Bookworm v Barclaycard ***she's only been and won it! :-D***

[Bookworm]

I love your posts ! Good luck! I'll be watching with interest

 

Thank you. A fan AND a neighbour! I am twice blessed.

[t7ny]

Sorry Bookworm I must have been looking at the wrong date, It must have been when you joined rather than posted.

 

Thanks.

[woolfie]

Just wondering why you chose to give them 7 days in your letter rather than the more usual 14. Also would you mind if i pinched your letter and used it?

 

cheers

 

Woolfie

[Bookworm]

Because I'm impatient, and I feel that 21 days is more than sufficient, tbh. As it is, I let them get away with 3 extra days because of Easter.

 

Be my guest, help yourself, the more, the merrier, no copyright charges .

[woolfie]

That seems reasonable to me too.

 

Thanks for the copyrite free letter I owe you a drink!!

 

Woolfie

[Bookworm]

It's being one of those mornings, post-wise...

 

I got a reply, on the dot of the 7 days from my LBA!!! Woo-hoo!

 

Woo-hoo, my ****.

 

"Sorry we didn't reply to your previous letter, grovelling apology.

 

As to regards money, go f*** yourself. If I don't hear from you within 8 weeks, I'll assume your complaint is resolved."

 

Oh, all right. That's not exactly what it says. But that's exactly what it means.

 

They'll be hearing from me within 8 weeks all right... A lot sooner, actually...

 

Watch this space.

[Tinkerbelle]

Go get em!!

[Guest Lueeze]

Your doorstep sounded like mine today too Bookworm!

[johnfower]

Hows your claim going bookworm? Ive also started a claim against Barclaycard.

[Bookworm]

Well, after consultation, I am sending today a final final final letter (I wonder why they won't take me seriously! lol) as regards my SAR. This is to show my total and utter reasonableness to the judge. The deadline is now past, and they have no excuse, they haven't complied and I have given them 7 more days to comply in full with the SAR or I'll file straight off.

 

Watch this space!

[johnfower]

Hey bookworm, hows everything going with your claim?

[Bookworm]

Not a lot. Today was final deadline for complying with SAR, and I'm currently debating with myself (!!!) on which way to proceed.

 

I am hugely tempted to hit them with high estimated amount, and let them try to explain to judge why the correct amount might be less, and why, if they had the info, they didn't see fit to give it to me, despite my SAR... Either way, it could be uncomfortable for them. But there's a couple of issues with that, not least calculating the 8%...

 

How about you? Any news?

[Mogullen]

Hi Bookworm.

How is it going with this claim. As I am faced with exactly the same decision to make on the 30th of this month.

I have already sent them a letter giving them a further 7days for SAR.

I was wondering which way you have gone wether you sent in an estimated claim or not.

[Bookworm]

I'm going to, I'm working on a few difficulties, namely working out the 8% APR on an estimated amount with dates unkown. I'm in no hurry, I'll file it once I'm happy with my figures. They probably think I've gone away. More fools them.

[Bookworm]

Sorry, I forgot to update this thread.

 

While I'm working out interest and what not, I got letter from B/card. NO mention of my SAR, but this:

 

Sorry you feel charges unfair, we think fair and transparent, clear T&Cs, charges avoidable by staying within limit and paying on time.

 

Disagree with your legal analysis. T&Cs are clear.

 

(Now comes the fun bit):

 

copy statements sent show that charges between june 04 and march 06 total £120 (inc refunds). Since you have had few charges since 2004, the pattern indicates that overlimit & late payments would have occurred between 1995 and 2001 (eg when they didn't charge, you see?).

 

Putting above to one side, on this occasion and as a GOGW, they'll refund £60. No admission of liability AND confidentiality.

 

Are these people serious? Or do they really take me for some kind of moron?

I'm not going to go into specifics right now in case of prying eyes, but they have just made my claim a little bit easier to win... That should be fun, I'll keep you guys posted.

[joneshousehold]

Bookworm. I sent a DPA request to Barclaycard which they have only partially replied to. I have received some statements and a print out of other activity that does not show statements as such. However I managed to identify 30 occasions when charges were applied from the activity reports. I used standard dates to calculate interest (they tend to apply charges on the same date looking at the statements I do hold.) I have used this to draw up a claim of sorts and have included a comment about failing to reply to DPA and that the courts may require them to explain themselves when I take it there.

 

I haven't actually taken it to court yet although the LBA deadline has now expired as I already have one on going and another about to start so I thought I had better stagger them a bit.

 

Hope this information helps but do let me know if you want to know anything else.

[Bookworm]

Yes, we seem to have received the same info. You see, though, they're saying that the majority of those times where I went overlimit or made late payments would have happened pre-2001, and therefore, although the printout shows a late payment, for example, it does not follow that a penalty charge would have been applied.

 

It's total hogwash, of course. And they know it. But they've painted themselves in a corner. Although they only refer to the existing statements they've sent, they draw an inference based on that pattern. Unfortunately for them, they'll have a real hard time proving me wrong by producing the actual documents, when they have said they couldn't provide them when I made a SAR. Either they lied, or they deliberately circumvented the DPA. Oh dear.

[joneshousehold]

Can you not tie the entries in the activity reports for the periods when you have statements. I think I did to establish a pattern and then just adopted the same rules when I only had the activity reports. (Sorry if this is a case of grannies sucking eggs, I am trying to remember what I did but have a few glasses of wine clouding my memory!)

 

If as it seems from your posting they say that the system did not apply in the earlier periods, it would seem very strange. Could you adopt the old 'prove it to the court' approach?

[Bookworm]

No, they're saying that they only started applying charges from mid 01. Sadly, the earliest statements I have are from Sept 01, so I can't confirm whether that's the truth. I suspect that if they say that, they could actually prove it in this instance, and that could make my case shaky.

 

The statements they have sent do show that things got better form 2004. Well, they would, that's when we consolidated. So, they make a massive leap and say: "Oh well, then, your breaches must mainly come from 95 - 01, when we didn't charge for them, therefore, you wouldn't have got charges, so you can't reclaim."

 

Of course, I know it's BS, because I know that end of 2000 was when things got hairy for us, when DH lost his job, and that before that, we were running our accounts pretty well. 01-04 was when things were at their worst, and I can prove that quite easily.

 

You are of course quite right in your methodology, and I thank you for your insights. As a matter of curiosity, when did you open your account? If it's pre- 01, would you have any old statements lying around, and would any of them show any charges at all? I can't believe they didn't charge before, I'd love it someone had any information there.

 

And you're also right in the "prove it" answer. They are making assumptions based on the last 2 yrs of my account behaviour, which is absurd. For starters, we got our mortgage in 96, and a badly run c/c account would have been a surefire way to get turned down for mortgages. Let's not forget that a judge will decide on probabilities, and as long as I can show that the rest of our finances were ok pre 01, they will have a hard time convincing a judge otherwise.

 

All in all, they have a very shaky position, and they know it. Offering me £60 when I'm looking at anythign between 1.5 and 2.6 k (before interest, and depending on how I work it out) is damn cheek.

[joneshousehold]

Sadly I don't have any statements earlier, I shredded them and now wish I hadn't. I know we have had the account for ages. The earliest date on the DPA report is November 1992 and this may be when the a/c was opened.

 

I can't remember if they did always charge but I do believe they have for a long time and my gut reaction is that it was earlier than 2001. I have no evidence but I do think they are wrong. However our report does say the last time an annual fee was charged was December 2000 and this may support their statement. It's not definitive but then neither is my claim so we go into this with a pretty level position (that is we are both as shaky as each other!). They however do have the data so they have a great responsibility to prove it I believe.

 

I took the view that it was for them to prove my calculations are wrong. About half of our claim relates to 2001 and earlier so there is a strong incentive for them to show us the true amount.

 

I was pretty cross with them over the DPA report. It is almost a foreign language and there was no idiot's guide to terminology which the other institutions have supplied. It took me ages to work out what everything meant and even then some were guesses. If it gets to court I think I might have to adopt my very best 'little girl lost' approach and say I did the best I could despite the lack of help from BC. Mind you as we all know it won't get that far!

 

Good luck with your claim and let me know if you want any more information from me.

[Bookworm]

The problem is we have to be prepared as if we were going to go to court, as if there are too may holes/variables, they might decide to chance it on the grounds that person looks as if they don't know what they're doing... The stronger our advance case, the better the odds they'll cave in.

 

Good luck to you too, don't hesitate to contact me if you need mutual support!

[joneshousehold]

Thanks very much. Good luck with your too!

[libertie]

I am just in the middle of going through my statements for Barclaycard. I kept all mine and they date from July 1999. At the moment it appears that i missed several payments and I can find no penalty charges at that time for missing payments or for late payments. They used to politely remind me that I had forgotten to make a payment and include the minimum payment in with the next months request. On my account there used to be a yearly membership fee, but never any penalties until a statement for Feb 2002. A late payment charge for £15, rising to £20 in Sept 02 and it has been that charge ever since. I believe it was around this time that they also got rid of the annual fee, probably they realised how much more money they could make by implementing late payment penalties.

Hope this helps, though I'm sure this is not what you wanted to hear.

[Robertxc]

I think it's important to remember that in small claims the judge is unlikely to throw your claim out just because the other side can prove that the amount is wrong - especially if your numbers are based on complex interest calculations. What will almost certainly happen is that the judge will ask you if you agree with their revised figure, and if you do, he'll simply amend your claim. If you don't, he'll probably adjourn the case so that the two sides can try to agree a figure. I was in court once and when the sheriff discovered a mistake in my claim form he simply crossed it out and wrote in the correction!

[Bookworm]

I agree, Robert, but from your experience, how would a judge react if that revised figure only came up when they submitted numbers they were asked for in a SAR, and refused to do so, therefore effectively forcing the claimant in submitting an estimated amount? What's your feel on that?

 

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