GBZSTRO Vs MBNA ~ Offer Advice required

[gbzstro]

The History

 

I held an credit card account with MBNA (Gold Card) for about 8 years – this account went over the limit before I paid it off in full in July 2005 – the account was then closed.

 

Concerned over penalty charges I took the flowing action

 

13th July 2006 ~ sent Data protection act request with £10 enclosed

22nd July ~ Received an acknowledgement letter from MBNA saying that they would respond within 28 days.

13th August ~ I sent a LBA Re Data request stating that they only had 9 days left to respond.

 

11th August (dated) letter received after I had posted the LBA Re Data request form MBNA the gist is as follows…

 

MBNA view this that the charges are valid blah blah blah..

Provided to me FREE and returned my cheque for £10 plus a list of all charges on the account for the last 6 years!!

 

At the bottom of the letter was the following

 

“We would like to resolve this matter, and I have therefore arranged for a goodwill payment of £630 to be sent to you by cheque in the next 7 to 10 days on the basis that this is in full and final settlement of your compliment.”

 

Best bit …. “We have no alternative but to cancel your card and formally terminate your credit agreement”

 

The card was paid off in full and the account closed in July 2005.

 

What to do next and why did they keel over so quickly ??

 

1) Enter the figures supplied on the complex spreadsheet and work out the interest – accept the £630 plus interest only.

 

Or…Insist that they comply with eh Data Protection Act request (to see if there were any other charges) wait until they comply and then go after them..

 

Thanks in advance for all that reply and help me.

[BaldyBaldwin]

they do seem to act a bit differently from the others, i recieved a 100 pound goodwill payment in reply to my DPA request!!

[gbzstro]

Ahh I see now why they have made a quick offer of £630, returned my cheque along with a summary list of charges…

 

If I just added up the charges alone it comes to £1,170 so that have offered me 50% to shut me up. No sir !!!!!

 

Now I have a vexed problem – what do I do after accepting the £630 as partial payment in all cases..

 

Demand that

 

£1170 is returned to me

 

£1170 + lost interest from not having the money in my own savings account (using the 8% spreadsheet this would be £1,409)

 

Ask for all the records (under the DPA ) so that I can input the balance and interest into the complex spreadsheet

(£1170 + (8% my interest loss) + the interest that they have charged me on MY money)

 

All options other than accepting the £630 will most likely result the offer being withdrawn..

 

Which option to take….

[BaldyBaldwin]

send your prelim letter accepting the 630 as partial settlement only, and state that you will be commenceing with you claim for full repayment of charges, thats what i have done, but recieved no reply, so LBA being sent today. good luck

[roydosan]

You are wrong about the interest - you can only claim the 8% once you formally make the claim at court.

 

You are however entitled to claim back the interest they have charged you on the fees at the appropriate rate. If your fines are around £1170 then it should add up to quite a bit. My fines totalled around £700 and the interest worked out to £500!!!

[gbzstro]

Actucally I think that I might be right about the interest? - I am trying to reclaim 17.9% on the deductions that they have made from my account - this is that they have been charging me on the deductions. If/when this goes to MCOL then I will charge them a further 8% (becasue the money was not in my savings account).

 

I settled the account in May 2005 - so I am claiming 17.9% (on their deductions only) from when the charge was made until the account was settled.

 

During the life term of the account - this was always in the red (this is a credit card) - but is was way in the red so I was ALWAYS paying interest (at their rate) on the deductions.

 

they have taken £1170 + my 17.9% interest (£309) = £1479 ~ which is my claim BEFORE MCOL 8%.

[roydosan]

That's exactly what I said. The 8% interest you only claim when you raise the county court claim. Before that you should only claim for the interest they charged you at the appropriate rate. Be aware that this has probably changed over the life of your card so you will have to make some minor adjustments in order to get an accurate figure. And remember that interest is compounded every month your account is in the red so I'm suprised the figure you have arrived at is so small.

[gbzstro]

I modified the simple interest spread sheet - so I guess that I have only requested 17.9% flat and not compound. I dont have my statements - only a list (provided by MBNA) of the charges amounts and the dates.

 

Can I still use the complex spreadsheet to work out compound interest ?? or does any one have one that I could use :-

 

All I have for example is

 

17/5/2003 Overlimit Amount £25.00

17/6/200 Late Payment Fee £25.00

etc.

etc.

[roydosan]

If you only havethe fee information they gave you then divide 17.9% by 12 and then multiply the total figure (fees + Interest) by it. Do that for each month to date and you should get a more accurate figure.

 

BTW which MBNA card is it?

[gbzstro]

Good grief - I have done all this with some startling results.

 

Based on 17.9%

Charges = 1170

Simple interest = £309

Compound interest = £1012 !!!!

 

I am going to give this to my accountant to check my figures but if these are correct then MBNA have taken from me £2182 in total.

[Glenn UK]

I think theres some confusion over the interest you can claim

 

You can EITHER claim the contractual rate in your LBA OR you can claim the 8% Sec 69 interest when you go to court.

 

If you are claiming the contractual rate, however you calculate it, you cannot then add the Sec 69 interest on top. the sec 69 interest is there for claims where there is no contractual rates for the claimant to use and can only be awarded by the courts.

 

If you wish to tinker with the rate of your contract by for example including an element for your lost opportunity as well as the fact they used your money without permissision then thats somethng else again and like all things legal im not sure how this would fair before a judge.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

 

Edit forgot to say, you dont need to alter the contractual interest rates as it did over the life of your account, if they wish to dispute the rate let them propose something else. You are claiming their rates based on the contract they have and until they give it back thats the rate you should impose.

[gbzstro]

I am going after the amount thta they have taken ffrom me - which includes thier compound interest - I have already sent off the prelim letter but have also request ALL my statments- I want to see what they were charging me in interest and reclaim that back. I guess that it is just a waiting game now....

[Glenn UK]

In that case the contractual interest rate will be on top of that, cash advance rate for barclay card is 27.9% i think.

 

HTh

 

Glenn

[too strong]

I think theres some confusion over the interest you can claim

 

You can EITHER claim the contractual rate in your LBA OR you can claim the 8% Sec 69 interest when you go to court.

 

If you are claiming the contractual rate, however you calculate it, you cannot then add the Sec 69 interest on top. the sec 69 interest is there for claims where there is no contractual rates for the claimant to use and can only be awarded by the courts.

 

If you wish to tinker with the rate of your contract by for example including an element for your lost opportunity as well as the fact they used your money without permissision then thats somethng else again and like all things legal im not sure how this would fair before a judge.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

 

Edit forgot to say, you dont need to alter the contractual interest rates as it did over the life of your account, if they wish to dispute the rate let them propose something else. You are claiming their rates based on the contract they have and until they give it back thats the rate you should impose.

 

This may sound like a stupid question but in what circumstances would you not have contractual interest?

 

Where exactly did you get this information from as there still is confusion over the interest rate to claim.

 

I am in the process of taking Cap one to court but the interest rate I quoted on my LBA was 8% but as with most people the contract rate was much higher.

Can I now use the contractual interest rate on the court documents or is it too late.

 

Not trying to hijack but I think this is just so important to everybody.

[roydosan]

I think theres some confusion over the interest you can claim

 

You can EITHER claim the contractual rate in your LBA OR you can claim the 8% Sec 69 interest when you go to court.

 

If you are claiming the contractual rate, however you calculate it, you cannot then add the Sec 69 interest on top. the sec 69 interest is there for claims where there is no contractual rates for the claimant to use and can only be awarded by the courts.

 

If you wish to tinker with the rate of your contract by for example including an element for your lost opportunity as well as the fact they used your money without permissision then thats somethng else again and like all things legal im not sure how this would fair before a judge.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

 

Edit forgot to say, you dont need to alter the contractual interest rates as it did over the life of your account, if they wish to dispute the rate let them propose something else. You are claiming their rates based on the contract they have and until they give it back thats the rate you should impose.

 

Glenn - this is seriously wrong - you CAN claim the standard rate of interest which they have charged you - this is interest charged on the fines.

 

Once you raise the court claim you can add the 8% on as damages for having been wrongfully charged the money.

[gbzstro]

I agree - while the charges were applied to the account I was also charged compound interest on top!

 

I settled the account in May 2005 and MBNA gave me a settlement figure which included thier interest - therfore as a base I am claiming this all back!

 

If this goes to MCOL then I will also go after a further 8% on top of my claim figure.

[gbzstro]

Whoops wrong thread - sorry.

[CrispDust]

I think you will find that you can only claim one or the other ie 8% or contractual interest. The 8% is not "damages" per say, it is interest on the amount that has been owed to you since the "offence" occured. You are claiming the same "item" with contractual interest, just at a higher rate! (much higher!)

The 8% is to allow other types of claim to recoup losses on unavailble funds.

IE I buy a car 2 years ago from you but don't pay, you take me to small claims to recover the initial amount plus 8% starting from 2 years ago. Contractual interest is not applicable as there was no mutual interest bearing term to the contract

We are able to claim contractual interest against the banks because it was a specific financial contract which included interest elements. The terms are mutual and reciprocal.

If you claim the contractual interest (from the day of offence to the day of payment) forget the 8%.

[misspickles]

Ok, just another opinion . . . .

 

Why dont you get your statements and work out how much interest you paid each month, then claim that back then at MCOL add 8%.

Eg your balance is £1000. £500 is Charges. You pay £50 per month interest. Therefore you are owed £25 from that month from the card issuer in interest alone. Next month you may not have been charged but you still pay interest so you need to do the calculation again. and so on. You need to continue this all the way to the pay off point of your card. using same example above say you got your balance to £500, and then took 12months to pay it off, you would need to claim back the interest you paid for every month of the 12 month period as obviously if you were not charged then you would have paid off your balance 12 months earlier. Therefore you are claiming back at the card issuers standard rate ie 29% as that is the % they would have originally used to calculate how much interest you were paying.

 

By doing this you are simply claiming back what you have been charges plus what you have had to inadvertedly pay out as a result of being charged. The bank will claim that charges are zero rated and that you only pay interest on purchases, but the simple fact is without them you would be paying off your balance quicker and thus paying less interest, as you can bet that the bank use your monthly payments to pay of the items with least interest first, and most interest last.

 

once you have worked this out you then add 8% to both the charges and the interest assuming of course you are filing at MCOL

 

there are spreadsheets available for you to do this in the way I have described as above. This is a crystal clear way of ensuring that you get pretty much all of your money that you have paid out either directly or indirectly.

 

I am confident that what I have talked about above is the correct way to proceed. There are lots of different and confusing pieces of advice floating around but we all need to remember that we are doing this to get our money back that was taken because we broke our agreement in the first place - we have to remember that if we end up in front of a judge we have to maintain our credibility and integrity by keeping our claims as simple and as close to the point as possible - 'you unlawfully took our money we want it back.'

I am just a little concerned that by getting all muddled up with interest rates, how much we can charge them, that we may end up shooting ourselves in the foot by causing unnessary confusion and maybe even looking like we are out for revenge not justice. . . .?

 

Hope that helps

(wow the view from my soap box is great you should join me)

 

Miss P x

[thistlegorm]

Hi GBZSTRO,

 

Been following this thread with interest, before commenting on the whys & weres are you able to give a breakdown of your charges ie amount & date not interested in what for. Not being nosey you understand just trying to get my head around the figures you've given. I will be going after MBNA myself in the coming weeks after a succesful spat against HSBC. I have also written a spreadsheet that calculates compounded monthly interest on charges & am looking to see if it works.

 

Regards

thistlegorm

 

PS. misspickles,

 

Its probably me, but....

 

Am I the only one not to follow your method for calculating interest on charges?

Sorry perhaps my night shift has fuddled my brain but I am sure there must be an easier way...

Also for you info, you are charged interest on ALL charges.

 

 

Regards

[gbzstro]

Not much to add really right now - I am waiting for the Prelim to expire (2nd Sept) before I issue a LBA - I have requested statments but these have not arrived yet. I just want my charges back - but I am concerned with the amount of compound interest that I have been charged on these penaties. I am hoping that the statments arrive before the LBA deadline - but if they do not I will use me own compound interest spreadsheet to send with with the LBA.

[gbzstro]

Whoops Wrong thread again !!! Sorry...

[Glenn UK]

Glenn - this is seriously wrong - you CAN claim the standard rate of interest which they have charged you - this is interest charged on the fines.

 

Once you raise the court claim you can add the 8% on as damages for having been wrongfully charged the money.

 

I agree you claim the charges plus interest you have paid plus either contractual or 8%.

 

That didnt seem to be an issue when i posted.

 

The issue of a contract that doesnt have a rate attached to it would arise from any kind of contract you might wish to sue somoene for. Say you buy something and it turns out to be faulty. You sue for the money and you could ask for Sec 69 interest on top.

 

HTH

 

glenn

[gbzstro]

I have sent off my Prelim letter already (after receiving a goodwill offer of £630 – accepted but require full amount) but then this letter arrives – effectively stalling MBNA for another 40 days…

30 Aug 2006.

I write to acknowledge your receipt of a cheque of £10 and a copy of your Driving Licence in relation to your request to be supplied with a copy of all your information held by MBNA.

We will endeavour to provide a full subject Access response as soon as possible However, please note that Section 7(3) of the Data Protection Act 1998 provides MBNA with the obligation to respond when we have received the information necessary to administer the request.

We received your ID on 25 August 2006. MBNA Europe Bank Ltd will provide the information to you within 40 days allowed within the terms of the act.

I can confirm that a list of the charges concerning your account were sent to you on 15th August 2006.

Should you have any further queries, please contact me at the above address.

You bet I will !!

Back ground facts …

Sent DPA request with £10 enclosed on the 13th July 2006.

11 August 2006 – received hand signed letter offering £630 as goodwill as well as charges summary that amounts to £1479

18th August 2006 sent letter £620 accepting as part of claim of £1479

Did not trust them so also sent …a stern prompt re DPA -dated 22nd August 2006 as follows :-

-------------------------------

Dear Sir/Madam

 

I have not yet received any of the documents that I have requested in response to my Data Protection Act information request dated 13 July 2006.

 

1) You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges.

3) You have failed to provide me a complete list of interest rates that these charges have occurred.

4) You have failed to provide me a complete list of the interest

2) You have provided no notes, or documents relating to instances of manual intervention.

 

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, it is just an example of some of the information I am missing.

 

Accordingly, I request that you send me this information to me within seven days from the date of this letter or you will have failed to comply with your obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.

I again enclose fee of £10 for the above information.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

----------------------------------

So what to do next?

[Glenn UK]

You write back and basically tell them not to be so stupid.

 

They received your SAR and failed to request dat but did offer you money.

 

Stick to your timetable and insist they comply or take them to court.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

 

They cannot have it both ways, either they accept you who you say you are and supply the data or they dont.

 

To send you an offer to you and then say oh we need some further id is ludicrous and the courts will see that.