Help wanted Marbles.com

[citizenB]

Phew.. well one lesson you should have learned from this is NEVER to discuss your account on the telephone. Always, always in writing.

 

Questions :

 

Are you paying this via your bank and can you account for all payments you have made from your bank statements. If not, do you have receipts for each payment made.

 

Do you still have your complaint in with the FOS or have they given their decision ?

 

Marbles should at the very least be able to provide statements from the time when they took over the account.

 

It would seem to me that from 2005 until 2008 when you were not receiving statements, the balance increased even though you were keeping to the arrangment made with HFC. It is my understanding that the arrangement should have been honoured by Marbles, yet they say that new terms and conditions were applied.. Can they do this ? I am not sure, I would say not.

 

The missing payment.. was it ever found ?

 

If this were me, I would be writing back saying something along the lines of:

 

Dear Sir/ Madam

 

Account Reference

 

I am responding to your letter dated XX October 2009.

 

I am concerned that since Marbles took ownership of this account an arrangement made between myself and the original creditor has not been honoured.

 

I am also very concerned that since Marbles has taken ownership, the balance has increased substantially due to fees and interest, which I was under the impression had been frozen untill the balance had been repaid.

 

You say that the terms and condtions of the account were changed when you took ownership of the account. Yet these were never provided to me. Was this change allowed for in the original agreement ?

 

You say you are unable to provide statements for the previous 6 years in order for me to see how this increased balance has come about.

 

It is my understanding that you are obliged to keep this information and would almost certainly be required to prove the balance claimed should this go to litigation.

 

I have requested that you refund all penalty charges that have been applied to this account since 2005. Your letter conveniently avoided commenting on this part of my complaint other than to say you are unable to locate statements that would enable to put in a claim.

 

I am of the opinion that there is little point in my continuing to make reduced payments in order to see the balance increase.

 

I look foward to receiving a more favourable response from you within the next 14 days. Should this not be forthcoming, I will be making an official complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

 

Yours etc

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may wish to wait for other comments.

[citizenB]

Erm, this seems to be a bit of a mess, gaza.

 

If I understand correctly, this account was originally with HFC/Beneficial. was it a loan or credit card ?

 

At some point you entered into an arrangement whereby you paid half the contractural payment and they froze interest and charges. You maintained payments by standing order ?

 

It was then taken over by Marbles.

 

When they took it over, they started to reapply the interest and charges and it now looks as though the account has doubled if not more from the amount they took over ?

 

Do you know how this was transferred to Marbles and on what date.

 

Was it by Notice of Assignment, or a just a takeover.

 

Were you informed that this was happening and do you have the balance that was transferred to Marbles.

 

If you can provide the information above, perhaps we can make a little more sense of what is happening.

[citizenB]

gaza, can you make it a bit larger please:)

[citizenB]

From what I can see this is a bit of a muddle.

 

You had an agreement with the original lender for a reduced payment plan with Zero percent interest.

 

You stuck to your side of the bargain, but this account "migrated" to another company and they have not honoured the payment plan.

 

Is that correct ?

 

They have failed to provide you with the statements in order for you to see where payments you have made and they say they havent received, have gone. But they have failed to do this.

 

Therefore, the balance is being questioned by you.

 

Yes ?

 

The letter above is an advanced warning of what their intentions are. Almost certainly to issue a default notice and record non payment with the Credit reference agencies, the latter which they are almost certainly doing anyway

 

All the other threats they are making ie the charging order on your home and attachment of earnings they cannot do unless they take you to court and WIN.

 

Have you received a copy of the agreement, did you actually ask for a copy ?

 

If they havent provided a copy of this and the terms and condiitions from account opening and the terms and conditions that have subsequently been issued then all they can do at the moment, is persist with telephone calls, and threats of what COULD happen.

 

Are you still paying the reduced sum ?

[citizenB]

Ok, I will send out an SOS for you.. see if I cant find someone who can help you draft a letter that will sort this out for you.

 

It may not be today.. ok ?

[citizenB]

Pedross, many thanks for answering my distress call

 

gaza, send the letter Pedross has drafted for you.. and please keep us updated.

 

Pedross, I am having problems "repping" people.. so please accept my I.O.U.

[citizenB]

gaza, did you ever send off for a copy of the agreement as advised by Pedross in post 2 of this thread ?

 

If so, have you had a response ?

[citizenB]

Watch what you are doing with IOU's CB, look what happened to Danniella:eek:

 

I will note it in my book:)

 

Pedross

 

Oooh, tell me more ?

[citizenB]

Not sure what help you want, gaza ?

 

Have you done a subject access request (which does cost you £10.00). They are under no obligation to provide statements free of charge.

 

With the CCA request (£1.00) they are obliged to send a statement of account only.

[citizenB]

Gaza, they say they are confident they can provide a witness statement to say that it was their process to always have a signed agreement in place.

 

Brilliant.. no problem with that. However, how confident are they that the document had the prescribed terms as required by the Consumer Credit Act..

 

If they were that confident then the document would not be lost. That is what you need to be focussing on.. an agreement signed in the prescribed manner by both of you and signatures apended to a document containing the prescribed terms.

 

They can provide whatever they like or say whatever they like for an s78 request.. but for any court action they require the document as above. If they dont have it, then any reproduction will be hearsay and I am sure there are plenty of Marbles agreements floating around the forum from the period you took yours out that would prove that the document wasnt compliant.

[citizenB]

gaza,

 

They say in their letter dated 12 April that you were sent a Default Notice. I do not see a copy of that on your thread.

 

There is a letter dated 3rd March 2010 (post #21) headed "Intended Action", where they advise they will be sending you one. But that itself is NOT a default notice.

 

So if you have received a specific letter headed Default Notice, can you please let us see a copy of it.

 

Reading back over your thread, I see that one of your issues is that you believe you were told you had a Zero % interest until the end of the contract whilst you were on a reduced payment plan.

 

Looking at the letter from HFC in post # 11, yes they do say that. However, if you broke the terms of the "new" contract then they would probably be permitted to return to their normal contract terms.

 

I would say one thing however, if it is their intention to rely on the letter dated 3rd of March as a genuine Default Notice. They are stuffed