Barclaycard, application form CCA's and the High Court (Rankine Case)

[joeybebrave]

Hi all

 

I am in the same position as a lot of other people here, a CCA request to Barclaycard generating only a copy of my application form. Like lots of others, I wrote back to them, sternly pointing out that this doesn't comply with CCA law.

 

After several back-and-forths, I received a long letter from them today. I don't have it on me but will scan it in if anyone wants to see it.

 

They say that the High Court has decided that the application form **IS** a valid credit card agreement, and they are now legally entitled to chase me for the debt. Their argument is that since I applied for the card, and they sent me one along with their terms and conditions, then as soon as I started using the card then the T&C's became binding.

 

Googling around produces the following link:

Debt Questions • View topic - CCA Requests and Credit Cards (High Court Ruling)

which has a little more information on the test case that produced this decision.

 

Basically I think this means that everyone who is in this position can now expect court action from Barclaycard to chase the debt.

 

I think this is really important for people to know about, because not only are they going to need this information to prepare their defence, but also it seems there is controversy over this judgement and in some cases district judges have disagreed with it.

 

Jo

Edited August 5, 2008 by joeybebrave

[noomill060]

Suggest you read this thread http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/147432-high-court-judgement-rankines.html

 

and this thread

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-debt-issues/84285-ccas-dave-against-world-38.html#post1554322

[PriorityOne]

Barclaycard are just trying to fob you off.... They will argue the toss with you for ages with template letters and the like, but once they know that you know its unenforceable, they'll eventually flog it out without involving court action.

[joeybebrave]

Thank you very much - I wasn't aware of those posts.

Will now try to get to grips with them and try to understand exactly what the deal is here.

 

I saw several posts from people in the same position as me who have suddenly had court action stepped up against them by Barclays, presumably as a result of this judgement. Do you think it might be possible to add something about the Rankine case to the sticky that deals with CCA Requests in Legal Issues? I was about to give up because I thought Barclays now had a watertight case, but it seems this is far from true. I think other people will be fooled too (as pointed out by other people in those threads), so it might be really good to have something up there visible to everyone - do you reckon?

 

Cheers loads for your help

 

Jo

[tinkerbell20]

Good idea Mods!

[joeybebrave]

The more I think about this the more crazy it seems. I have no legal knowledge, but it seems that the entire point of the Consumer Credit Act was to make sure that any credit agreement is fully and properly documented, with terms visible to both parties and signed by both, before any money changes hands.

 

If the creditors are allowed to get a simple application form signed and then supply (or not) a list of terms & conditions at a later date, without even any actual proof to say that they did send them or any proof to say even what those particular t&c's actually contained at the time, then doesn't that negate the whole entire point of the Act? It just leaves everything as one person's word against another and is open to complete abuse (yes, honest guvnor we did send the t&c's and by using your Barclaycard you have agreed to jump up and down and quack like a duck - look, it's here on this separate list of t&c's what i have here in my hand so you can't get out of it now...)

 

I agree that by using the card I borrowed money from Barclaycard, but nowhere does it actually say what terms and conditions I borrowed it under.

 

Hmm. Need to translate that into official legal language and then I'll be ready with my defence! Maybe not the quack-like-a-duck bit.

 

Jo

[slick132]

Hi Jo,

 

Perhaps if you scan the ltr rec'd from BC, we can decide how you should best move on from here.