Help - RBS Mint want a fight!

[exchange]

Arrears letter received dated 6 August but nothing since, very quiet.

[exchange]

Anyone heard from RBS lately? I sent them a letter on the 13 August as my SAR was incomplete and have heard nothing since.

[exchange]

Still no reply since 13 August!

[exchange]

Seems RBS Mint are concentrating their efforts on others at the moment. Anyone know at what point they regard a debt as being uncollectable and they back off?

Is there any indication when they get to this stage in the records sent in an SAR?

[exchange]

Arrears letter turned up today. No other communication for ages now.

[exchange]

Very quiet, no letters or calls.

[exchange]

Letter received today from AIC entitled 'Out of court settlement'. Scarey huh!

They say it has been assigned to them.

The way this all works really bugs me. The correct procedure should be RBS notify me they have assigned the debt first, otherwise how do I know AIC have not obtained the details illegally and are asking me for the money to be paid to them without anything to back it up.

They say my account is frozen with no interest, solicitors fees or court costs being added.

They want the full balance paid 'within 10 days of postmark' of the letter. Tricky, as the envelope does not have a postmark, just a prepaid Royal mail sticker and the usual orange markings. The letter itself is dated 9/11/2009 so 10 days is today, so that's helpful!

Anyone suggest a suitable response? Keep it clean!

Thanks in advance.

Exchange

[42man]

Did they respond to your SAR ? If not did you send a Letter Before Action ?

[exchange]

Hi 42man, thanks for the lightning response!

Yes, they did send the SAR.

How do you suggest I respond to AIC?

[42man]

Have you notified them of your dispute ?

[exchange]

No, this is the first letter or contact I have had from AIC.

[exchange]

Sorry, I should add that the SAR was incomplete and having written to them on the 13 August asking for missing statements I have heard nothing from RBS since apart from an arrears letter and today's letter from AIC.

[exchange]

I know of the 'bemused letter' to send to DCA's but any other suggestions welcomed.

[Hestia]

Hi exchange, subbing to your thread as looks bang on to our situation good luck

[exchange]

Thanks Hestia, decided to send letter 17 in the templates library when an account in dispute is passed to a DCA, with a few additions of course!

You should be aware that I am in the EU but not the UK which may (or may not) affect the way this goes.

[exchange]

Hi Hestia, just looked at your thread. As you are not in the UK either I will follow your progress as well.

[exchange]

Been reading threads. Should I have received a 'Deed of Assignment' followed by a 'Notice of Assignment'? Are these supposed to be in a prescribed form?

Account was terminated back at the beginning of June after receiving a default notice which said 17 days from date of notice without specifying a date, so potentially defective and therefore rescission of contract. Given the situation can they even pass it on to a DCA, I know they can(!) but legally?

[exchange]

Any views on the last post?

[Hestia]

Hi exchange

 

we did find some rules regarding posting outide the UK but in the EU which may be of some interest to you although my big credit problem is from Amex who have issued me an SD which I didn't receive until it was over the limit to challenge so bits of this may be relevant to you and some bits not. I've only just begun learning all this so sorry if a bit vague but this is what I found.

 

1. On the Insolvency Service website there is a PDF download on Stautory Demands and section 5 talks about serving an SD abroad. It increases the time limit from 18 and 21 days to 22 and 28 days. It also went on to say that there were limitations on what could be done depending on which European country you are, it didn't provide any deeper detail than that but it got me thinking.

 

I then found some stuff from the Ministry of Justice under the heading PRACTICE DIRECTION – INSOLVENCY PROCEEDINGS again because I have an SD but I think the principle must be applicable to you too and it says under serving an SD abroad

 

When a statutory demand is to be served out of the jurisdiction, the time limits of 21 days and 18 days respectively referred to in the demand must be amended. For this purpose reference should be made to the table set out in the practice direction supplementing Section III of CPR Part 6.

 

10.6

 

A creditor should amend the statutory demand as follows:

(1) For any reference to 18 days there must be substituted the appropriate number of days set out in the table plus 4 days, and

 

(2) for any reference to 21 days there must be substituted the appropriate number of days in the table plus 7 days.

 

Attention is drawn to the fact that in all forms of the statutory demand the figure 18 and the figure 21 occur in more than one place.

 

 

So I then hunted for the table it mentioned and found a load of information regarding countries where they agree to process servers and ones where they don't etc and a table of days for correspondence to be replied to.

 

 

 

PRACTICE DIRECTION – SERVICE OUT OF THE JURISDICTION - Ministry of Justice

 

To be honest I got a bit boggled in the end but I'd bet that the bustard DCA's don't pay any attention to these postage rules - I haven't found anything on them anywhere else in the forum yet and certainly mine haven't.

 

Good luck and will follow with interest how you get on if I find anything else which may be useful I'll ping it your way but please bear in mind I am very much a novice on this unlike some of the members who have been giving brilliant support.

 

Cheers

 

Hestia

[exchange]

Hi Hestia

 

Thanks for taking the time to post this info. Really appreciate it.

 

Having looked through it and the annex I'm still not sure if it covers a 'Default Notice' although the requirement to allow 21 days in most cases for legal documents does help make an argument for not enough time being given when outside the UK by any (but one) of the companies I am battling.

 

You are the first person to point out any rules regarding this so thanks again and best of luck to you too.

Edited November 19, 2009 by exchange
typo

[Docman]

Hi Exchange,

 

I'm not sure about the rules on service outside of the UK but I think you can download them from the Ministry of Justice website at Civil Procedure Rules Homepage - Ministry of Justice

 

If the debt has been assigned to another party by a Deed of Assignment, you should receive notice of the assignment. But that notice does not have to be in a particular format. The case law is that you should be made aware of the assignment with 'reasonable certainty'. The relevant case is Van Lynn Developments Ltd v Pelias Construction Co Ltd [1968] 3 All ER 824.

The Deed is the contract between RBS and the debt collector (AIC). The Van Lynn case also provides that you may ask for a copy of the Deed of Assignment to check that the details of the assignment are correct in the notice to you. If the details such as the date have been incorrectly stated (not just omitted) the Notice is invalid. The relevant case is W F Harrison & Co Ltd v Burke and another [1956] 2 All ER 169.

 

However, I am not sure RBS will have assigned the deb to AIC. I have had a similar run in with RBS Mint. AIC were the second (and rudest) DCA appointed of five who have written to me so far on behalf of RBS since March 2006. But since I asked for a copy CCA of the first DCA which RBS have not supplied, I have just written back to each one to tell them that fact and they have stopped any further action. AIC may only have been asked to collect the debt and if my experience is anything to go by, you have a long way to go yet.

[exchange]

Hi Docman

 

Thanks for the link and info and for the warning. Sounds like a good idea to ask for a copy of the Deed of Assignment.

Seems logical to me that the assignment should be notified to me by RBS in the first place. Why should I pay any money to a company who contacts me out of the blue claiming to have the right to demand payment on behalf of someone else? I know it can happen like this, it annoys me that it is allowed.

The letter from AIC clearly states that the 'outstanding balance has been assigned' to AIC.

Perhaps as I am outside the UK RBS think I am more trouble than it is worth for them, so they have sold the debt on for something (small amount I hope) and claimed the tax relief I believe they get on bad debts.

Perhaps they think having 'International' in the name will worry me. Having checked the Companies House register, Google and the OFT, AIC are owned by a Canadian company but have no connection to where I am. They have a full CCL in date.

Think I will be writing to them and RBS.

Thanks again.

Exchange

[exchange]

Letters sent today to RBS and AIC. Have to wait and see what comes next.

[benson1234]

after dealing with rbs previously i would adv that you should contact the cccs. these are a free company which can help with getting your finances back in line. rbs insolvency team who deal with the debt collectors for example aic. if correspondance is sent to aic they do not forward this onto rbs nor do they adv them of receiving this. if you do decide to go to the cccs, they are alot better than payplan as they pay all of their accounts on the same day each month so for example they pay on the 25th.

 

with regards to a section 78 request which is your agreement, even if they are unable to provide this, this will only mean that they cannot take court action against you however they can continue chasing you. the team at rbs that deal with s78 requests do not have a contact number so you should just send this direct to the team below.

 

i found the insolvency and client support team at rbs group extreamly helpful you can contact them on 0845 300 5109 this is a direct line for the team that deals with the debt collectors. although they would be unable to stop the debt collectors they can give you advise on what the next stages should be for example with my case they advised me to send in a financial statement to aic as they cannot ignore this. also send a copy to the rbs team direct so that in future if for any reason aic continue they will have this which they can forward on.

 

hope this helps benson1234

[exchange]

Interesting post, benson1234.

 

I have written to both RBS and AIC and have sent copies of everything to RBS so they will know what AIC are up to.