@natwest_help NatWest Iressponsible lending - HELP PLEASE new develpements

[ieuanMr]

Recieved a cheque from Ford XXXXXXXXX 's solicitors today for full and final settlement. They have insisted that I cannot make any further claims, complaints or critisisms agaisnt them...is this normal? It has taken 4 months to resolve and their costs must be in the region of £3000. I notice that when I started my action they were not registerd as a licenced Data Controller, but recently they have registered. Their solicitor said I was a very unusual fellow and that I had generated a huge paper trail for his client. Hmmm sounds like a back handed compliment to me. I still feel short changed because if it had gone to court I feel we could have won much more. Santander have been reasnonable and only want £5200 to settle the debt so we have paid only £216 more than if we had paid in cash in August 2009.

 

Santander have been sending DCAs to phone us in the evenings and to me that is wrong, it smacks of harrassment as they know we have been in negotiations with them for several months. For that reason alone I feel we should complain to the information Comissioner and the Ombudsman for this harrassment, they also refused to deal with me which is in breach of the OFT guidance on debt collection. We saved £1600 on cancelling the HP agreement and claimed back £650 and it probably cost me £10 in paper, ink and stamps and some mental anguish, thinking is such a painful activity for me. So good result. We can now concentrate our activities on NatWest...the big one.

 

I noticed yesterday that the OFT have issued a new guidance on sections 77/78/79 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. It has it's bad points for us as consumers and some good. It at least clears up some anomolies but in my opinon contradicts itself from earlier OFT decisions but I suppose the courts have the last word. But it strikes me that the OFt is ina precarious position in all its pronouncements because anything it issues can be overuled by a county court...or it seems that way.

 

 

• Page 30 of the new guidlines says: if the bank does not provide the documents/agreement within 12 working day then the agreement cannot be enforced.
  
• This means the bank cannot demand an earlier payment that the contract says
  
• cannot threaten court action
  
• take possession of anything that you bought on credit
  

The bad points are the lender can:

 

• request payment
  
• issue a default notice
  
• pass details to a CRA
  
• pass on informatin to a debt collector
  

One important point, in discussing their claim with you, the consumer, they must state that the debt is unenforcable in the courts, if they don't do that then they are in breach of the OFT code of conduct and you have a complaint against them.

Look up OFT via google to get onto the site and see OFT1175con

 

It is well worth a visit.

Edited January 29, 2010 by ieuanMr

[ieuanMr]

We received an offer as a goodwill gesture from the Bank today. They offered to refund £2464.02 already paid by my son and to cancel any outstanding balances. He took out a £17K loan in 2006 for a term of 120 months at a repayment of £50.80/month this included the PPI loan of £4320 + interest of £1776 making a total of £6096, an amount he didn't really need on top of all his other borrowings.

 

It is the worst case of abuse of all our claims other than the irresponsible claim yet to be drafted by myself. But it is a useful offer for us as it puts immediate cash into his account, it saves him from further calims for the £18/month still claimed by the bank after we cancelled the loan (PPI element) 3 months ago and limits his outgoings by £18 per month.

 

The bank does not mention interest owed to us because (I assume) they do not admit liability and they do not mention my costs of £300 neither do they mention restitutionary damages. Any thoughts on this from anyone?

 

Since the bank has lost the agreement but in view of the recent guidance by the OFT January 2010, it could turn up any moment as a reconstituted agreement without a signature and that would be acceptable under the recent guidnace of the OFT as meeting the requirment of the 1974 Consumer Protection Act. Should I accept the offer or try to negotiate interst and costs and restiturionary damages and if they fail to cough up then take it to the Ombudsman. We can't afford to take them on in court.

 

Or should I accept the offer and claim the interst via the court later? But solicitors are getting smarter these days and limit proceedings after the event by limiting any claims, critisisms and complaints.

[ieuanMr]

I have not counted the total letters to NatWest yet but they must be in the region of 60+, with recorded deiveries I suppose that is just under £35.00, I have used one ream of paper - £6.00 and two cartridges of ink - £12.00 that all comes to a total around £50.00.

 

I have put in around 80 hours of work so I suppose I could claim costs of 80 x £25.00 if ever they agree to costs adds up to £2000.00.

 

I am allowed £9.00 per letter do that 60 x £9.00 = £540.

 

My total claim for costs would be £2540.00, it soon adds up doesn't it.

 

The Bank has failed to produce certain documents within the time allowed by the 1974 Act, they have also failed to provide the full copy of the agreements, sometime just providing very poor partial copies and scraps. The bank has been extremely obstructing with my PPI claims and with my credit card claim, these are the two worse departments of all. The PPI deparment in manchester has sent back three sets of docments for trivial reasons. Some departments have ingnored my repeated and reasonable requests for information. Some time they quote OFT references to back up their action yet refuse to specify what section they are referring to. It is almost as if they thinkthat they are byond due process of law, so much so I feel even the much hated (going by remarks on this forum) Ombudsman will not be able to ignore their arrogance.

 

Tommorrow I intend to widen the scope of my complaints to the Ombudsman with three more specific complaints on top of the three seprate claims already made. I will be using:

 

 

OFT854

OFT1107com

and the latest OFT of January 2010 regarding Guidance Enforcement

 

The benefit of using these is that they do not commit one to the main complaint and does not cost any money other than a stamp, ink and satationery. If I lose it is a small matter as my main complaints are yet to come. It puts pressure on the bank to smarten up their act and costs them even more money. I have been extremely careful in all my corrsepondence to be polite and businesslike and my complaints are framed in current OFT codes of pracice so cannot be called spurious. If I win it is even more money into the 'fight fund' and also builds my case for Unreasonableness on the part of the bank. From the way the bank has handled my complaints since ther past 6 months (how time flies) I could make a dozen sperate and valid complaints. If it is true that they are chargesd for every single complaint to the Ombudsman that would be £6000 in fees. I can't think of anything more powerful to make them deal with me quickly and mutually beneficial.

 

My strategy seems to be one of eternally writing letters of complaint and quoting current law and codes of practice and yet seems just to be picking at the edges. I must admit this is partly of fear, in not wnating to commit to the largest complaint - that of irresponsible lending - but partly to get a feel for how the bank responds at different levels.

 

A month ago I felt as if I was on my knees especially as the PPI team responded a 3rd batch of documents for a spurious reason and asked for a CCA fee of £1.00. Since then I have made 3 Ombudsman complaints and I feel better for it and the resposne has totaly changed, not I am inendated with helpful letters offering to assist me from the bank[sic!].

 

In time I expect the banks to nobble the Ombudsman via parliament, after all it is free isn't it?

 

Tomorrow will be an important day, I fel I have enough confidence to write a balanced and valid complaint that any judge would have to take seriously or Ombudsman.

 

Reading up on the Ombudsman I find that if any of my complaints fail I still have the right to go to court.

 

Thanks to Elsa for continuing support, much ....mucho appreciated.

 

Ieuan

Edited January 31, 2010 by ieuanMr

[ieuanMr]

It's a bit worse than we thought we have finaly realised after all these months after getting a statement from the mortgage department that his mortage is an interest repayment only mortgage. So that after 12 years and 3 months he still has the original capital element to pay i.e. £30 0000.

 

So, he is paying £100/month on interest alone and after the term is up he will still owe £30 000. The good news is his original mortage was £40 000 and he has paid of some money on that and only owes £28 000 on that.

 

We have sent of the deed and further borrowing agreement off to a solicitor to see if they are properly executed agreements and if they are we will continue the payments and pay back the back payments owed. We have the money now to do this.

 

It looks now if we are entering the middle game and I will draw up our claim shortly with the Omudsman for Irresponsible Lending as well as sevral clams for PPI miss selling.

Edited February 5, 2010 by ieuanMr

[ieuanMr]

Received a response to my claim for costs and interest and restitutionary damages. It's no go, and they say they are unable to change their descision.

 

They are offering to pay us as a goodwill gesture the sum of £2289.87 and cancel 79 payments of £18 due on the remainder of the term which amounts to £1422 making a total of £3711.87. It is not an insubstantial sum of money.

 

They summed up my claim as:

1. the PPiIwas not explained as optional and could have been bought much cheaper by shopping around

2. The contract PPI attracted interest whereas staged payments would not include interest.

 

This wasn't exactly my claim as I had not detailed it finally, I was planning to use OFT guidelines to finalise it and can still do so. I wonder if they are fishing for a more detailed response? But they seem pretty sure of themselves to reject statutary interest.

 

I calculated the interest due as [(41 + 1)/2] x £50.80 x .08/12 x 41 = £292.59.

I calculated restitutionary interest much higher but doubt if I would win that claim. I put my costs as £100, although they are much higher (based on £9/letetr and £25/hour for work done).

 

Since the Bank says it has lost the agreement I cannot claim money already paid on PPI. In law, without a properly executed agreement (i.e. a signed agreement), we are at a stalemate and I think this is the bank's way of choosing their fights, which ones to take on and which ones not to take on.

 

I read the latest Guidlines issued by the OFT in January 2010 about unenforceable agreements and it makes interesting reading.

It seems to me that the OFt has changed the goal posts, the rules said before the manchester case that the OFt draw up and publish guidleines, yet in the Manchester case the court ruled agsintst the liantive and there was no executed agreement. The court changed the rules, the court told the public what Parliament had intended. It said that the fialure of the Bank to provide of a document was never intended to avoid debts but to give information. Yet originally the failure of a Bank to provide a document was a criminal offence. It was chnged seveal years ago and now it is just a domestic infringement. Earier it was understood that the failure to porvie a properly exectuted agreement meant that the bank could not enfore agreements or harras the consumer. Now the Banks can evrn instigate court action as long as it does not ask for a judgement, I find this googly gook. How can a Bank got o court and not ask for a judgement against the consumer? it doesn't make sense.

 

Earlier it was implied that the Bank had to provide a true copy, meaning a copy taken from the original document. Now all the bank has to do is provide a copy that is true to the original even if the original cannot be found. The copy can ever be reconstituted, as long as it is true to the originlal. How do we prove that a reconstituted agreement is not the original? In consumer contracts done at a distance the consumer is given a copy of the agreement but the creditor doe snot have to give a signed copy and that to me is agaisnt the consumer, if the owner of the debt has to give a true copy at the time of sale, and I believe it should be a true colour copy, then this mean if a bank loses the original agreement then the consumer has a true copy an can go to court to protect his interests.

 

The OFT has attempted to put saveguards in it's ruling, taken from the court decision at Manchester, but these saveguards will not work, They will in time be abused by the Banks. take for instance the warning that to reconstitute a document and pass it of as an original, if the bank was legally obliged to give a true copy (This means there were two documents signed by both parties at the time of the agreement) then if a reconstituted agreement was made up and did not conform to the customer's copy then the consumer could prove that it was not reconstituted properly.

 

The OFT has also stated that in dealing with a consumer and the agreement is not available they must state that they have provided a reconstitued agreement.

 

In the event that an agreement is lost they can state that the agreement is lost but that they always insist on documents being sighed and if they are sure they can then probvide a copy that they believe is true to the original. To me this is crazy law. Becuase from experience we know that the Banks and otehr lending organisations have abused their position and acted agasint the interest of the consumer.

 

I believe that the Manchester case has taken away many rights that the consumer had, before the CCA was strongly formed to protect the consumer and those rights have now been whittled away.

 

We know the Banks cannot be trusted simply be looking at the OFT statistics that tell us how many companie shave been ruled against over the years. The South Shields case shows how ruthless some organisations can be. And the Banks have behaved abominably and brought this country to its knees regarding losing our money and gambling it away on derivatives and other such forms of black holes.

 

I believe that our education system is churning out genration after generation of people who cannot calculate the simplest balance sheet, or profit and loss sheet and do not understnad that 30% interst means you pay back the whol loan in three years just on the premiums charged. It is about time we taught our children in schools and colleges how this finacial system works. NO wonder people blow their brains out and commit suucide the sytem is rotten, Banks cannot be trusted...tat should be obvious and unfortunatley hour own parliament is rotten to the core as we have justw itnessed in Mp's having to pay back their ill gotten gains.

Edited February 6, 2010 by ieuanMr

[ieuanMr]

The Financial Ombudsman Service returned my complaint papers today, all 19 pages. C Wheatley has returned my complaint with all documentation and asked me to supply further information. I wonder why he could not have sent me an e-mail asking for the documents he wanted without returning the whole file.

 

I suppose the claim is now on hold . But I wonder what happens when there are whole boxes of papers involved , willthey then return whole boxes through the mail and then ask forjust one or two mpapers/

[middenmess]

I suppose the claim is now on hold . But I wonder what happens when there are whole boxes of papers involved , willthey then return whole boxes through the mail and then ask forjust one or two mpapers/

 

Probably better that you have custody of the paperwork as if left with them the chances of it being misplaced or buried under the many thousands of similar bundles that they must be swamped with is quite high.

 

Might be an idea to ask if they will accept copies of further correspondence by email to avoid cost,time and or/space

[ieuanMr]

Well, I made a complaint to the Ombudsman for sending all my mail back and he asked me to resend it.

 

I have started paying the mortgage again as our solicitor advised us that the documents were valid. It does not mean the total lending was not irresposnible and I am starting to write up our claim. Thankfully we had enough money to pay off all the back payments on the mortgage element. We also paid of the car and still have money in his account although he is on a tight financial leash as regards cash.

 

The offer for the PPI charges is on hold as I am not happy that they have refused our minimal cost of £100 and refused interest payments.

 

The Bank are thinking of making us a total offer to drop all our seperate claims and have told us that they will respond before the 28th February. I doubt it will be what we want, but it's a start in the right direction.

 

Barclays are being very nice to us after 5 months and sent us a claim form for the PPI on his loan that was paid off a few years back. My biggest problem seems to be keeping all the files in order I am glad that we have finished with the car firm and now can concentrate on the two banks and a dozen claims.

 

Now, the Ombudsman has entered the equation and I have three claims on the go already with anouther three or four to write up.

 

 

Thanks for response Middeness old pal.

 

regards

 

ieuan

[middenmess]

Hi Ieuan--it's a long and difficult journey but at least you're still on the road!

 

Post 1501 on this thread is a good read..

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/240186-dissecting-manchester-test-case.html

[ieuanMr]

I read that post (1501), thanks Middenmess. I spent two days writing up my complaint to the FOS regarding the failure of the bank to send any documents within the prescribed times and asked for £3000 as a remedy. But looking at some of the posts some people have been involved with the Ombudsman for years. I sent off a schedule of letters with remarks for each letter.

I am planning to make one more complaint regarding breaches of the relevant OFT Guidelines. I am wondering if these consultational papers have any weight in law, should I be using them to make my case?

 

Is OFT 854 Unfair Relationships passed as law?

 

I suppose OFT1107 Irresponsible Lending is just a consulatational paper and cannot be quoted until passed as law?

 

What about the most recent OFT1175con, is this just a consultation paper. I went back to the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and looked at the latest ammendments regarding the section 7 disclosure and it has been updated. So I suppose the consultational document from the FOS may be used as guidelines for making complaints to the courts or to the FOS.

 

Reading up the court cases online on this site I have come to the conclusion that I lack the necessary experience of litigation. It is all so very complicated. I notice that the banks break the rules in many cases and on many occasions with impunity and reading of the FOS complaints htis seems to be the case with them also. So wha is the befit of having all these laws if the supervising organisations are not going to act on them? natWest still has not send my documents under my SAR of the 30 Septemebr 2009 and I am wondering if the Ombudsman wil uphold my complaint. If they do not I can still use te court.

 

It seems case law is being made on a daily basis by the courts regrding consumer protection laws and isn't always plain sailing to those who have to embark on these legaistic voyages of dicovery. To me the OFT1175con reads completly different to the CCA 1974, and now that ha sbeen rewritten. We cannot then use the section 7 for fishing expeditions to see if a contract is properly executed. But I suppose we can use the Data protection Act to ask for information and they do have to supply it but not the exact documents only the information stored on those documents.

 

Well time will tell I suppose.

 

Ieuan

[ieuanMr]

I am looking at IainHL'spost of the 21st January 2010, it is quite interesting because I got a letter from the bank yesterday agreeing to stop taking money from my son's account. I mean they take the money from his overdraft to pay for the £17 000 fixed sum loan, a loan they have lost the agreement to and have said so in writing.

 

I wrote to them on the 22nd January 2010 and told them to stop taking money from his account, I refered to it as enforcing. In view of the recent OFT1175con document they cannot enforce a payment by going to the court or by direct action against my wishes, i.e. deducting from his account. I suppose the only way they could justify taking the money is because of a clause in his agreement that states that they can do this when other means fail. yet, they openly admit they have lost the agreement, if one existed, so they cannot rely on legal clauses that in law do not exist. There is a beauty in this logic I find, especially as it works out in our favour.

 

So the bank has written back to say they are stopping all debit payment to his account except tranfers to his loan accont (I don't actually know what that means...tranfering to his loan account). Well that is interesting, my letter instructing them to stop doing something has worked but only becasue of the OFT document I think. They then say it is not possible to close his account as he is £772 overdrawn. Yet he is overdrawn becaue they keep taking moeny from it. A catch 22 situation methinks and a very annoying one. I am beginning to realise how debilitating it is to be in this sitution and all the letters this forum recieves is like the myriad cries coming out of hell. Poor people and yet there is nothing anyone can do to alleviate their misery.

 

Should I pay the £772 just for the satisfaction of closing the vehicle of his demise over so many years? It would be worth it just to be shot of them. IainHL' thinks they might have a basis for court action and we woud be on the wrong end of the stick if that happened. They are insistant in their letter to know our intentions with this debt. And I am wondering if they did go to court if that might not be beneficial as the whole can of worms would come out then.

 

Please let me know if I should pay off this overdraft just to be able to close the bank account? In a later paragraph of the letter from the bank they ask should they cancel the direct debit to the loan account, so this seems like an internal device to pay off the loan, but we stopped all direct debits to them months ago and that is why we complained to the FOS that they were still using a DD against our wishes. The bank asks should they cancel the DD and wish to know our intentions to meet the sums due. Well we have already told them we don't intend to make payment for a loan as we are in dispute over the whole mess of irresposnible lending. I mean he owes £150 000. And started in 1994 with a £25 000 mortgage. There is a veiled threat in their letter but very carefully worded, they require clarifcation if we intend to make payment on this loan.

 

I have avoided making any comment regarding this loan so far, but if the loan is unenfoceable then there is nothing they can do in court, so as I don't have to answer the question I will not and just ignore it.

 

They have advised us to present a form DMHEF, not sure of the ramifications of this.

 

The bank denies that it is overdue in its suppying of documents regrding my SAR of the 30th Septemebr 2009 despite still not being able to supply documents with the various loans and credit card agrements.

 

I am in the middle of making up my complaint to the FOS regrding the whole mess. I expect it to take up 12 pages and this then will be presented to the bank as my last statement and then use that letter in my claim to the Ombudsman. The bank will not pay the interest on their offer. I know it has been advised by this site that we should accept offers and then sue for the interest at a later date, but don't they put in a clause that you drop all claims, complaints and so on with their offer?

It seems to me this is the course of action the bank's actions are forcing you into. The alternative, as I see it, would be for you not to take action

at the moment, continuing instead to let the bank help themselves to the increasing overdraft until such time they decide it has got too big and then decide to take action against you(r son). The problem then is likely to be that you will be defening an action on an overdraft by referencing a lack of agreement on a secured loan and the bank helpling themselves to the increasing overdraft, and that could be difficult.

Edited March 4, 2010 by ieuanMr

[middenmess]

Hi Ieuan,

 

Sounds as if they're grinding you down a bit-typical of their tactics.

 

Re the Overdraft.

 

If you paid off the £700 odd to clear this,it might well indicate that you/your son have money available and might encourage them to push harder for other amounts outstanding.

 

As they have admitted they have no paperwork available why not compose a letter suggesting that as this is the case,why would they not, 'as a gesture of good will' to a long standing customer,recredit the account to close it and thus bring one section of your complaints to a close.

 

They will probably refuse but might make an offer or suggest a repayment scheme [at a suitably low rate of course,say a couple of pounds per week.month]] to clear this part of your complaint.

[ieuanMr]

Thanks for your continued interest Middeness, it is so encouraging when people such as yourself give their time and support to our small efforts. I may do as you suggest, ask them to offer the balance to close the account as a gesture of goodwill...trouble is we intend to take them to the Ombudsman for an unfair relationship due to their irresponsible lending over a number of years and it is no small sum.

 

Some good news today that I almost missed as the Woolwich typed their offer on the reverse side of the letter, I have not seen that before with NatWest, maybe they are trying to save paper. But they have agreed to pay all the PPI back plus interest and to pay interest since the loan was taken out. Only £300 in all. They refuse to pay our reasonable costs but are paying the money directly into my son's account. When we opened the parachute account we were not aware that Barclays owend The Woolwich.

 

So in the last 6 months I have gained almost £1800 from Marbles Loans for PPI mis selling, £650 from the Ford dealer for cheating on their sale of a car to my son, £307 from the Woolwich. NatWest have offered around £2360 for mis selling on one of his loans but refuse to pay interest and refuse to pay our reasonable costs.

 

I wonder why they are so small m inded to jib at the interest it will look very bad for them if they go to court.

[Undercover-Elsa]

hi again,

I'm not happy about that overdraft scenario.

The right to set off ie make payments without your consent from one account to another only applies if the account they take it from is in credit.

Just off the top of my head, if your son's overdraft is still "active" and under it's top limit, I think they may be able to do that.

On the other hand, if it's an unauthorised overdraft and these payments take him further into debt and incur charges, then I do not believe they have the right to do that.

Effectively they would be servicing a loan (which is in dispute, therefore you have the right to choose to withhold payments) by creating further debt at higher rates of interest and penalties.

I'd research more on "right of set off" if I were you Ieuan.

What is the status of the OD?

Kind regards as always,

Elsa x

[IainHL]

ieuan, please understand I wasn't saying that you "would be on the wrong end of the stick" if NatWest decided to take court action over the overdraft. I was merely point out that your defence would be complicated by the fact that you would be defending the action on the overdraft by referencing the lack of agreement on a secured loan. All is possible with a well constructed defence.

 

Elsa makes a very good point, however. So, have they been helpling themselves to an unauthorised overdraft, or is the current account still below its limit?

 

Also I note that you say they have stated they will stop all debits to his current account with the exception of the transfer to the loan account, and are wondering what that means. Well to me it means they will keep on taking the money. With a little inside knowledge that I have on NatWest's internal systems (ex-wife used to work for them), although you sign a direct debit instruction for payments to the loan account it is not set up as a true direct debit on NatWest's systems. Nor is it a standing order. Instead it is a transfer (think codes of DD, SO and TR, take a look on the bank statements), and I am sure you can see the difference. (Of course this is a number of years ago, and it is possible systems have changed since then.) And of course not being a true DD you can't really control it, or have recourse to the DD guarantee. So they will continue to service the loan.

[ieuanMr]

Thanks Elsa and IainHL for comments. The payment of £218.26 is taken every month to service the £17K loan account and says 'NW Personal Loan', this is the loan that they lost the agreement and cannot send my particulars of the PPI arrangement, although they have offered to payback all PPI payments but not the interest i.e. the interest I am claiming because it was a bad deal in the firs instance.

 

This account was opened when we closed the Advantage Gold Account and was intended as a temporary measure until our parachute account was opened. Thank goodness I took advice when I did. When we stopped using this account it was in surplus by a few pounds but since we moved to Barclays the bank has continued to take money for the mortgage and for this loan. We have since back paid all monies owing on the mortgage and arranged a S.O. from his Barclays account but this continued pilfering from a dormant current account is annoying.

 

We stopped all D.D.'s months ago but when we found out the bank were continuing to debit this £218.26 I wrote to them and instructed them to stop, an instruction they ignored. We are now over our authorised overdraft with them and the interest rate has gone up, so I suppose we are into unauthorised overdraft and yet they refuse point blank to close the account and demand to know if we have made other arrangement to pay this unenforcable loan.

 

I made a complaint with the FOS a while back about this situation and I guess the best thing to do is to update FOS about this continued pilfering.

 

I am at the stage of finalising the details of our whole cliam at the moment but this sounds serious to me because they could take us to court for the unauthorised borrowing and yet in away it might be good as they them have to explain why they are enforcing an unenforcable loan!

 

I have read the OFT1175con very carefully and as they have admitted that the loan is unenfocable I cannot undertand how they continue to take money from an account agaisnt our wishes especially when the loan is unenfoceable by virtue of their adminance that they cannot find the loan agrement. We have an agreement but it is unsigned by both parties.

 

Page 30 of OFT1175con in the Part Two - the Plain English Guide says that:

1. The lender cannot demand earlier payments off the debt

2. threaten court action

3. take possesion of anything you bought on credit, or which you used as security when you took out the agreement

 

But does not specifically mention taking money from current accounts. I will take Elsa's advice and check on 'The Right to set off' and the overdraft is at £771.54 at present Elsa.

 

Thanks again evryone for valued support.

 

regards

 

Ieaun

PS I've had a quick look and you are rght Elsa it seems the bank cannot offest when a debt is indispte and clearly from all our letetr to NatWest we are in dispute. It has taken me 6 months to learn what offsetting is..duh. I will add this latest communication from the bank to my complaint to FOS. A guy named Wheatley is dealing with it.

Edited March 5, 2010 by ieuanMr

[Undercover-Elsa]

Meanwhile I'd also write straight back to the bank stating you note their comments but that as the loan account is in dispute you INSIST that the repayments MUST NOT be taken from the account. Point out that the right of setting off only applies to credit balances and that they are responsible for increasing a high interest and penalty ridden debt in order to pay a disputed, lower cost loan. Inform them you will add this complaint to your ongoing communications with the OFT.

Elsa x

[ieuanMr]

Thanks Elsa

 

Will do,

 

Ieuan

[ieuanMr]

Successes so far:

 

20 August £7,500.00 Fraudster repayment

05 November £ 107.46 NatWest Home Insurance/UK Ins

11 November £ 50.00 NatWest Home Insurance/UK Ins

16 November £ 125.34 HFC Bank

16 November £ 89.11 HFC Bank Interest on above a/c

16 November £1,128.60 HFC Bank

16 November £ 317.20 HFC Bank Interest on above a/c

30 January £ 650.00 Ford Dealer, no interest paid

30 January £ 1,202.38 Santander Cancelled HP charges

30 January £2,289.87 NatWest PPI 17K loan offer only refuse costs + interest

Edited March 8, 2010 by ieuanMr

[middenmess]

I look forward to seeing that list getting longer and longer and.......

[ieuanMr]

Thanks Middenmess

Through people like you and Elsa and IainHL, and TexanBar who are willing to give their time and support it has been much easier than it could have been.

 

When I started this crusade I had no knowledge just a burning anger of injustice when the figures began to reveal the full story. The cornerstone of any success has been down to this forum, it's admins and it's helpers.

 

The one most important thing I learned on this site is the Power of the SAR and the CCA requests for information, when we have the information we are armed. I have learned so much from the £10.00 paid for the SAR. And there is no doubt in my mind that the Banks are abusing the system, it is all too convenient for them to lose agreement, documents, PPI agreement, terms and conditions and so on.

 

I think the easy days are over, every morsal has to be fought over. As it happens my son is meticulous in keeping scraps of paper and we have agreement going back 20 years. I am convinced the Information Commissioner is taking an easy stance on the attitudes of the banks, and much information lays in their vaults and never coming to the light.

 

The only reason we won with Barcalys is that we had a full true colour original copy signed by both parties and when we showed them that with the PPI agreement they couged up. They had provaricated for 4 months and still refuse our reasonable costs.

 

NatWest operates a defence by dealing in a nagative way with complaints and using a dozen (figuratively speaking) different departments to parry questions. Many letters remain unanswered, many of the points never addressed and there is an ever growing hierarchy of levels where the case has to be explained in detail time and time again. Unless one is willing and able to spend hours writing letters and filing the results it is always going to be the bank that wins.

 

After months of writing letters, the higher level staff have just told me that they are not late with my SAR, and that is 6 months after the fact. That is the most bare-faced lie I have ever been told in my life. We have extended the deadline time and time again for them to provide documents. Some documents are illegible, some, or most I should say, are incomplete. The bank has not provided a copy of one PPI agreement and that is after 5 months of writing to them with a SAR (dated 30th septemebr 2009).

 

The latetest guidline OFT1175con is a disgrace to consumer protection laws, an absolute disgrace! To me it seems the law is being applied by the judges in a negative way and retropsective. Parliament made some strong laws for the consumer in 1974, those rights enshrined in that law have now been whittled away by the courts, the very courts meant to protect us. Before, if an agreement was lost the debt was frozen, that has been the law for decades. It was always treated as a loan where the consumer could then stop payments as there was no agreement. Now the OFT goes to the other extreme, the CCA is not a way of avoiding ones debt it says. Next it will say the consumer has a moral obligation to pay debts off even when the bank cannot prove there was an agreement in the first place! The bank can now provide a reconstituted agreement, soon banks will reconstitute things that never existed in the first place, that is what I mean by retorspective. How can you trust a crook with a stick of dynamite and a locked door with 1 million pound behind it on a dark night? The answer you can't and we can't trust the banks to reconstitute agreements because they are a bunch of liars and cheats and rogues and fat cats. If ever this country needed a revolution it is now, and I for one would take up arms and would be willing to shoot anyone who opposed me.

 

That a labour government could act in collusion with this bunch of neer-do-wells is unbelievable.

 

I sudenly realise I have gone off on a rant...oh dear! how remiss of me.

 

Ieaun

Edited March 8, 2010 by ieuanMr

[Undercover-Elsa]

You have a right to rant! I quite agree with you.

At the end of the day, the banks will aggressively try to manipulate, use (and abuse) the law to their own ends. We have a right to use those same laws to protect ourselves, but when we do they lie, cheat and squeal like stuck pigs.

Meanwhile the judiciary treat us like revolting peasants, in many cases. How dare we stand up for our rights? Into the stocks with them!

Money is just money, the food of greed. Owing it doesn't give ANYONE the right to treat you as we are treated by the banks and DCA's. It's a business transaction between 2 parties. If one party (the one with vast resources of legal backup) fails to protect their own interests and doesn't check their documentation and contract, they should take it on the chin

and tighten up their procedures. They have the right to ASK for what they're owed, and, with the correct documentation, to pursue it through the courts. They do NOT have the right to hound, harrass, shame and put the fear of homelessness into people to the point of bringing them to despair. It's only money, we haven't taken life or caused harm.

Murderers are treated more humanely. How about genuine can't pay due to reduced circumstance debtors/ bank incompetence and chargesfest victims being given another identity and relocated? !!

That's my rant over

[ieuanMr]

Right Elsa

My little rant seems to have triggered off one with you, but yes I agree with you 100%. Suddenly the storming fo the Bastile by the froward French seems a reasoanble thing to do. In our worst moments we may consider doing nasty 'orrible things to the banks, but we have to fight it, it's not nice. But sometime in our weaker moments it seems right to do unto them what they did unto us.

 

Imagine living next to a bank manager and charging him for every leaf that dropped from his tree onto our land just because we can do it, and taking him to court for arrears when we know he has just lost his job then when we get to court ask for punitive damages and interest at 30% because one day when we had the opportunity we asked him to sign a clause that every leaf that fell onto our garden he had to pay us a pound. And knowing he was ill and out of work we send him a christmas card hoping he would get well and then arranging the bailifs to call round and give him a wind up just because we can. And then when the bailifs have been and shook him up we arrange for debt collectors to harrass him every day with phone calls day and night just to keep him on edge. Then to rub it all in we take out a large technicolour advertisment in film and show on the TV how we were the most friendly and kindly neighbours one could ever hope to meet. And arrange this advert day and night on all tv stations telling the world what frindly and amusing staff we employed, and how attractive they were, and all the time the governement had had to bail us out to pay for these big adverts and all the time we were paying our staff millions poun bonuses for rbbing our neighbours, and the country owed trillions of pounds to shore up the rotten edifices, and it had become common knowledge that we had bribed judges and used lobby groups to change the laws that stopped us doing the worst kinds of abuse to our cunstomers. And finally the Ombudsman was in danger of collapse because 4700 cases were with them from last July to Decemebr just on our one organisation.

 

Imagine that and all the time an election is drawing closer and closer and the elecorate are getting edgey and want to know why our governement allowed all this to happen, who was in charge when Gorbals Mick the Speaker of the House was defending MP's exesses as privelidge!!!

 

And a voice was heard speaking from heaven that the world had gone mad and right was wrong and wrong was right and heaven had almost given up on the stupidity of mankind. The bestest brains and the most inteligent of our people are employed by organisations that pay them millions to practice usery on the common people. The richest and the best brains employed to prey on those less fortunate than themselves. Lets invent a scheme these best brains said one day, let stop being petty and go for the big money we will invent a [problem] called Advantage Gold, and in doing so charge these suckers for the privilidge of putting their hard earned money into our banks, we will tell them they can have discounts on all the things they never have the money to pay for like skying holidays, health insurance at ski resorts, lost baggage on air trips that they can't afford anyway. So what it they are semi skilled manual workers and we are selling them products designed for the rich, if they are stupid enough to sign this contract save them right. SO lets see we charge them £12.95/month for Advantage Gold, of course we won't tell them the advantage is for us and pure gold to us in revenue. That is £155.40/annum and over ten eyars the poor sap has to pay us £1554 and just for holding his cash from his wages after he has been squeezed by his governemnt 20% and a further 7.5% in local taxes, we woant our cut too. Som in ten years with a million uctomers that will equal one thousand five hundred and fifty four million pounds per million customers, if we can increase our customer base to ten million then that will be fifteen thousand five hundred and fifty four million pounds, goody, we should get a mllion pound bonus for dreaming up this one. What, no...no one will notice, all they will say aren't we doing well.

 

Well lets not stop at advantage Gold said the big nopise at head office, only he was like the Wizard of OZ who was quite a small man and hid behind a curtain of lies and sued a magaphone. Why not sell them PPI schemes, oh we already do that says a voice. NO, but when don't we charge interst on the PPI loan. PPI loan they squeak? Yes we lend them the money to buy PPI and then chrage them interst on the loan. NO...no one would eb that stupid says one small voice. Yes, as long as we have listed all the ramifications and clauses on the back of the agreement, and there will be many confusing clauses wink wink. And as long as we state that we have explaine dal the clauses, and as long as no one notices we pre ticked the request for PPi on the form. A long silence ensued and one voice asked if it was wrong to do such a thing but he was immediatley sacked and given bad references so that he would never again work in the Banking world. That was the start of the begining, and the end never came in sight until one man started a blog and a forum and this one man said STOP!!! this is wrong, this is unethical this is usery...THIS IS WICKED.

 

Even the nazis would have grovelled to be part of such a powerful organisation as the Banking Fraternity of Middle Britian in 2010.

[ieuanMr]

Typed up my Mortgage Repayment Protection Insurance claim today, took me 4 hours. I wrote to the oeprations manager of RBS at Hardman Boulevard, Manchester (are they having a laugh?). His total claim for repayments of premiums is £1628 plus interest over 8 years. It has taken me months to formulate my claim, mainly because I have been trying to get RBS to provide the documents, they say it is not their policy to supply standard documents like terms and plan details, the CCA 1974 section 7 says they must for a fee of £1.00.

 

I eventually found all the documents I needed to back up my claim, the Policy letter of acceptance, the terms booklet (I thought it was a form) and the statements that show last and first payments and the amounts. So all I have to do is formulate the interest (I have a cunning formula) and have estimated costs at around £1144. The problem is these banks always write back and say they are not into the habit of paying costs. RBS refuse to pay statutary interest at 8% and at the term restitutionary damages they lose all interet.

 

I put in a claim last week for a loan PPI taken out in 2002 and that came to £360 and I put in a claim for his credit card PPI and that came to £360. So that's about £2000 plus interest and damages and also costs, around £6000. So far they have offered around £2340 or thereabouts. I have one tiny clam for Fonecare but that is a small amount.

 

The big claim is for irresponsible lending and they have told me to write to Enfield after corresponding for 6 months. I recn it could be as much as £50 000.

 

I would like to send my final claim letter to an admin and see if my reasoning is legal, I have used the CCA 1974 and the UTCCR 1999 section 5.

 

I am having serious doubts about whether the Ombudsman is the best course, really serious doubts. But I feel I am totally incapable of fighting this in court. I am too afraid I will lose for my son and I really do need to win him some relief from the horrendous situation he is in.

 

What is really disconcerting is the number of people who have replied to me, it must be around 30 different people and that cannot be right, can it?

 

I was thinking maybe I should try Gowans the claim specialists and see what they think. I have all the information tabulated but it would be a big box of papers to send off to them and I would have to photocopy it all.

 

Any thoughts?

[ieuanMr]

We had one more payment from a bank on the 1st March 2010. Barclays coughed up £307.58 and that includes our full claim plus interest at 8% simple interest. They refused to pay costs and restitutionary damages. They paid it directly into his account , no forms to fill in and no disclaimers as to further legal action on our part. They made us dance for 6 months but eventually paid up.

 

20 August £7,500.00 Fraudster repayment

05 November £ 107.46 NatWest home insurance

11 November £ 50.00 NatWest Home Insurance

16 November £ 125.34 HFC Bank

16 November £ 89.11 HFC Bank interest on above a/c

16 November £1,128.60 HFC Bank

16 November £ 317.20 HFC Bank Interest on above a/c

30 January £ 650.00 Ford Dealer, no interest paid

30 January £ 1,202.38 Santander Cancelled HP charges

30 January £2,289.87 NatWest PPI 17K loan offer only refuse costs + interest

1st March 2010 £307.58 Barclays, PPI + Interest