Lloyds offer to settle - 12 months on!

[adz1980]

Hello.

 

I'd appreciate a little advice as Lloyds have cleverly foxed me somewhat. I have gone through the process of Requesting Repayment with the usual response, then LBA with the usual response, before I submitted my claim through MoneyClaim on March 1st (a Thursday).

 

My claim was for £329.00 plus £74.91 in interest.

 

Now, my two week deadline after my LBA was Feb 15th, but personal circumstances meant that I was unable to get the MCOL submitted until March 1st.

 

I received acknowledgement from MCOL on the 3rd (Saturday), but have today (7th March) received a letter from Lloyds (still denying all liability and explaining why their charges are fair, blah blah) offering to repay me £329 ("we are making you this offer because the amount you're asking for is less than the cost we might face in dealing with your complaint if you took it any further").

 

The letter is dated 22nd February, which was before I submitted my claim throuh MoneyClaim. But the frank on the envelope tells a different story, and is dated 6th March, which would explain why I only received this today.

 

Whilst I'm obviously delighted that Lloyds are willing to repay me MY money, I'm cheesed off that I've paid £50 in court costs and they've gotten away with £75 + in interest. I'd be willing to sacrifice the interest, if it hadn't been for the court costs, and if they had sent the letter when it was supposedly written.

 

Has anyone else experienced this? I think that Lloyds waited to see if I would proceed this far before agreeing to pay, and are now trying to take the cheapest way out, by back dating a letter.

 

I was considering calling them to discuss this, and to suggest that if they pay the additional costs (£50 court + £75 interest) then I will accept, but the phone number (01264 832297 - customer service recovery centre) is constantly engaged.

 

Any thoughts??? Should I simply wait for the 14 days to pass and see if I have had a response?

 

Thanks

 

AW

[Janet-M]

I would not phone them at all .Always keep everything in writing . Just write back to them stating that you have now lodged your claim into court and you are willing to settle for this amount if they repay you your court issue fee and 8% interest until day of settlement .Point out that you will deem the day of settlement to be the day the money is repaid to you. .Do not agree to any conditions to them repaying you .

Do not withdraw your claim until the money is in your account

[adz1980]

Great, thanks for that. Was considering calling as it has worked for some with MBNA, when it got to this point.

 

Another letter on its way to Lloyds then!!

[alemanita]

I'm sure LLoyds back-date letters.

 

I received a full and final settlement of £750 (told them to sod off though) on the 27.2.07 straight into my bank account.

I received a letter for this the day after but the letter was dated the 14.2.07.

 

so it wouldn't surprise me if they do that!! Not sure why though

 

xxxx

[adz1980]

Hi Everyone

 

After 11 months of not hearing a thing from Lloyds whilst the case was stayed, this week I received two letters regarding my complaint, one of which remade the same offer of payment that I previously rejected.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has received a similar letter, and if so what the general thoughts are about it.

 

If no one else has received this letter then I hope it’s of use to you all in your ongoing plight against Lloyds TSB. I’ll first give you the background of my case so that you have all the details:

 

Jan 2007: Started action against Lloyds TSB in relation to a bank account that I held with them between 1996 and 2005, and on which I had been charged £329 for overdraft excess fees and an Unpaid SO.

 

3rd Jan 07

: Request for repayment sent

 

 

15th Jan 07

: Standard response received (we think our charges are fair, etc)

 

 

1st Feb 07

: Sent letter before action. No response received

 

 

1st March 07

: Proceeded to MCOL

 

 

7th March 07

: Received a letter from Lloyds in response to my letter dated 1st Feb 2007 (no mention of MCOL). This letter offered me £329 – however it was dated 22nd Feb, whereas the postmark was stamped 6th March. My immediate reaction was that they had post dated this letter, which seemed the most obvious answer given the dates between it being written and it being posted

 

 

7th March 07

: I declined the offer, reasoning that I had now incurred £50 in court fees. I requested the £329, plus £50 to cover my court fees, plus 8% interest, total £455.36

 

 

16th March 07

: Received a cheque for £329, which I destroyed and returned, explaining that I had initiated legal action, but would be prepared to settle for the £455.36 figure

 

 

26th March 07

: Received notification of defence from HMCS, and so returned the allocation questionnaire, etc. My court date was August 23rd in Cardiff, which was cancelled along with all of the others when the stay was granted

 

 

29th March 2007

: Strangely, since Lloyds had submitted a defence on 24th March 07, I received another letter from Lloyds, dated 29th March 2007. This one offered to reduce my 14 disputed charges to £12 each, resulting in a refund of £102, plus 8% interest: £22.28 (Total £124.28). This offer was available to me until 29th April 2007 and included the statement “This letter is the bank’s final response”. I did not respond.

 

Since then I’ve been waiting for the verdict. However, last week I received a letter from Lloyds, dated 26 February 2008. It was from the Lloyds TSB Recovery Centre (Andover) and read:

 

Dear Mr **

 

 

Complaint Reference: *****

 

 

I am just writing to let you know that we have received your complaint – and to say how sorry I am to learn that you feel you have cause to complain.

 

 

We expect our enquiries to be completed within the next four weeks but we will try to get our response to you sooner if we can. If there’s a delay, we will let you know why and we’ll give you an idea of when you can expect to receive a full response to your complaint. I hope we can sort things out for you.

 

 

In the meantime attached to this letter is …. ‘Voicing your concerns’…

 

 

If your complaint is about the level, fairness or lawfulness of overdraft bank charges, then a different process that we’ve agreed with the Financial Services Authority will apply. We will write to you shortly to explain how we’ll handle that complaint and what steps we will take to protect your rights. In responding to you we will also consider all the things you have raised in your letter, as well as any further information we have about your financial circumstances.

 

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Marcus Jones

 

Customer Service Recovery

 

 

A bit out of the blue, given that 11 and a half months had passed!

 

 

I then received another letter, also dated 26 February 2008, and again from the Andover Cust service Recovery Centre

 

This one read:

 

……

 

 

Thank you for letting us know you’re unhappy about the payment we made to you. I’m sorry for the delay in our reply.

 

 

Before you reject it, I want you to know that this payment has been made as a gesture of goodwill. It does not affect your right to take further action, if you think it necessary.

 

 

However, Lloyds TSB (along with other major UK banks) is currently involved in legal proceedings with the OFT in relation to bank charges.

 

 

Until this court case has been resolved, we asked the FSA to suspend the normal timetable for dealing with bank charges complaints which relate to unauthorised overdraft charges (or Unplanned Overdraft fees as we have called them since 2 November 2007). The FSA agreed to this request subject to conditions which protect your rights.

 

 

What will happen next will depend on the courts. We do not know how long the case will take – but we have promised to proceed as quickly as possible but inevitably given the importance and complexity of the issues being considered this may take many months to finally resolve.

 

 

For now, we have registered all the details of your complaint, and updated our file with the latest correspondence from you. Once the legal proceedings with the OFT are concluded, we will resolve your entire complaint as quickly as possible. In the meantime we will keep you updated about the proceedings with the OFT on a regular basis. You can also check the latest position on our website

www.lloydstsb.com

 

 

We appreciate that you may have wanted to have your complaint dealt with more quickly, or felt there were circumstances which justified this, however we can assure you we will be taking steps to ensure that your complaint will not be disadvantaged whilst our legal proceedings with the OFT continue.

 

 

We believe that our current account fees and charges are clear and represent a fair charge for a banking service that is valued by our customers. If at the end of the OFT case the court agrees with us, we will not reclaim this payment as we’ve made it to you as a gesture of goodwill. If the court finds in favour of the OFT, this payment may be deducted when we consider the rest of any complaint at that later stage.

 

 

Please let me know how you wish to proceed. If you do still want to reject our payment please confirm that you want us to cancel the cheque you’re returned.

 

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

David Clarke

 

Customer Service Recovery

 

 

On receiving this letter, my first thoughts were that they aren’t confident about the OFT case and are looking to settle now and save themselves some money.

With interest, my claim has now increased to £431.49, plus £50 court fees, whereas Lloyds are now re-offering me the previous offer of £329

 

I’d be really interested and appreciative of the thoughts of others in why Lloyds have now sent this letter, and also if anyone else has had anything similar. I realise that the decision on whether to settle is mine alone, but it would be really helpful in making a decision if anyone can shed some light on why they may be offering to settle now!

 

Sorry for the length of this post but I wanted to give a full background, so anyone in a similar position can compare our cases

 

Thanks

AW

[Bookworm]

2 threads merged.

 

Intriguing, certainly. :-?

 

Personally, I would stick to my guns, especially after waiting so long. As to why they have sent this now, who's to say? Mistake? They're starting to get rid of the smaller ones? Who knows?

 

You never know, you might be the 1st one in a long line to come.