

 

And the chances of Cabot managing to pull an actual agreement from the Barclaycard corporate hat is minimal.

 

But do bear in mind though, that if you DO take the advice, and tell BC to shove it, you'll then be lumbered with having to deal with Cabot, or someone very similar. Who MAY try to chance their arm with you in court.

 

That in itself CAN be fun, though. :D

 

Oh dear.... looks like I may be joining the Fan Club soon then.... :grin: ....

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I am new to the site and have been seeking advice on 1st Credit, debt from BMI C.C. I have also another one with Barclaycard being dealt with by Monument. Although, at the moment 1st Credit giving lots of telephone pressure, explained in depth on different post. But they say that they can send the bailiffs, have attachment to earnings or even make me bankrupt (should explain have been making payment through CCCS), which he sneered at saying it was unacceptable offer, though CCCS say they have to accept it. Are you saying they cannot do these things, I would die of embarrassment if they came to the door or contacted my employer!

 

Am being pressured to buying out debt at discount, would love to but as I told them if i had the money I would not be in debt. They are actually making think of borrowing more money to pay them off and get them off my back, though I know this is totally wrong as would increase my overall debt. I told him that if i did this would be dishonest to other debtors, he said they would not know!

 

I know someone who works for one of the other big debt companies mentioned in other threads, and I am beginning to despise him for what he does!

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You really do need to read around the forums to familiarise youself with these muppets, but the golden rule is NOT to get into any 'phone conversations. The easiest way is to simply refuse to go through "security"... or hang up. If you don't go through security, then they cannot discuss the account with you....

 

All they've told you is complete and total bowlarks... they have no powers to send in bailiffs :rolleyes: . They would need a CCJ first... it's just a scare tactic. If you start a thread of your own and outline what's being going on, then we'll be able to help you much better.

 

:)

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stillsmilin do not worry about what these DCAs are telling you,firstley they have no powers to send baliffs,attachment of earnings can not be done by DCAs. fistly are your debts unsecured,if so you have more rights. fistly as for DCA telephoning you and harrassing yourself, you need a telephone harrassment letter,fill it out and send it to the address of the DEbt Collection Agency. Telephone calls can be safely ignored because phone calls are not enforcable,as not seen as evidence. you mention CCCS this organisation is an excellent organisation to deal with,especially has it is free to use (charity). I would give them a ring back (CCCS) and explain to them what is happening, as you are already making payments through them, DCAs can not legally chase you for debts, you are making through a 3rd party. I have used CCCS and have nothing but respect for them, i needed help and they provided it. Ring CCCS monday morning if you have time,make sure you have your client number and details of what is happening. I would stick two fingers upto these Debt collection agents,and has your forum name says i would be stillsmiling. good luck in what you decide to do,also find the telephone harrassment letter,fill it out and send these idiots it, keep a copy of all corresspondence you have between DCAs, CCCS,and yourself,this will help with any threats of court action. somebody on here may be able to point you to the right forum place for telephone harrassment letter template.:rolleyes:

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