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      OT APPROVED, 365MC637, FAROOQ, EVRi, 12.07.23 (BRENT) - J v4.pdf
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Certegy Ltd v Mrgreengenes


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Certegy are a payment risk management company who authorise cheques on behalf of outlets.

 

I have just received a letter from Certegy Ltd detailing charges of a returned cheque I wrote to Travelodge Gatwick for £66.

 

This cheque was returned unpaid twice to my Barclays Bank account for which I was charged a total of £70. These charges will be claimed back next year as I have a claim going through the courts now. The cheque has now been paid.

 

Certegy have never contacted me before regarding these charges and now have sent me a letter demanding that I pay £78.50. I contacted them to make sure they are not having a laugh and they told me they were indeed serious. Of course I quoted the various Acts which make these charges illegal and refused to pay. They then informed that the account would be passed to a debt collection agency. This will incur a further charge of £50 !!!

 

Has anyone else had dealings with Certegy Ltd and what was the outcome? I would be very interested to hear of your experience.

 

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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They are Transax; they guarantee cheques for retailers that are beyond the customer's guarantee limit. It works like insurance; they check you out in various fashions including against a database of cheque payment history. They then make a decision as to whether to bear the risk on this basis. If the cheque bounces, they pay the retailer. They then chase the person who issued the cheque to recover this.

 

You enter into the contract at point of sale by issuing your cheque. Basic terms and conditions are posted at the POS and more detailed ones should be available on request (small leaflet). Unless made explicitly clear, though, I am still personally a little dubious as to the substance of this contract.

 

Assuming the contract exists, these are most likely penalty charges as you will have probably breached your contract with them. This might depend on the wording of the contract, though. I suspect they are penalty charges as I'd argue their "service" is enabling you to pay with a cheque beyond your card's guarantee limit, and you agree the cheque will be honoured; by it bouncing, you are in breach of contract.

 

It might be worth going somewhere that uses Transax and asking for the leaflet. Argos are probably a good idea - they use Transax, and accept a lot of large payments by cheque so tend to hold the leaflets more than, say, HMV who probably use Transax more to check the cards than to guarantee large payments.

 

Not a direct answer but I hope that helps somehow.

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Thanks pcr1, a strange aspect of this matter is that I have a cheque guarantee card for £100. My cheque was for £66. I have asked my bank why the cheque wasn't honoured. They just said that there were insufficient funds to cover it. The more likely reason was that here was an opportunity for the bank to make more money in charges. Until I claim them all back that is!

 

 

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!:D

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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They can't refuse to honour it. I'd ask for a copy of the cheque (easily done - HSBC have done this for me for free before, but they may charge for it). If it's properly guaranteed then your bank is in breach of contract, surely?

 

And you have no contract with Transax? I'm sure the signs say cheques beyond your guarantee limit. I've got to pop into town later; I might check.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello Mrgreengenes

 

I'm in an exact position with Certegy Ltd. I was just wondering how far you got with these charges and what you have found out, how much did you pay them or otherwise?

 

Your comments would be a great help.

Thanks

Phil

This is only my personal, honest opinion!

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Hi Phil, thanks for your post. First of all, I would suggest that you search for Certegy or Transax in this site as there are a few other cases similar to ours.

 

I have just received a letter from Certegy (Transax) demanding payment again. I called them and informed them that under the terms of the various Acts, their charges are unlawful and are unenforceable by law. I asked whether he had read the various acts I had quoted. He replied that he had not.

 

He then asked a very stupid question, "Do you intend to pay these charges?" Of course I refused. He then informed me that the debt would be sold to a debt collection agency who would then pursue me for the money. Transax would now have washed their hands of the debt and have no further interest.

 

These debt collection agencies are buying debts from companies, who are charging people unlawfully, hoping to collect money that is not even enforceable by law? This does not seem to be a very lucrative business to be involved with!

 

Anyway, I am about to compose a letter quoting the relevant sections of the various Acts. It will probably be ignored.

 

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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He then asked a very stupid question, "Do you intend to pay these charges?" Of course I refused. He then informed me that the debt would be sold to a debt collection agency who would then pursue me for the money. Transax would now have washed their hands of the debt and have no further interest.

 

You could point out that now you have informed them that the charges were levied unlawfully they are knowingly selling on an illegally obtained debt. Probably comitting some deception offences there against who ever is buying it, at the very least.

 

J.

Northern Rock; S.A.R sent 11/8/06 - Delivered. Recieved details of 6 yrs charges on 8th. Wrote back asking whether or not they hold information going back further than that.

MBNA; S.A.R sent 11/8/06 - Delivered 14/8/06

Barclays; S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) request sent 11/8/06 - Del 14/8/06

Diners Club; S.A.R sent 11/8/06 - Delivered 14/8/06. Recieved form to fill and return with fee on 17/8/06. Sent form back, delivered 4/9/06.

Intelligent Finance; Prelim letter emailed 16/08/06, claiming £318. Email recieved from "Anne-Marie" 17/8/06 saying my email has been passed to Customer Relations dept. Fob-off letter received 23/8/06, letter sent in return same day - Delivered 24/8/6 Recieved letter offer 25% settelement - refused - LBA sent. MCOL on 10th revcieved notification that they intend to defend on 13th. 06/9/2006 WON!!!!!!

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I have now compiled a reply to Certegy. Here it is.

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

I refer to your letter dated 7th Aug 6, which relates to unlawful charges. These charges amount to £78.50 and “(Details of charges are overleaf)”. None of the charges overleaf have an amount of 50p! This leads me to believe that you cannot justify this amount.

In accordance with The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Schedule 2 Para 1 (e), the following are terms which are regarded as unfair:-

 

1. Terms which have the object or effect of-

 

(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation;

I feel that £78.50 for a failed cheque of £66 will be regarded by any sensible person as a disproportionately high sum!

 

It may be worth your while to read this document before attempting to charge anyone else.

In any case, when I wrote the cheque (which has now cleared) and which was covered by a cheque guarantee card for £100, I was not made aware that I may have been entering into any contract with you. There was certainly no sign displayed to this effect. Therefore, I cannot be held liable for any charges whether they are lawful or not. I did not ask you to guarantee any cheque I may write, especially one within my cheque guarantee limit!

Needless to say, I will not be paying any of these charges for the reasons shown above.

I understand that you will now be selling this debt to a debt collection agency for them to attempt to recover the charges. As I have refused to pay the charges to you, why should I then pay any debt collector? When this person arrives at my door, I will explain to him/her why the charges are unenforceable in law and if the agency has bought the debt, it will have been money wasted. Perhaps as their fingers will have been burned in this way, they will be less likely to buy any debts involving unlawful charges from you again.

I trust that this letter will serve to clarify my position, and you would be strongly advised to review your legal position on this matter as there are a growing number of consumers unwilling to part with their money blindly.

Now that I have informed you that the charges were levied unlawfully, you will be knowingly selling on an unlawfully obtained debt, and you are probably committing some deception offence against who ever is buying it, at the very least.

 

 

 

Thanks for the advice, Phantom Reclaimer. Let's see what happens next.

Please feel free to use my letter yourselves.

 

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just received a reply to my letter.

 

"I would like to advise you, that Certegy reserves the right to charge a fee based on the reasonable cost of collecting an unpaid debt from a customer. (£78.50 is a reasonable cost!!!)

The customer receives prior warning of Ceregy's intention ... in the point of sale material. (which was not displayed) The material also describes the intended course of action should a customer's payment be returned unpaid. Certegy upholds that it is justified in charging an administration fee to cover the additional administrative costs involved in the collection process - debt collection is not Certegy's primary business. (However, debt creation seems to be!!!)

 

I am on this occasion, as a result of your prompt payment of the outstanding debt, I am pleased to be able to inform you that, as a gesture of goodwill, I am prepared to waive the remaining fee. I must, however, point that certegy will reserve the right to charge an administration fee should further debts be incurred."

 

Yours sincerely, Peter Hackett, Collections Manager

 

In other words, they realise they don't have a leg to stand on and cannot justify their charges.

 

This is one more victory for the Consumer Advice Group. Thank you for your support.

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!:D

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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  • 4 months later...

Having read your first post today for the first time, a couple of points arise.

First ,are you sure that the card did in fact guarantee cheques up to £100

and not £50. The reason I ask is that had it been £100, there would have been no need for trnsax to be involved. And the bank should not have

returned the cheque marked "Refer to Drawer Please Represent", since the

whole point of the cheque card systme is to provide a guarantee to the

acceptor that providing the guarantee conditions are met, the bank will honour the cheque regardless of the lack of funds in the account

. Of course you would then have been liable to the charges

applied for going further overdrawn, but that would have been just the one charge.

If the conditions have not been met, then the cheque should be

returned as "not being drawn in accordance with cheque card regulations", or

words to that effect. And in those circumstances, no charges should have been levied by the bank.

If the guarantee was for £100, then the bank were out of order in returning

it unpaid, since they were in breach of their own guarantee terms.

 

There have been a couple of times when I have been subject to using the

transax facilities to have a guaranteed cheque accepted, and not once have

their T&Cs been pointed out nor were they ever visible.

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  • 3 months later...

I have been charged for 48.50 for a £60 bounced cheque by certegy.

 

Usual thing applies, their self appointed charges cant possibly add up to that, in addition they have my address wrong, so I didnt receive the first letter until some two weeks after it was sent, and the second letter arrived the day after I sent my response.

 

My letter to them was a rehash of the mrgreegenes letter. I have now received a third letter, still to the wrong address, saying they have placed a notification on my file, but are giving me one last chance to pay.

 

Anybody got any ideas what to do.

 

Am thinking of sending a letter asking to see any form of contract I have with them, an explanation of the charges (how the hell they get 48.50!!!), and if neither is forthcoming, to see my legal position in the copy of the letter sent whenever it was which is also attached, good idea? Or do I need to do something else

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  • 3 months later...

This is just an update I should have posted before. I have now been refunded the £66 by Travelodge Gatwick as I complained about my bad experiences in the hotel. Also, my bank charges have now been refunded by Barclays.

 

Stick to your principles, the Law is on our side.

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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  • 2 months later...

Hi everyone can anyone help me with my problem? I wrote a cheque at a high street store for £76, it was under my gurantee of £100 so according to you all it shouldnt have even been refferred to transax. Any how there were no signs indicating my contract with transax or leaflets to be handed out, and I am sure of this point because I actually work in this shop!!!!

The cheque was paid when presented second time and I paid my bank charges so why should I pay transax too?

I received a letter saying I had to pay £48, then another saying I had ignored all their previous attempts to resolve the matter(one letter!) then another saying I would be reffered to external debt collecting agency, and now a simple card posted thru my door saying that a d. foster will be visiting me on Tuesday(no date or month) between 9am and 9 pm and a number for me to ring if this not convenient??

 

THEY ARE DOING MY HEAD IN HELP!!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
I have been charged for 48.50 for a £60 bounced cheque by certegy.

 

Usual thing applies, their self appointed charges cant possibly add up to that, in addition they have my address wrong, so I didnt receive the first letter until some two weeks after it was sent, and the second letter arrived the day after I sent my response.

 

My letter to them was a rehash of the mrgreegenes letter. I have now received a third letter, still to the wrong address, saying they have placed a notification on my file, but are giving me one last chance to pay.

 

Anybody got any ideas what to do.

 

Am thinking of sending a letter asking to see any form of contract I have with them, an explanation of the charges (how the hell they get 48.50!!!), and if neither is forthcoming, to see my legal position in the copy of the letter sent whenever it was which is also attached, good idea? Or do I need to do something else

 

i'm in a similar position, i'm thinkin of sending a letter like mrgreengenes, is this a good idea?

the charges have been passed on to a doorstep firm to collect, should i send a letter to them saying the dept they've bought is unlawfull as i was 15 when the cheque bounced + the charges are way too high anyway?

has anyone else got out of paying these trumped up charges?

please help me anyone

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i'm in a similar position, i'm thinkin of sending a letter like mrgreengenes, is this a good idea?

the charges have been passed on to a doorstep firm to collect, should i send a letter to them saying the dept they've bought is unlawfull as i was 15 when the cheque bounced + the charges are way too high anyway?

has anyone else got out of paying these trumped up charges?

please help me anyone

 

Worried Teen, have you read posts 8 & 9 in this thread? My charges were more than yours. I didn't pay them. Adapt my letter with your details. These vulture companies don't want to hear "I'll take you to court" because this will cost THEM money, more than what they are asking from you. It will not be cost effective. Also, If they sell the debt on they are knowingly passing on an unlawfully obtained debt. They won't like that pointed out to them. Also, when you wrote the cheque was the T & C of Certegy or Transax clearly displayed? If not, how can you have a contract with them?

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya! :grin:

 

Barclays - settled in full £4799.38 ;)

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hi there worried teen I started my own thread about this as well and I modified Mrgreengenes letter to suit my situation and also added in the stuff that lookinforinfo suggested about it being illegal for them to call at my property without permission and received a reply todat stating that although they are within their rights to make these charges that on this occasion they would be waived. Theyre fishing to see who will pay, dont give in!!

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hi, cheers for replying, as the dept has been passed on should i send the letter that greengenes wrote to certegy or the new collection firm?

also should i send the letter lookinforinfo wrote about banning visits to my house to the new firm & inform them the dept they've bought is illegal?

i'm totally clueless as to these matters, should i actually threaten to take them to court, say for them to take me to court?

gizmo32 did you send that letter to certegy, should i? i'm unsure what to do as certegy have washed their hands of the dept

cheers

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Worried Teen please start your own thread as often each individual has a

different type of problem from others. Then we can give you best advice for

your particular case.

If you don't know how to start your own thread, go to the first page of "General Debt" and at the top of the page you will see on the left hand side a blue "button" with the words "New Thread". Press that, put in a

headline and in the main body tell us what the position is. How much was the cheque for, have you paid it yet and who is the debt collector chasing you.

 

I think you already know that at the age you were then, you cannot be held

responsible for your debts, so just relax. And bear in mind that debt collectors

have no powers even if they call at your door. They are not bailiffs and cannot take any of your goods to pay the debt. They can do nothing to you.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 year later...
Certegy are a payment risk management company who authorise cheques on behalf of outlets.

 

I have just received a letter from Certegy Ltd detailing charges of a returned cheque I wrote to Travelodge Gatwick for £66.

 

This cheque was returned unpaid twice to my Barclays Bank account for which I was charged a total of £70. These charges will be claimed back next year as I have a claim going through the courts now. The cheque has now been paid.

 

Certegy have never contacted me before regarding these charges and now have sent me a letter demanding that I pay £78.50. I contacted them to make sure they are not having a laugh and they told me they were indeed serious. Of course I quoted the various Acts which make these charges illegal and refused to pay. They then informed that the account would be passed to a debt collection agency. This will incur a further charge of £50 !!!

 

Has anyone else had dealings with Certegy Ltd and what was the outcome? I would be very interested to hear of your experience.

 

 

Don't let the fatherless chillen get ya!

 

 

 

I am at the moment having serious problems with certegy..I bought some bedroom furniture last yr but i am now struggling to pay the full monthly installments, I made arrangements with a gentleman on the phone to pay £10 a month so gave him my card details over the phone to make a payment of £10 then I find out not even a month later they had tried to take a payment of £351 out of my bank but they couldn't get that so they then tried for £100 and managed to take it which has incurred me with bank charges I had no notification of this by the company..I phoned them and told them they were not having another penny and she basically sed tuff they can go into my bank account wheneva they wanted and take money even if I was to cancel my card they can still go in and take it so im now having to open another account and transfer money to other accounts to stop them taking it..surely there not allowed to do that.

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  • 1 year later...

I See Everyone's having problems with cheques, but i just received my bank statement, certegy ltd took 4 x £10 from my account.. There was a number under the company name, Which i Tried Calling but after few signals it went quiet, i asumed it went to voice mail, so i found another number on google, but i believe there's 2 certegy ltd's.. the one i called was based in Birminham and they deal with companies, my account number was not recognised, they asked for my name, post code, company name which i don't have and never called me back.. The one you are talking about is based in Glasgow.. I Don't use cheques, i havent used my card for over 6months, and i have no idea why or how they can take money from my acount when the account is empty and previous payments were reffused.. Has anyone had a similar problem, or at least understand what could be going on?

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