Apex debt collection

[Sentinel of Liberty]

HI,

Using a template from this forum i contacted Apex (with a cheque for £1, sent recorded) who were hassling my wife over an alleged debt to Learn Direct.

My wife suffered a breakdown after illness and family bereavements, she had signed up for a course but after months fighting depression, she decided she did not want to do the course (in the meantime, we have paid around £200, and she has had no contact with a tutor)

Anyhoo, we sent a letter after getting bombarded with letters and phone calls from Apex, the 12+2 days will be up next week and so far Apex have only sent us a letter threatening to send round assessor bailiffs.

Once the time frame is up, what do i do? Is there another letter i am supposed to send to Apex, and are they legally bound to leave us alone.

Incidentally, i sent a copy of a doctors note explaining my wifes condition AND offered to return the software pack (unopened) to Learn Direct but Apex stated that LD were insisting on payment.

Help?

[42man]

Sentinel...thanks for starting a new thread...when the 12+2 working days is up send this by recorded delivery...

 

Account In Dispute

 

Ref:

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Thank you for your letter of xx/xx/xx, the contents of which have been noted.

 

You have failed to respond to my legal request to supply me a true copy of the original Consumer Credit Agreement for the above account.

 

On **DATE** I made a formal request for a true signed agreement for the alleged account under consumer credit Act 1974 s77/8. A copy of which is enclosed for your perusal and ease of reference.

You have failed to comply with my request, and as such the account entered default on **DATE**.

 

The document that you are obliged to send me is a true copy of the executed agreement that contained all of the prescribed terms, all other required terms and statutory notices and was signed by both your company and myself as defined in section 61(1) of CCA 74 and subsequent Statutory Instruments. If the executed agreement contained any reference to any other document, you are also obliged to send me a copy of that document.In addition a full statement of this account should have been sent to me detailing all debits and credits to the account.

 

Furthermore

 

 

You are aware that the Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for a request for a true copy of a credit agreement to be carried out before your client enters into a default situation.

 

This limit has expired.

 

As you are no doubt aware section 77(6) states:

 

If the creditor fails to comply with Subsection (1)

 

(a) He is not entitled , while the default continues, to enforce the agreement.

 

Therefore this account has become unenforceable at law.

 

As you have Failed to comply with a lawful request for a true, signed copy of the said agreement and other relevant documents mentioned in it, Failed to send a full statement of the account and Failed to provide any of the documentation requested.

 

Consequentially any legal action you pursue will be averred as both UNLAWFUL and VEXATIOUS.

 

Furthermore I shall counterclaim that any such action constitutes unlawful harassment.

 

Please note you may also consider this letter as a statutory notice under section 10 of the Data Protection Act to cease processing any data in relation to this account with immediate effect.

 

This means you must remove all information regarding this account from your own internal records and from my records with any credit reference agencies.

 

Should you refuse to comply, you must within 21 days provide me with a detailed breakdown of your reasoning behind continuing to process my data.

 

It is not sufficient to simply state that you have a ‘legal right’; You must outline your reasoning in this matter and state upon which legislation this reasoning depends.

 

Should you not respond within 14 days I expect that this means you agree to remove all such data.

 

Furthermore you should be aware that a creditor is not permitted to take ANY

Action against an account whilst it remains in dispute.

 

The lack of a credit agreement is a very clear dispute and as such the following applies.

 

* You may not demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.

* You may not add further interest or any charges to the account.

* You may not pass the account to a third party.

* You may not register any information in respect of the account with any credit reference agency.

* You may not issue a default notice related to the account.

 

 

I reserve the right to report your actions to any such regulatory authorities as I see fit.

You have 14 days from receiving this letter to contact me with your intentions to resolve this matter which is now a formal complaint.

 

Also please note that should it be your intention to arrange a “doorstep call”, please be advised that under OFT rules, you can only visit me at my home if you make an appointment and I have no wish to make an appointment with you.

 

There is only an implied license under English Common Law for people to be able to visit me on my property without express permission; the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v. Sheppard and Short Ltd [1959] 2 Q.B. per Lord Evershed M.R.). Therefore take note that I revoke license under Common Law for you, or your representatives to visit me at my property and if you do so, then you will be liable to damages for a tort of trespass and action will be taken, including but not limited to, police attendance.

 

Yours faithfully/sincerely

 

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

 

I look forward to hearing from you in writing.

 

Yours faithfully

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Many thanks, i shall keep the forum posted

[Sentinel of Liberty]

hi

Just about to send 2nd letter out today after receiving no response to my CCA request and had a letter in the post

Formal Notice of Defaulting Account

 

Take notice that relevant documents are being prepared for the issue of county court claim against you.

Judgement against you may result in -

1, additional legal costs and interest therein

2, entry of your name in the county court judgement register which may make it difficult for you to obtain credit

3, if the judgement debtor is a homeowner, and the amount of debt warrants, an order securing payment of the judgement on the debtors house. Such an order may be forced by a court orderr for the sale of the property.

 

 

 

Guys (and girls)?

Is this something to be worried about? Or hot air??

Obviously concerned because the stakes seem very high.

Many thanks in advance.

[42man]

OK send this one next....by recorded delivery (reproduced courtesy of Martin3030)

 

Their address

 

 

date ****NOTICE UNDER CIVIL PROCEDURE RULES***

 

reference

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

 

This is in acknowledgement of your letter dated ................and also of .............The contents of which have been duly noted.

Further to you stressing that County Court proceedings will be actioned by yourselves should I fail to make contact/stressing that proccedings are about to be commenced in regard to alleged sums outstanding and alleged owed by me on the above account,I remind you of Civil procedure rules protocols,additionally my understanding is that this alleged debt is now statute barred under the terms of the limitation act.

Nevertheless in my response to your letter please be advised of the following.

 

 

I put forward that you now have a requirement to provide me with;

 

 

1) A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened. Please note that a "true copy" as defined by the Consumer Credit Act will not be acceptable in this case, and a copy of the actual executed agreement, including signature, is required.

 

2) All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to

 

1. A transcript of all transactions, including charges, fees, interest, payments and both the amounts of credit and any repayments made to the account.

2. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations

3. Where there has been any event in the account history over this period that has required manual intervention by any person, disclosure of any indication or notes that have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to the account held by me with........... is required.

4. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you sent to me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.

5. Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).

6. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.

7. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.

8. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998.

9. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.

10. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.

 

I make this request to ensure that each party has equal footings which can allow action to proceed speedily fairly and without undue costs or waste of courts time,as defined within Pre-action Practice Directions -Protocols 4.6 of the Civil Procedures Rules.

I will give you 14 days to respond with the above,failure to comply will result in a complaint being made to the Court./In addition to the FOS for any breaches of OFT and CCA codes.This includes breaches as a result of initiating a Country Court claim where failing to provide or produce documents make litigation improper..

Specifically this relates to one or any number of the following;

 

* demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.

* add any further interest or charges to the account.

* pass/sell the account or outstanding balance to any third party.

* register any information in respect of the account with any of the credit reference agencies.

* issue a default notice related to the account.

 

Furthermore,I reserve my right to make a copy of this letter available for inspection to the Court and Financial/Consumer regulators should you fail to comply with this request.

I await your response,and should you need further clarification on any of the above points,then I suggest that you direct them to your legal department.

 

 

 

Yours Faithfully/Sincerely

 

 

 

 

......................... . (not to be signed) Print name

 

 

Dated..........

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Is this on top of the letter i have just sent (by recorded delivery) which i gratefully copied from this thread?

[42man]

Send the latter one Sent....as they are now stating legal action...

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Okay, so i sent the above letter the other day.

Today, i have received another letter from Apex

 

Thank you for your recent communication concerning the aforementioned account.

I can confirm that i have today requested a copy of your signed agreement and a full statement of your account direct from our client The Home Learning College.

Please be assured that upon receipt of this correspondence i will forward it to you for your perusal. We also require from yourself the statutory £1.00 fee required for such a request. Please forward this by return.

I trust this meets your reqiurements.

 

Now then.

a, the deadline for the CCA request has already expired

b,we already sent a cheque with the request which has not been cashed as of yet.

 

 

Incidentally, the CCA request was sent by recorded delivery on the 31/10

 

Not quite sure what my next response should be, and does the CCA mean squat if they come up with the goods after the deadline?

 

Also, where does this leave the second and third letter status?

 

Naturally, all advice is most gratefully received.

In your debt, and hopefully not in theirs.

[42man]

If the deadline for the 12+2 days has passed then send the letter in post #2 (which you seem to have already done)....nothing else you can do at this stage, if they do send you a county court claim, or a statutory demand then we can deal with it then, they are chancing their arm if they try to start legal action with no CCA then they will struggle to enforce it....keep us posted...

 

The CCA has to have the prescribed terms too....

 

The defaults have to be compliant too....but this is something that can be addressed if it gets to a legal stage...

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Well, it has been a while as you can see from the last post. And just when we thought Apex had gone away, we received the following letter today:

 

Original Client: Home Learning College

Account number:*********

Balance: £990

Please find attached your copy of agreement as requested, we are still awaiting receipt of statement of account.

Once this is received from Home Learning College we will forward this to you.

 

Team manager

Miss K Hodgetts

 

Accompanied with the letter was a phot copy of a fixed loan agreement showing my wifes signature but in the box "i wish to purchase" there is no information, and no signature signed for and on behalf of Aequs.

 

Bear in mind the last letter i sent was toward the end of November 08.

 

Can they still pursue us or is this harrasment? And what should we do next??

 

All advice gratefully received.

[42man]

SOunds like an unexecuted agreement to me can you post/photo it and post it up here minus the personal details ? use www.photobucket.com if need be (free)....also have you sent a SAR to the original creditor....

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Hopefully this has uploaded,

Can Apex still pursue this amount even though i sent the letters requesting 12+2 day response?

 

No i have not sent an SAR (whatever that is) should i have?? And will it affect my chances of getting these people to stop harrassing us???

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Can anyone advise my next move with this demand? Do i need to reply to Apex? And if so, how do i reply?

 

Thanks in advance folks

[Sentinel of Liberty]

I would really appreciate any help in this case.

As you may note from my last messages, i have had nothing from Apex for a few months, but all of a sudden i have received 3 letters in the last month.

 

The first was a statement (deducting the £1 cheque i sent with the initial template letter from the outstanding "debt").

The second was a demand, informing me to contact Apex immediately to resolve the issue.

And now the third, outlining disappointment that i have not been in touch to resolve the debt, and telling me i need to get in touch straight away.

 

At no time have they supplied any information i have asked for in the previous letters.

 

They seem to be using the tack of ignoring the above letters, and the fact that they could not supply any of the information i requested.

 

Should i ignore these letters?

Can they still pursue the so-called debt?

My wife is starting to get seriously anxious about these letters, and i could really do without another set-back in her mental health.

 

Any and all advise would be most gratefully appreciated.

[hackedoff007]

Subbing

[Sentinel of Liberty]

re: subbing

 

Sorry?

[Big_Bother!]

Hi Subbing = to subscribe to a thread! Follow it with interest!

BTW I thought one or two of these so called colleges have gone bust just lately. Could yours be one of them?

BB

[PGH7447]

ignore them, you requested the cca they failed you sent the account in dispute letter, end of.

 

if you feel like it report them for continue to pursue while in default

[palomino]

I've just popped into this thread and I'm mightily confused.

 

Learn Direct organise training - they don't lend money. However they might be a front for a loan company. This isn't clear from the OP's first post.

 

And where does the 'home Learning College' fit in? Is this the organisation that actually does the training? Do they lend money themselves? Or are they the ones fronting for a loan company?

 

The question therefore is who thinks you owe them money? Who has instructed Apex?

 

 

Insofar as Apex are ignoring letters this is all adding to the evidence for yourself if this ever gets to court. I hope all your letters are being sent by recorded delivery.

 

One last point : did you ever advise Learn Direct directly of your wife's medical conditions? You only say you advised Apex.

[Guest Home Learning College]

Hi Sentinel of Liberty

 

Sorry to hear about the confusion concerning your account. If you get in touch with me directly then I will speak to our customer services team to find out what's going on: [email protected]

 

Tor Goldfield

Home Learning College Communications Manager

[Sentinel of Liberty]

Hi,

Palomino,

Initial letters referred to Learn Direct, but i think as you suggest HLC is the tutorial group. All my letters have been by RD, and yes i told Learn Direct of my wife's health and offered to return the software pack unopened, and we would not pursue a refund of our initial payments. I thought that was pretty fair actually. I still have the pack btw, still unopened.

 

Tor,

thanks for the message, but i need proof that you are actually with HLC, please respond to my email.

 

thanks all, will keep you posted.

p.s had yet another letter from Apex, giving us 10 days to contact tem, before starting pre-litigation assessment of our account. Just keeps getting better.......

[Sentinel of Liberty]

So here's the thing.

Now i have received a couple of letters from Apex stating that they are sorely disappointed that i have chosen to ignore their letters, and then i got home today to a Debtors Notice claiming that unless i make payment within 10 days, a legal action may be taken against my wife or the property.

 

So what do we do now if anything?

Do we respond to it? If so, what do we say??

Do we ignore it out-right??

 

Did the letters we sent not put a stop to this harassment in theory?

Any and all advice would be most gratefully received.

[42man]

Did the HLC get in contact with you ? Did you inform them of the change in the circumstances ?

[Sentinel of Liberty]

yes, i communicated with a friendly member of the HLC but even though i sent a copy of the doctors letter (which they did not have on file) they now say that it is beyond their control and is basically down to Apex now.

 

I am sick to the back teeth of these vultures who (IMHO) have a claim on nothing. I am however concerned with the stress it is putting my wife under and i certainly do not want her to suffer a relapse.

 

Does the fact that they failed to send any form of signed document for more than 12 months from request have any leverage?

 

As ever, all and any assistance is most gratefully appreciated.

[42man]

Whilst they have not provided a copy of the CCA then it becomes difficult to enforce once they have provided it then it may well become enforceable.....were you ever sent a default notice at all ? any termination notice ? notice of assignment ?...again a SAR to the company who provided the finance could be a good step....