Jamloo V Abbey

[Jamloo]

So the deadline came and went yesterday, with nothing more from the Abbey. If we are right in our understanding does that now mean we a) send a letter to the Abbey regarding non compliance of the DPA giving them another 7 days to comply, b) send a letter to the IC about the Abbeys non compliance (if this is correct I have searched on the Library for a template letter and address but for the life of me I can not see it there, can someone please point me in the right direction) c) Send a letter to the Abbey (request for payment letter) based on the charges that we do know. Is this the correct procedure? Any advice would be greatly apprieciated as we really want to make sure we do it right.

[alanfromderby]

So the deadline came and went yesterday, with nothing more from the Abbey. If we are right in our understanding does that now mean we a) send a letter to the Abbey regarding non compliance of the DPA giving them another 7 days to comply, b) send a letter to the IC about the Abbeys non compliance (if this is correct I have searched on the Library for a template letter and address but for the life of me I can not see it there, can someone please point me in the right direction) c) Send a letter to the Abbey (request for payment letter) based on the charges that we do know. Is this the correct procedure? Any advice would be greatly apprieciated as we really want to make sure we do it right.

 

 

a) Yes - but be aware that if they don't comply in that seven days you will have no choice but to issue a court action.

b) It is entirely up to you, but remember that they are snowed under with enquiries and complaints, and it is unlikely that it would be actioned quickly. I am waiting until after I have gone through the county court process before making a formal complaint to the IC detailing the full details. I also intend to send a complaint to the Banking Ombudsman.

c) Yes - send an estimated prelim, but make it clear that the reason was because of their non-compliance with your DPA request.

[Jamloo]

Have been in the process of composing the request for repayment letter (especially as since we have stopped using our account for the last two months the Abbey have placed another 700 pounds and 300 pounds in charges !!!!!).

 

Lo and behold, today we receive a letter from Abbey requesting cards / cheque books etc returned and they are going to put a default notice on our account.

 

Let battle commence !!

[Jamloo]

Now we are intrigued...has anyone else received the following letter ? We have sent our Request for Payment Letter to the Abbey which they received on 4th June.

 

Dear Jamloo

We are aware that you have approached a third party to assist you with your current financial difficulties.

If you are paying a fee to the third party, please note that there are free services available to you and a "Dealing with Debt" leaflet is attached which contains the name and numbers of the companies.

Because you are no longer using your cards we have cancelled them. You may have some pending interest and charges due to debit your account in the next month, however following this no more interest and charges will be debited and your debt will not increase any further. We have also cancelled all direct debits and standing orders, so you may need to contact the companies who were expecting money from you to arrange alternative ways to pay.

The company you have chosen to help you will need some information so that they can make an offer of repayment to us. We have highlighted above your account number and a note on your overdrawn balance so that you can pass this information to them.

There is no need to contact us, as we will wait to hear from the third party with an offer of repayment. If we dont hear from them within a month, we'll let you know.

Yours Sincerely

pp Sarah Marshall

Team Manager

Delivery Services, Debt Management Operations

 

At NO time have we asked ANY third party to act on our behalf concerning our debt with the Abbey. We were expecting the standard "Sorry you have cause to complain...blah blah blah" letter.

 

Do we ignore this letter and send LBA letter next week as per our timetable ?

 

Or should we respond in writing to Ms Marshall stating that we have NOT approached a third party and require from them details of who the third party is and ooh by the way... only 5 days left to comply to our Request for Payment ?

[alanfromderby]

I would stick to your timetable - however, I would also write saying that you have not approached a third party, and you require immediate disclosure of where this information has come from.

[Jamloo]

Thanks Alan,

 

Am sitting in the garden now typing the letter up as we speak !!

 

Has this letter been received by anyone else though ??

[Jamloo]

Ok...hows this...

 

Dear Ms Marshall

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxx

 

 

We are in receipt of your letter dated 7th June 2006 in which you state that “We are aware that you have approached a third party to assist you with your current financial difficulties”.

You also state “The company you have chosen to help you will need some information so that they can make an offer of repayment to us”.

As clarification, we have not approached any company to assist with a repayment to you as the current debt we have with you is in dispute as per our letter 30th May 2006 addressed to your office at 2 Triton Square, Regent’s Place, London NW1 3AN.

 

We therefore require immediate disclosure of where you have obtained this information.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

Jamloo

[alanfromderby]

super

[Jamloo]

We are just wondering if we are running under their radar...

 

Cheque was cashed with original DPA and we received some statements but not all and no cover letter.

 

We have had NO other letters from Abbey regarding sorry about your complaint or anything else till this letter....

 

Currently they say debt is £3,827.65 plus pending charges (another £1,000 !!!!!! over last two months)

 

We are claiming currently £4,500 and will definately go after this other £1,000 once we have got this one through.

 

Concerned though about lack of correspondence from Abbey.

[lostinparadise]

Hi Jamloo,

I sent my DPA request on the 10th April and have not received any letters from shAbbey. (Just the standard batch of statements for a year or so with leaflets for each statement...what a waste of paper!!).

Im sticking to my timelines, as far as im concerned all my letters have been sent recorded delivery and have been signed for therefore someone at Abbey has them.

Not our problem me thinks.....

So just keep going and stick to your timelines, they will have to break silence at some point.....hopefully when they pay up:p

LIP

[Jamloo]

Cheers LIP....They have until 16th June to respond to our Request for Repayment letter and then its the LBA...

[Jamloo]

HURRAH !!!!!! We are NOT being ignored !!!

 

We got the usual photocopied "Thank you for contacting us.....sorry that you have been so unhappy....felt you must complain...We will write to you in four weeks blah blah blah" letter from Mark Winder - Head of Complaints dated 12th June.

 

Er...sorry Mr Winder OUR timeline runs out...16th June...LBA being prepared as I type !!!!

 

There is an email address...so feeling a little bit minxy I feel an email reminding them of the fact that their egg timer runs out tomorrow will be sent as well.

[Jane Austen]

Go on Jamloo! Get'em!

[Jamloo]

Have been kind and given them an additional 5 days before composing LBA ( 5 days that they would not give anyone on here !!)... So am now sending below to their Triton Square address by Recorded Delivery.

 

Letter Before Action

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

 

We are very disappointed that you have failed to respond to our letter of 30/05/2006.

We now understand that the regime of 'fees' which you have been applying to our account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations.

 

We would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that we opened our account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

 

We are frankly shocked that you have operated our account in this way as we had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as our fiduciary.

 

We calculate that you have taken £4,597.00. As you will note from your own records, we have not claimed any overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken from our account at this stage. However, dependant upon your response to this letter, we will consider adding this to our claim if required.

We are enclosing a copy of the schedule of the charges which we are claiming.

Additionally, we require confirmation from you within the next 14 days that you have not entered a default notice against our credit record. If you have entered a default notice against our credit record, then we would like to point out to you that this default occurred merely in respect of unlawful charges levied by you or was the result of impecuniosities caused directly by the taking by you of penalty charges which you had applied unlawfully to our account.

 

In addition to full payment of the sum mentioned above we require that if you have entered a default notice against our credit record that you remove the default entry from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable.

 

We require repayment in full of this money and if you have entered a default notice against our credit record removal of the default notice. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then we shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus a claim under ss.7 and 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 plus our costs and without further notice.

 

Furthermore, we shall submit a Consumer Credit Act 1974 complaint to the OFT upon the basis that you have failed to comply with the OFT's direction of 5 April 2006 and are therefore not a 'fit and proper person' to hold a consumer credit licence under the 1974 Act. If you do not understand what this means then seek advice from your legal department.

Yours faithfully,

Jamloo

[Jamloo]

We've been a bit lapse lately and havent progressed this as we should have done according to our timetable. However, reading Seminole's thread (Congratulations !!!!!!) and after receiving the standard "get stuffed" letter from Lesley Budge - Customer Resolution Manager at Milton Keynes, have now decided enough is enough and going to progress this. Ms Budge even has the cheek to state " I note your request for duplicate statements for your account from 2003, I can confirm these have been requested for you, however, these can take up to 4 weeks to be produced. I am sorry if you were not informed of this when you made your request. I hope you have now received these documents."........ Er....No Ms Budge we STILL have not received these documents and by the way, you have added another £1000 in charges.

 

So, going to compile an email and letter to her now....see next post

[Jamloo]

Can one of the Mods comment on email and letter we are planning on sending

 

Abbey National PLC

FAO Lesley Budge

Customer Resolution Manager

Complaints

PO Box 5129

Milton Keynes

MK9 2YN

 

 

Dear Ms Budge,

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

YOUR REFERENCE: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

We are in receipt of your letter dated 5th July.

 

You state that “Abbey is up front and transparent about all its banking charges as set out in the tariff of charges”. Can you advise, if the Abbey is up front and transparent, why we have still only received a partial response to our Data Protection Disclosure Request dated 3rd April 2006. In our letter dated 30th May 2006, we advised you that :

 

• You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges. You have provided us with Account Statements for the period 18th February 2005 to 18th March 2006 only. Our original request dated 3rd April 2006 stated:
   
  “Please supply us with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to our bank account since the opening of our Current Account.”
  
• You have provided no notes, or documents relating to instances of any form of manual intervention.

 

You state that “I note your request for duplicate statements for your account from 2003, I can confirm these have been requested for you, however these can take up to four weeks to be produced. I hope you have now received these documents”.

Can you therefore advise the EXACT date that these were requested as to date – 111 days after we first requested them – we have still only received a partial response as described in Point 1 above.

 

You have therefore failed to comply with our Data Protection Disclosure Request and this fact will be stated when we take this case to Court.

 

You state that “Most banking transactions are automated, but when there are insufficient funds in an account, a specific team must manually process the payment. Processing unauthorised transactions is costly and our charges will reflect the administration involved in handling each transaction. Can you therefore detail for me the exact procedures and processes that Abbey has defined in order to explain at what point the automation flags the fact that there are insufficient funds in an account ; who the specific team are that then manually process the payment and a breakdown of the charges that they would apply for each transaction.

This is information that we requested in our letter dated 30th May 2005 where we requested notes or documents relating to instances of any form of manual intervention.

 

We therefore inform you that having gone through a period of dialogue with you where by we have given every opportunity for you to respond and to repay the unfair charges that you have applied to our account, we will be now be taking this matter to the Courts.

 

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jamloo

[alanfromderby]

There is no reason why you cannot put a claim in for an unspecified amount. All you are asked is to state whether the claim is above or below £5000.

[Jamloo]

Jamloo - For your letter - I read it as you are taking them to court for your charges and Data Protection Act non complaince in the same claim ? If so should you not give an estimated amount and a schedule of the charges you know of (and the estimated portion)? Otherwise I think its fine but wait for a MOD to take a look

 

 

You may be interested in Natweststaff's recent thread which give a link to a description of banking automated systems which states manual intervention only takes place where there is incorrect information causing return rather than lack of funds etc. Wont help with your letter but you might find it interesting

 

Also - did they ever come back to you about the third party letter ??

 

Karnmevil - Mmm... how would I fill that all in on the N1 ie the part about non compliance to Data Protection Act request which we are completing now ready to go to the court ? The charges I am requesting payment for are KNOWN charges on the statements I have

[Michael Browne]

Look here:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/6971-data-protection-act-non.html

[Jamloo]

Karnevil - Looks good....too be honest...in the months we are missing I expect minimal charges... I would be quitew happy for Abbey to hand me cheque for £4.5 K and say thats it....clears our OD and gives us a bit...........

 

The I can hit them with the £1000 charges they have SINCE put on !!!

[Jamloo]

Look here:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/6971-data-protection-act-non.html

 

Cheers Michael...so I am looking at hitting them with TWO seperate court attendances...one for DPA Non compliance and one for original claim

[Jamloo]

well if you are happy to do that - then go for the ones you know of now and leave the Data Protection Act for later..... saves complicating matters.

 

especially if its 4.5k and your remaining charges will take it over....

 

I'd do the standard N1 claim, when Abbey offer to settle make it clear its only full and final settlemtn of this particular claim so you can go back and claim the charges on the statements you dont yet have.

 

CHeers karne...thats the route we were going to follow !!

 

BTW - Email has already been sent to Abbey as per earlier post and letter going out tomorrow after great advice from Alan

[alanfromderby]

In cases which require more information on the Points of Claim than will fit, it is acceptable to type the details on a separate sheet and attach them to the N1. You will need to head that sheet with the case (xxxx v xxx) and "Particulars of Claim", and you will need to add the statement of truth at the bottom.

 

Claims like this should not be attempted through moneyclaim.

[Kai-Boshed]

Have you already sent your letter? it says 2005.. do you mean 06?

 

Sorry not read anymore, just wanted to mention quickly.

 

S x

[Kai-Boshed]

yes