Studio late payment charges

[Alien8n]

Sent them the initial letter regarding the late charges on my wife's account. Despite the initial bill being paid in full they still keep adding late charge fees to the late charge fees

 

Anyway, got a letter back today "blah blah, thank you for your letter, blah" and, this I can't believe the cheek of...

 

"Please find enclosed a specimen CCA. Please sign and return to us"

 

So they have no signed CCA (which I knew they didn't have) so they want us to sign and return a CCA? How stupid do they expect me to be?

 

Will type up the second letter tonight.....

[emmaf01]

Sounds par for the course for Studio cards.

[Alien8n]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear earlier, it's not Studio Cards, it's just Studio (Express Gifts). Since I'm not prepared to assist them in committing fraud I'll be sending them another letter soon, I'll type up my response and post it here

[Alien8n]

Sending them this

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Thank you for your letter of 26/03/09, 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 21/03/09 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 will enter default on 07/04/09.

Requesting that myself should sign a copy and send it to you suggests that you do not actually have a signed copy and as such have no legal right to apply surcharges to my account. As such I declare that the account is therefore clear of all debts as the original outstanding bill of £29.00 was cleared last year.

 

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.

 

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.

 

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

 

I look forward to hearing from you in writing.

 

Yours faithfully

[emmaf01]

Sorry, I thought that Studio just change their name frequently!

 

You seem to know what you are doing with that letter.

 

Are you trying to get them to go away or trying to get the charges removed from the account? If you just want them to stop bothering you the CCA letter is the way to go.

 

If you want the charges removed, I would think either a SAR to get the full list of charges to reclaim or reclaiming them with the prelim letter if you have the list would be more effective.

[Alien8n]

Personally I want them to just go away and admit they're not getting a single penny of their "admin" fee from us. Next letter going out after this one will be sent to the same office, cc'd to OFT, TSO, Watchdog and the parent group's chairman and CEO. A family member used to be a bank manager (he took early retirement as he refused to start applying charges to bank accounts, old school bank manager) and he's always maintained that if you have a complaint take it straight to the top, the last thing the chairman wants is complaints arriving on his desk so it's much more likely to get sorted out (mainly by him giving the department responsible a verbal kicking for allowing it to land on his desk in the first place)

[Alien8n]

Ok, the gist of their reply is now we owe £91.

 

Their claim is that they don't have to give us a copy, just infewr that they have one and the OFT and TSO accept that as good enough. They also claim that even if they don't have a signed copy the debt is still legal and will be chased.

 

Time to take it up a notch I think.

[emmaf01]

Well at least we know they are talking rubbish! Definitely time to let them know they are in correspondence with someone who knows the rules, not some muppet.

 

Time to take it up a notch indeed.

[Alien8n]

I notice Jellybabe is at the same stage I am with Studio as well, so when I get the letter written up I'll post it so she can use it as well

[Alien8n]

Here's my reply, let me know what you think, just need to write the cover letters for the OFT and TSO:

Ref: ########

 

Dear Madam

 

Thank you for your letter of #date#, the contents of which have been noted.

 

You have still 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#.

 

Furthermore on #date# I formally disputed the charges you have levied on my account and you have still not satisfactorily resolved my dispute. A copy of which has been included for your ease of reference. While this account is in dispute and due to the fact that you do not have a signed credit agreement from myself 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.

 

As a result of your previous letter you have therefore acted unlawfully by:

* Demanding payment on the account.

* Adding further charges to the account.

* Taking payment against my account the statutory £1 fee for producing a true copy of a signed credit agreement. As a true copy of a signed credit agreement has not been produced I remind you of your legal obligation to return the £1 fee forthwith.

 

Furthermore your threats and intimidation of legal action and passing information to credit reference agencies is unlawful and can be considered vexatious and harassment.

 

Please be aware that this matter has now been passed onto the Office of Fair Trading and the Trading Standards Office.

 

 

Yours faithfully

[Alien8n]

hmmm, may have to reword it as technically the account doesn't fall into default till next week (when I'll send the letter)

 

However I've found the OFT letter template so I'll package the whole lot up once I've reworded it.