prushton vs Abbey

[srfrench]

Really?

[Lula]

Frenchy, you do know what today's hearing was about don't you dearie?

[srfrench]

Of course............... but I wish Prushy would post the results up here...... Arrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... the suspense

[prushton]

Sorry for the delay in posting the result of todays court hearing, I am on nights this week and have just got in. Well here goes.

 

I arrived at Plymouth County Court half an hour early, checked the notice board and found the room number allocated for the hearing. I went through and saw the bloke behind the desk and told him I was here and the claim number.

 

He told me that the defence would like a word with me before we go in front of the judge. ( I was suprised they had even bothered to turn up - but hey ! it was good of them to bother.)

 

Anyway this suit turns up and we go sit at a table. He tells me he really hasnt a clue whats going on as he was only instructed at 6.50pm the night before. In his hand he has a document, which he shows me. It turns out to be a signed witness statement from a Debbie Waghorn - Head of data protection at the Abbey in London. He tells me that I have had all the information regarding my statements that the Abbey hold and that there is nothing left on Abbeys systems.He says that the Abbey would not lie about it as the consequences should they be caught out, now that the claim had reached the courts were serious.

 

It also turns out that the Abbey use a third party - a company called Ricoh as third party custodians of its microfiche records and that they had made inquiries with this company regarding my statements, but they too said they didnt hold any account information for my account.

 

I asked about destruction certs for destroyed data and he says that the judge has been shown the document and that he is happy that there is no more information to be had. He also says that they do not have to show destruction certificates as the document is enough to show there is no more data to be had.

 

Anyway, as a result of this cosy chat before going in to see the judge, my options are closing down fast. I can see that as the judge has seen the document and he is convinced that I have had all the information the Abbey hold on its systems , it would be pointless to argue that they did have my statements.

 

We go in to see the judge, who asks if I had seen the statement from this Debbie Waghorn, I said I had , and pointed out that the Abbey had left it until the very last minute to disclose the document and that had they disclosed it as part of the documents that they intended to rely on in court as per the judges directions ( which they didnt comply with ) , then the matter would not have reached the courts.

 

He agreed with me and asked the suit why it was not disclosed sooner. ( He tells the judge that he had only been instucted at 6.50 pm the night before and that he knew nothing of the document until just before the hearing , where he was given it prior to entering the court building.) The judge let the defence know he wasnt too happy about the late disclosure, and then asks me if I would like to adjourn for a further week or deal with the claim now.

 

I told the judge about the cosy chat with the defence outside and that as the statement by Debbie Waghorn had made it clear there was no more information to be had, it had effectively left me with very few options.

 

I told him that I wished to conclude the matter today and that if the court was satisfied there was no more information to be had then so was I. The judge then says that he has looked at my documents, and says that the only concern that he had regarding my claim for statements, was that my request to the Abbey for charges and interest information for the entire period that we held an account with the defendants( 1988 - 2002) may have been seen to have been excessive, within the context of the data Protection act.

 

It may be wise for anyone thinking of claiming beyond 6yrs and requesting statements to limit the number of years to say 10 - 12yrs ?

 

In conclusion, the judge said it would be best to withdraw the claim for statements as they didnt exist anymore, but he would award my costs against the defendants and that they be ordered to pay me £55 which represents £30.00 court fee and £25.00 mail costs.

 

I am looking at today like this, at least now I know that there are no more statements to retrieve.That my claim for the money side of things is for the most that I could hope to achieve when that reaches court in two weeks time, and I have recovered my costs. The icing on the cake is that I have caused the Abbey a significant amount of time and money in defending the claim .

 

Hope this helps you Lula x

[prushton]

I recieved a letter this morning from Inga Kirkman at the Abbey in London saying that in the interest of Blah ! Blah ! Blah ! the Abbey have decided to settle my claim - - - Hold on its not that good. They are going to pay me £970 which was for a claim for £3,800 . Ms Kirkman has decided that she will just cross out the estimated charges of 5 yrs totaling £2,700 - I know estimated charges are difficult to reclaim as the burden of proof is on the claimant, and therefore there is little hope I would get that amount in court , but I hoped they may a least made me a bigger offer to settle.

 

That Inga Kirkman is fast though !!!! - call me cynical but the letter she sent me today was drafted in advance of my statement claim and still managed to state that my statement claim was withdrawn yesterday and arrive this morning.

 

Now I am just as fast as she is because I knew she was going to do that - dont ask me how - so when I got back from court yesterday, I updated my schedule of charges totaling £3,800 including the estimated charges and sent her a letter inviting her to settle for the full amount , as the court claim was only 2 weeks away.

 

I sent it special delivery - to get there by 9am this morning. I imagine that at the same time I was opening her letter , she was opening mine, what a hoot !!!!!

[prushton]

Could someone please confirm that the interest that you can claim ie 8% persuant to the county court act is 8% daily and not 8% pa. Thanks

[Lula]

Prush, I am going to pm you with some of my thoughts on all this, but you add on your 8% via the spreadsheet and that gicves you a total.

 

Now to get the daily rate you multiply the total by 0.00022 and then however many days it takes to settle, say 2 30 day months = 60 so you multiply the daily rate by 60 to give you a running total, hope all this makes sense

[srfrench]

Why not put in for contractual interest?

 

That way you'll get back what you wanted without the downer you've just had?

[Lula]

Have pm'd you Prushie chin up sunshine

[prushton]

Hi everyone, it seems all is not lost yet , as Inga seems to be under the impression that my schedule of charges is for my original request for payment at £3,600 which contained an element of estimated charges for the 4 yrs and 9mths of statements missing, and was the reason for the statement hearing on Tues. I have rejected her offer yesterday of £970.25 in settlement and hopefully she will settle on the £3,600 figure close to the court date. The worst that can happen is that it gets to court, I will have a revised schedule of charges for £1,109 already to go and tell the court that I have withdrawn the estimated element from the claim as we know its impossible to prove and therefore the claim is for the charges we can prove plus costs ie £1,109 any thoughts ?

[prushton]

Lula will look at your pm in the morning when I get up and answer your ? then ok! x

[Lula]

Prushie, your revised estimated looks fine and I bet it took a while to do the court bundle

[prushton]

Hi, Lula yes, my court bundle took a lot of preparation I am going to claim £9.50 x 32 hours = £304 for preparation. :)it all helps

[prushton]

I have decided to remove the estimated element from my claim, I have been in email discussions with Ms Kirkman and she says she will apply for adverse costs if I insist on keeping the estimated and it gets to court. The onus is on the claimant to prove the charges were made and as you know my court hearing for the missing statements didnt go well.So basicly I wouldnt stand a chance recovering the estimated charges as I couldnt prove they were applied.

 

But as the charges for 13mths only total £621.42 , by the time interest is added and my costs, plus charging Abbey £9.50 x 32 hours court preparation the claim is a healthy £1,505. As I can prove these charges and costs I expect that, at the very least I should walk away with the £1,505. I would expect Ms Kirkman to accept that this is the amount it is going to take to settle the claim.

[chelseaboy]

hi prush have been following your thread, the thing i can't get my head around is this. You are supposed to be able to get six years worth of statements from your bank, but your only managing to use 14 months, isn't this a bit convenient for the bank. I thought they have to keep 6 years by law? If they have not done so surely they are in the wrong not you? If thats not correct they will start loosing peoples info, left right and centre!!!!!!!

[prushton]

Thanks to all for your kind words and suppport in my claim for statements, its really appreciated. The problem with my claim, and this is probably different to most peoples request for statements is that my account was opened in 1988 and closed in 2002. The last six years of statements would therefore cover 1996 - 2002. The Abbey are only obliged to keep records for 6 yrs and so thats six years from 2007, therefore the statements from 1996 - 2001 would have been destroyed according the Abbey.

 

This leaves the Abbey with approx 13-18 mths of statements left on file, which is what I recieved. Now I know that some people ( Armsoft) has received 12 yrs of statements from the Abbey, and this maybe because the account is still active , but since the Abbey produced the Ricoh statement, saying there were no more records to be had and this satisfied the judge, then I was left with no choice but to accept my costs amd withdraw my claim for statements. Thanks Karne maybe you could turn something up about Ricoh.

[prushton]

Here is the last page of the document that satisfied the judge that there was no more statements to be had:

 

 

7. I have made enquiries of the Defendant's third party custodian of customers microfiche records, Rlcoh. I am instructed that neither the Defendant, nor Ricoh has (any longer) microfiche records relating to the Claimants account which pre-dates June 2000. I am unable to say exactly when it ceased to have such information, to the best of my knowledge it would have been In accordance with the Defendant's policy which I describe above.

8. The Defendant Is therefore unable to comply with the Claimant's request for further personal data as the Defendant Is not In possession of It,

9. I believe that the facts stated In this Witness Statement are true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Print name: Debbie Waghorn

Address: Abbey .Notional House; S Triton Square, Regent's Park, London

Abbey House , 201 Grafton Gate East, Milton Keynes, MKL9 1AN

Dates 19 March 2007

3

[prushton]

I am reclaiming my sisters charges from Hsbc, we have a directions hearing coming up on the 18th April at Bradford County Court, can anyone tell me what a direction hearing involves and what documents should be taken to the hearing ? if anyone has attended one of these things I would like your input please. Thanks for your help.

[prushton]

Anyone know what documents to take to a directions hearing? if anyone has been to one of these things I would appreciate it if you could let me know how to go about it. thanks !