MBNA sold debt before DN expired

[banker_rhymes_with]

Hello Kayyak!

 

Don't write to them, just send them a full SAR and wait to see what comes back. If you have/had two Accounts, i.e. in your name and in your OH name, then send them two SARs, one for each person, and do not send them together...no point alerting them you are linked in anyway.

 

Send that to The Company Secretary at their Registered Office (see the bottom of the letterhead). It's £10 per SAR, but you only need one per person, not per Account.

 

By all means send the DCA a s78(1) CCA Request, and also a SAR too, to see what comes back from them.

 

My advice is to therefore hold back on the letters, but get the S-A-Rs and CCAs off.

 

It's far more important to get the ammunition first before taking too many shots at them!

 

Cheers,

BRW

[banker_rhymes_with]

Hello Kayyak!

 

I've already got both SARs, OH screen print reads:

8.2.10 NOD sent 8.2.10 exp 25.2.10

19.2.10 sold to Direct Legal

19.2.10 sold 18.2.10 balalnce at sale was £total

 

That'll do nicely for your OH!

 

But do check your own S-A-R to see if it says the same sort of thing.

 

Although in terms of your OH, it confirms the Sale Date and Amount. Do also check the rest of the details with a Fine Toothed Comb, and cross-check everything with particular emphasis on dates and Account Numbers.

 

Note the main Account Number when the Account started, and look for when that changed, say, when they issued a new Card (if it was a Card Account) or when they closed down the Account at the end. Follow these details all the way through, and see if it tells you when the AC was wrapped up by MBNA.

 

That final stage is called the Charge-Off, and is the point when they write the Debt off against Tax. By this point MBNA will usually have ballooned the Debt into orbit via their helpful maximum Interest Rate and many Charges!

 

Compare the Account Number with the s87(1) Default Notice. Do not accept anything at face value, and double check the digits and dates.

 

You may now spot their motives for ramping up Charges and Penalty Interest, because it inflates the Debt without anyone having to do anything: you on the one hand need not spend anything so no money changes hands, and they on the other, just sit back and watch the sucker balloon into a bigger Debt, at no further cost to them. Simples!

 

This does two things:

 

 

• It maximises their Charge-Off amount for Tax purposes, i.e. they set that off against other Profits so they get to pay less Tax (so the Tax Man loses out), i.e. £10,000 written off is not as good as £14,000 written off, because the latter saves them more Tax.
  

 

• It maximises their Debt Sale amount, because most DCAs will buy Debts from them at a few pence in the pound, i.e. a percentage of the Debt. You can see that, say, 5% of £10,000 is worth less to them than 5% of £14,000, so MBNA will pump up the Debt at the end to make sure the greedy DCAs will pay more (the DCA may lose out if they cannot get anything, but I doubt anyone will lose any sleep there...although you too lose out, because you now get a snarling DCA chasing you even harder than usual because they have their piggy little eyes focussed on a larger amount).
  

 

• Needless to say, if the DCA recovers the whole Debt from you, it's unlikely that MBNA will reverse the Tax Write Off! It's like magic, one Debt turns into two the same size as the first! Easy money if you can get it!
  

 

It may help if you set the key dates out into a Spreadsheet, like a large Calendar. Start with the oldest date at the bottom, and work up, adding all the days for every Month, and noting Weekends and Months, and Years. Then insert the details that you know, then the details from the SAR. Enter everything from the initial making of the Agreement, to Interest Rises to Credit Limit Rises, to any other Debt that they offered you along the way. You may spot they have made other errors, or spot a pattern such as, say, ramping up a Card Limit such that you need a Loan 12 Months later...and guess what arrives 12 Months later?

 

Going back to the DCA, the key now is to fine tune the Termination of the Agreement(s), and pin that down via any and all of the following:

 

 

• s87(1) Default Notice Date, Posting Date and Date of Service (note Account Number).
  

 

• s87(1) Default Notice Remedy Date.
  

 

• Termination Date (note Account Number).
  

 

• Charge-Off Date (note Account Number).
  

 

• Date of Sale to DCA (note Account Number).
  

 

If any of the above are not in that order, or the Account Number does not match what you expect, then Christmas may have come early for you depending on what is not in the correct order. But, just to be sure, send a S-A-R for each of you to the DCA, and see what comes back from that.

 

The key is not to alert them to a problem, wait until you have secured the hard evidence via S-A-R, backed up by your own Files.

 

The Letter from MBNA is just pind and wiss if the evidence from the S-A-R(s) reveals the weak claims in the letter to be complete nonsense.

 

HTH

 

Cheers,

BRW