Very strange behaviour from MBNA

[Coactum]

May I firstly request you familiarise yourself with the general background to my case at http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-debt-issues/203269-introduction-background-my-debts.html

 

In my numerous letters to MBNA I have insisted that all matters be conducted in writing and lately I thought that this message had finally got through to them as phone calls have been few and far between. However, I’ve just had a phone call from MBNA. They failed to go through the usual “for security can I please ask” etc., I guess because they know that I respond “hang on you are the ones phoning me and you want me to verify my identity!” anyway she raced on with what she had to say despite my protesting that I had no desire to discuss anything with her on the phone and that it was best to conduct all communications in writing for the benefit of all. “We have no time to do that” was her reply. “Do you have my letter of 4th June?” I looked at my fine and confirmed that I did. This is a letter offering a short settlement as 30% of the alleged balance. I responded that I was not accepting the offer I advised that I had already written to that effect. She wanted to carry on the conversation further but I cut her short, said goodbye and hung up.

 

In the letter I had written the following. Some parts were taken from suggestions made by others within this forum and other parts are my own:

 

I refer to your magnanimous offer to deduct 70% from my alleged debt on account 111111111111 but am surprised to note that you make no reference to my earlier letters or attempt to address my previous questions and requests.

 

It is frustrating that despite my numerous requests to conduct all communications in writing that all you ever send are standardised letters which ignore anything I have written and most merely reiterate your request that I phone you to help resolve this matter. No amount of text messages, phone messages or recorded announcements will encourage me to phone you, so, please do as I ask and respond in writing in a manner that accurately reflects the circumstances, addresses my questions and responds to my requests. That way we are more likely to resolve the current dispute.

 

I would have thought that someone in your position would be fully conversant with the provisions of the 1974 Consumer Credit Act and of the 2006 Act. If not, you should study sections 78 (1) and 78 (6) and whilst doing so you should also refer to the explanatory notes issued by the Office of Fair Trading in July 2008 titled Consumer Credit Act 1974 Post-contract information requirements which is available on-line at:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft1002.pdf

 

Please refer to section 8.5 within this OFT document which reads:

Section 78(1) of the 1974 Act provides similar duties in respect of running-account credit agreements. The debtor can request a copy of the executed agreement (and any document referred to in it) together with a statement showing:

• the state of the account

• the amount, if any, currently payable under the agreement

• the amounts and dates of any payments that will become payable if there are no further drawings on the account (or if not ascertainable, the basis on which this will be determined).

 

Furthermore, the Data Protection Act 1998 allows me to request all data held about me including, but not necessarily limited to, text or graphic data, emails, audio recordings or transcriptions of the same, true copies of any original executed agreements and copies of terms and conditions on which you have relied or may wish to rely in dealing with me as a customer and so linked to me, any personal data arising as a result of or used in the processing of decisions relating to me made by means of automatic processing, any list of third parties to whom you may have disclosed my personal data and information on data so disclosed.

I understand that a £10 fee is usually charged to compile this data which I attach to this letter together with a formal request to your data controller. You should also be aware that there are no reasonable grounds for you refusing to divulge such data if this is indeed held by you.

 

You have claimed during a recent telephone call to be in possession of all you need to demonstrate you legitimate right of claim and this was partly reiterated by your colleague, Jodie Penman, during a recent exchange of email between Jodie Penman and me. Ms Penman drew attention to the requirement of a £1 payment to facilitate this request and I explained that this had been done on 2nd April. She never replied. Furthermore, if I had somehow been remiss in attaching the said payment then as my final paragraph began “Please advise me if you need anything further to facilitate this request” you should have responded stating that my payment had somehow been overlooked. I know you have the letter because you have referred to it in other communications and I therefore assume that you also have the £1 note which I enclosed.

 

Returning to the aforementioned OFT document I refer you to Section 9.4 which reads:

 

Where a creditor fails – on request and upon payment of the appropriate fee by the debtor - to provide the information required by sections 77-79 and 97 of the 1974 Act, the creditor is not entitled to enforce the agreement whilst the default continues. If the creditor fails to provide information relating to any security, pursuant to sections 107-110, he is not entitled to enforce the security instrument.

 

I have reminded MBNA of this obligation in prior letters.

 

Upon establishing a running-credit agreement a card issuer is required to provide copies of the proposed agreement to the customer. In the normal course of events an application is made and when approved and signed on behalf of the lender, a copy of the agreement in a prescribed format is issued to the borrower, thus becoming the executed agreement referred to in the aforementioned Act. Subsequent regulations permit the lender to return to the customer a true copy of the agreement which need not contain the signatures of the two parties, but, a true copy showing signatures will ordinarily be required to enforce the agreement following a legal dispute between the parties and as it would seem that we are heading in that direction it would be prudent for you to supply this to me as this may well avoid unnecessary and expensive litigation.

 

You write in your letter that you require £63 as a minimum payment to be made by 29th June and that my account is due to register as a default on that day if this is not done. However, in terms of the 1974 Act and the reference to enforcement both therein and in the aforementioned OFT post-contractual guidance, that due to your breach, you cannot currently enforce the terms of the agreement, including demanding payment and registering defaults.

 

I look forward to receiving a written response to this letter and detailed answers to questions and requests raised in my letters of 2nd April, 21st April and 14th May.

[Coactum]

The data request letter was also taken from another thread but i regret i cannot find it to point you in the right directionn. This is what it said:

Dear Compliance Manager,

 

Please send me all the information to which I’m entitled under the Data Protection Act 1998. By ‘all’ I mean any data which you hold whether in electronic or appropriately manually stored form which is understood to be ‘personal data’ according to the Act and including, but not necessarily limited to data from microfiche, in an archive, on tape, in a cardex system, in sound recordings or in screen notes, all text or graphic data, emails, audio recordings or transcriptions of the same, true copies of any original executed agreements and copies of terms and conditions on which you have relied or may wish to rely in dealing with me as a customer and so linked to me, any personal data arising as a result of or used in the processing of decisions relating to me made by means of automatic processing, any list of third parties to whom you may have disclosed my personal data and information on data so disclosed.

 

If your systems are so constructed as to allow customer personal data to act as a retrieval index for audio data relating to such individual customers I should like you to send all such audio data held whether or not it is referenced on the list enclosed for your convenience.

 

May I remind you that although you may make routine amendments relating to the ordinary operation of accounts held with you in my name for the ordinary purposes of managing those accounts you may not make any substantive changes to the personal data you hold on me and before you supply that data to me, following your receipt of this subject access request.

 

I enclose a cheque for £10.00 (being the maximum fees permissible) in favour of MBNA Europe Bank Limited and drawn on an account in my name with Bank of Scotland. I trust that you are confident as to my identity and the validity of this request given that the data requested is to be sent to the address you hold in your records for me, that you have been communicating with me at that same address for several years and that I have sent MBNA numerous letters signed as this letter is signed.

 

You will know, I’m sure, that you have 40 calendar days following receipt of my request to meet it and I therefore look forward to receiving the data requested on or before Monday 20 July.

[Coactum]

Has anyone else travelled this path recently? It would be helpful to know what they might do next so that I'm fully prepared.

[Coactum]

I should add that I have two cards with MBNA. One was originally another company which transferred business to them and the first has always been with MBNA. Collectively the cards have an outstanding balance £18.8k and they just keep piling on interest and late payment fees so it is not going to get any lower, unles of course I accept their offer! If I had the money I'd be very tempted.

[exchange]

Hi Coactum, I am now subbed to your thread.

[mauricetura]

I have just recieved a rather weak defence from MBNA - I wish to crack on with witness statements from as many consumers as possible re

A) to witness their harassing phone and text message tactics.

B) to witness if they have defaulted or sent adverse credit information during a period of dispute

C) to witness any misleading statements or advice given by their operatives in respect to their obligations to comply with any guidance or regulations

[miss muppet]

Have a look at Pompeyfaith's thread on MBNA's underhand tatics.

[Coactum]

I have just recieved a rather weak defence from MBNA - I wish to crack on with witness statements from as many consumers as possible re

A) to witness their harassing phone and text message tactics.

B) to witness if they have defaulted or sent adverse credit information during a period of dispute

C) to witness any misleading statements or advice given by their operatives in respect to their obligations to comply with any guidance or regulations

 

Hi mauricetura, this may assist. I have just received another email from them. It reads:

 

We have previously communicated with you and advised you of the implications of not resolving the issue on your account. You now have a limited amount of time to contact us to agree a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Failure to do so will result in a Default being registered on your credit file, and one of the many recovery actions that we have referred to.

 

Contact us immediately on 01244 576586, we will be available Monday to Thursday 8am to 9pm, Friday 8am to 5pm and Saturday 8am to 12pm.

[squidward]

Hi

 

Just Subbing to you thread

 

Cheers

 

Squidward

[angel_1]

hello all pls take a look at the below thread very interesting!

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/mbna/204839-band-together-against-them.html

 

have a sunny day laters angel x:-)

[Coactum]

I have just rec'd yet another call from MBNA, again no attempt to verify my identity, but lets put that asside for a moment, she launched into her script stating that she had not rec'd my latter that I previously told her had been sent. I have now emailed a copy to one of her colleagues. What however is interesting is that the last letter had a cheque for £10 attached and a request for all data held. Strange this should go missing!

[Fred Bassett]

I have just rec'd yet another call from MBNA, again no attempt to verify my identity, but lets put that asside for a moment, she launched into her script stating that she had not rec'd my latter that I previously told her had been sent. I have now emailed a copy to one of her colleagues. What however is interesting is that the last letter had a cheque for £10 attached and a request for all data held. Strange this should go missing!

 

They tried this tactic with me but I just told them to bugger off. They're up to something and whatever it is you can guarantee it will not be good for you or me, so just be wary. The golden rule, as ever, is NEVER talk to them on the telephone.

 

Regards.

 

Fred

[Coactum]

Today’s mail arrived and in came two letters from MBNA:

 

The first a statement onto which a £12 default charge, a £12 late payment fee and £169.06 interest have all been added. This has now taken the balance over my credit limit and results in a demand for £1273.51 to bring the account up to date.

 

The second letter with the same date shown on it gives a final chance to settle “before it’s too late!” and lists my two cards showing a balance that differs from the statement being neither last month balance or this latest balance but offering a discount if I settle. This reduction equates to a 60% discount across the two cards and although this would appear most generous I’m hardly likely to accept when I declined last month’s 70% discount (see beginning of this thread).

 

What are these people up to?

[PGH7447]

the statement will be automated, and the second is from a workerdrone who does not know that other letters are being sent out - just goes to show how these firms operate

[underdog13]

Standard behaviour from MBNA, Coactum.

 

They add all the charges they can to bump up the balance and claim greater tax relief when it's charged off.

 

The offer of reduced settlement is, IMO, a fishing exercise to find out if you have available funds (ie a won't pay, not a can't pay- as if!). If you do settle they take whatever portion you pay and sell the remainder onto a DCA! Don't fall for it;)

[Jim Pike]

Hi all,

underdog13, you say that in your post that it is just your opinion that it is trickery to make offers, then sell the remaining debt to the DCA. Has anyone had any experience of this happening, (paid a reduced amount then been chased by the DCA for the rest) I am interested as I am in a similar position at present. check my thread.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/alliance-leicester/204631-help-l-25-offer.html

 

Regards

Jim

[Coactum]

the statement will be automated, and the second is from a workerdrone who does not know that other letters are being sent out - just goes to show how these firms operate

 

I agree about the statement. However, surely they have a system that provides them all history etc so that they know who discussed what in the past so that when they make their annoying phone calls they have something to refer to. Furthermore, if any offer has been made then again I'd have thought this must be listed within the system so that they know when to expect a response etc.

 

This is why I say they are strange. Statements do not tie up with demands, discount offers vary significantly, and callers chasing a response seem oblivious to any reply I have made. What way is that to run a business?

[PGH7447]

I agree about the statement. However, surely they have a system that provides them all history etc so that they know who discussed what in the past so that when they make their annoying phone calls they have something to refer to. Furthermore, if any offer has been made then again I'd have thought this must be listed within the system so that they know when to expect a response etc. you would have thought so but we are talking DCA employees here, and I would hazard a guess they aint the sharpest tools in the box

 

This is why I say they are strange. Statements do not tie up with demands, discount offers vary significantly, and callers chasing a response seem oblivious to any reply I have made. What way is that to run a business?

 

pgh7447

[underdog13]

Hi all,

underdog13, you say that in your post that it is just your opinion that it is trickery to make offers, then sell the remaining debt to the DCA. Has anyone had any experience of this happening, (paid a reduced amount then been chased by the DCA for the rest) I am interested as I am in a similar position at present. check my thread.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/alliance-leicester/204631-help-l-25-offer.html

 

Regards

Jim[/quote

 

Some caggers have experienced this (can't remember their names) - have a read around the forums

[Coactum]

I had a phone call yesterday, I was on another call at the time and so simply said it was an inconvenient time. They called back again today and immediately went into spiel stating that they knew my preference for letters but that there simply was not enough time to write as they were about to go to default. I told him that he best double check because they may not have a legal right to do that and offered to send him copies of past letters that he denied having. He said he needed to send some email for approval first but I guess that meant he had to actually start writing because nothing arrived. Has no one taught them how to read and write?

[Coactum]

Today I got theemail. This time offering my a 65% discount, but more importantly it stated "the remainder of the balance will not be pursued by mbna nor any other company" however, I merely replied attaching my previous letters and asked them to address the questions raised therein.

[TheScaryOne]

Hi all,

 

Just thought i'd add to this with my recent experience with MBNA as I also got a text message about reducing our balance by 65% yesterday, so i replied to an email i'd got a couple of weeks ago asking for more details. This is the response i got;

 

Thank you for your email;

We appreciate that you have been experiencing some difficulties and as such we offer some customers in your position a substantial reduction on the outstanding debt in order to get the matter resolved once and for all.

If you are able to make a payment of £x,xxx against the full debt of xx,xxx then we will look to write off the remainder.

This will subsequently be reflected on your credit file. You will never be pursued for the remaining £xx,xxx by MBNA or any other company.

A condition of the agreement is that payment needs to be made within a 60 day period with a payment received every calendar month during this period. An example of how we can structure the payments is below:

June:£xxx.xx - payment required by 29/06

July: £xxx.xx - payment required by 30/07

August: £xxxx.xx payment required by 29/08

As you can see this offer actually equates to a 65% reduction on the current outstanding balance.

Unfortunately if we don't receive the minimum payment of £xxx.xx before the end of June the account will default and sale and recovery action will commence.

We look forward to your response.

Kind regards,

 

To which i responded something along the lines of 4 days notice isn't enough and the last response i got last night was;

 

I appreciate that the deadline is tight however we have been trying to contact you with this offer for some time.

Unfortunately we are now governed by time. Without the requisite payments being registered within the set timeframe the account will be defaulted.

As you can appreciate once this happens the offer to short settle will be rescinded and the full debt will subsequently be sold.

If there was anything that could be done to extend the deadline then rest assured it would however unfortunately this is not an option.

Regards,

 

So from this thread and others MBNA are trying this on with lots of people (and i thought i was special) and they're not really following set procedure. I might try and get them to confirm this'll be a full and final settlement and see what response i get.

[griffin036]

Yeah! Had the same response as Coactum and Thescaryone, firstly an offer of 60% discount and then 65% discount. Thing is they havent complied with s78 request in any case, so I would only accept a 100% discount! LOL.

It makes me laugh when they leave answer phone messages " Please do us the courtesy of responding" WHAT! when they cannot be bothered to address any of the issues raised in several letters of complaint re the failiure to supply CCA's.

[Coactum]

I have had a further exchange of email today. The bottom line is that they claim never to have received my £1 and stupidly I enclosed a Scottish £1 note, however, every other credit card provider that I wrote to the same day acknowledged my payment in one way or another and I know they got the letter because they have referred to other paragraphs within it in other communications. However, they have totally blanked my Data request and have so far failed to cash my £10 cheque, so, I conclude that their policy is to ignore all requests and just pretend they never happened. Before anyone adds “you should have sent recorded delivery” well Rec Del only proves they got a letter it does not prove what the contents were and I already have other proof that they got my letters.

[Coactum]

Received a letter today telling me that I had to send £1 to obtain my CCA. As you will note earlier in this thread I sent a Scottish £1 with each request I made back on 2nd April and to date MBNA have ignored the request. More recently the £10 cheque I sent with my data request has never been presented. I suspect therefore that this is yet another stalling action on the part of MBNA who will undoubtedly claim not to receive whatever I send them, so, I feel that as I have made my point in earlier emails that I’ll simply ignore this request unless others on this forum can advise to the contrary.