Contract terminated so why charge interest?

[TinaTurner2]

Evening!

 

We're just about to jump into a dispute with Egg and I wondered if someone could give their views please.

 

We are one of the 160,000 who's Egg contracts were terminated in March 2008. We had a balance but were not in default.

 

We are happy to pay our balance but our view is that we're not accepting any interest adding to our account since they terminated the account on the basis that, when we took out the card back in about 1999 we agreed for them to charge interest in exchange for giving us a credit card with a credit limit. Now they've taken away our card and terminated the agreement and this is not the facility that we signed up to.

 

So, we want Egg to stop charging interest on our balance and give us back the interest they've taken since March 2008.

 

We've written to them to this extent but they didn't answer. We wrote the SAR letter but they didn't answer. We've just written the SAR reminder letter now.

 

In the meantime, we stopped paying this month. They've called about 20 times and I keep telling them to call at the weekend as my husband works away in the week. A chap called 30 minutes ago asking me to get him to call them. Which I said no, call when he's here. He said they weren't available at the weekends. He asked if I had another number for him to which I said that if he hadn't registered another number with them then it wasn't for me to hand it out. I asked him to write to my husband. He said he couldn't. I said "You can't write to him?". He said, no. I said again, "You can't write to him? That's bizarre". He said if I could pass a message on to my husband then I would be really helping my husband out of 'a pickle'. I asked him if he was supposed to be telling me (not being the account holder) that my husband was 'in a pickle'. He said thankyou for your time and put the phone down.

 

I have no idea why they haven't responded to our previous 2 letters, nor why they can't write to him.

 

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

[Undercover-Elsa]

Well done on taking them to task on this.

From now on though I'd strongly advise that neither you nor your husband should ever discuss this on the phone with them. Anything they tell you verbally can/will be denied. They will bully and threaten in a way they are unable to do in writing.

So, keep everything in writing from now on and send everything by recorded delivery, checking with Royal Mail that it arrives.

If you haven't done so already, I would also send a CCA request, which gives you a little more protection against them than a missing SAR, should they not comply within the 12 +2 day time limit.

Let's see if they have a valid agreement.

How long since did you send the SAR?

 

kind regards,

Elsa x

[Mistermind]

Credit card debit interest is much higher than loan account interest available in a competitive free market. Credit carholders agree to the high interest rate because unlike loan accounts credit cards offer the facility of charging purchases and drawing cash advances up to the credit limit with no questions asked.

 

Premium interest is justified by a premium service, i.e. a service as well as a debt owing. After Egg closed down the premium service due to no fault from the cardholder, credit card balance was for all practical purposes converted into an outstanding loan. Whereas it is hard to argue for complete cessation of interest on an outstanding loan, not hard at all to seek arbitration from the regulator OFT or appear before a judge bringing a case of Unfair Terms, to retrospectively apply to January 2008 --

 

why credit card level interest continues to be charged on a loan account defying market norms.

[TinaTurner2]

We've now received copies of the contract and it's a potentially unenforcebale one. We also received all the statements, etc.

 

We had a response from Egg about interest being charged and they sent a response that said that we agreed to the terms and conditions and that it's in term blahty-blah. That terms says something along the lines of....after the agreement has ended we shall continue charging interest and fees, etc

 

As that term doesn't exist in the T&Cs that were sent to us with the copy CCA we wrote back asking when and how we agreed to those terms.

 

They then sent back a copy of someone elses T&Cs (yep, has their name on but no address) which was the same T&Cs as came with our CCA (so the correct ones). The termination clause in this contract doesn't say anything about charging interest, etc. So we wrote back to thank them that they have now confirmed that we didn't agree to the terms they sent in their first letter, wondering why they sent the T&Cs with someone elses name on, and putting the account in dispute because of them charging interest, unenforceable contract etc, and asking them to take a fresh look at our original dispute.

 

That was 23rd July.

 

We had a letter today from Capital Credit Agencies which says that they've had no contact with us (eh?? we've sent about 11 letters since June! and a letter on 23rd July sent recorded that they haven't responded to!) and they'll be passing the debt to a dent agency if we don't respond within 72 hours.

 

My husband has just rang to say they can't refer the debt because the account is in dispute and they haven't responded to the dispute. The operative asked for all the details of the dispute because he couldn't see the details and we refused stating that it's all in the letter. He said that if we didn't pay then the account would be placed in default. We said that the banking code of conduct stops them from doing this and he just repeated himself.

 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the operative has asked us to pay a sum of £1 which will show Egg that 'we are willing to pay'.

 

We don't understand this. We currently owe 3 payments at a total of just less than £1k. How on earth is paying £1 going to help.

 

We have a sneaking suspicion that they are asking us to pay £1 for a reason and that this will somehow compromise our position.

 

Can anyone shed any light??

[TinaTurner2]

Anyone??

[Undercover-Elsa]

Well whatever the reason, it's going to be of benefit to them and not to you.

Possibly...by making a payment you are reaffirming your agreement to pay post termination

or to stop the statute barred clock ticking

or to get your debit card details

 

I'd stick to your guns..insist it is in dispute...but don't phone them again..keep it in writing.

 

Elsa x

[wazir]

I had a letter from Cap Credit Agencies this week. Note it is part of Egg banking. My response letter sets a deadline for them to reply of 3 calendar weeks from receipt of the letter (sent recorded). Failure to reply to my challenges on the 'Egg Card Agreement' by then means they are accepting my arguments. Further phone calls or other non written contact not answering my original letter (sent in May, reply promised within eight weeks, none received) will be regarded as harassment and may be reported to regulators and/or the police, along with a copy of this letter. Sent it to both Egg and CC Agencies. Letter from CC Agencies had a signature that was illegible and appeared to have been faxed. Not sent recorded either.

[TinaTurner2]

Well, in view of any reasons to the contrary, we decided to start paying the 1 pound per month and have sent the first payment today.

 

We also followed it up with a complaint about the letter from the Credit Services wing stating that we HAVE been in constant contact and that a dispute is still outstanding. And that we accept their offer of paying 1 pound per month in order to stop action until our dispute is resolved AMICABLY.

 

This is one of the unenforceable contracts but I'm not sure how we'll see the results of the test case now that PT isn't going to publicise the result.

[Undercover-Elsa]

Don't worry I'm sure it will filter through

[TinaTurner2]

We issued proceedings against Egg at the beginning of October. They returned the Acknowledgement of Service but they didn't file a defence in the timeframe. So we applied for judgement in default which was issued yesterday.

 

No doubt they will apply for it to be set aside. No idea on what grounds as they had a solicitor working for them so should have known the process. Although they did write to the court to say we hadn't sent the further particulars of claim but we sent it signed for and had proof of it being delivered so a bit of a porky (or 'arse from elbow' syndrome). Anyway, the court agreed they had no claim and advised us to go ahead with the default judgement.

 

Meanwhile.....A couple of days after they responded to the summons, someone from ResolveCall turned up on the doorstep. We sent them away with a flea in the ear. When we spoke to Egg to complain - because the account is in dispute and they shouldn't be sending Debt Collection Agents round - they said the account isn't in dispute. We told them that it most definately was as we had issued proceedings against them and they had acknowledged them so were fully aware. Their operative said "No, an account can only be in dispute if an issue has been raised with the ombudsman". What an idiot.

[mills1]

Egg always have the opinion that an account can only be in dispute if they say it is, so no change there.

[Undercover-Elsa]

We're in dispute

No we're not

yes we are..Egg really crack me up!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM

Edited November 18, 2010 by Undercover-Elsa

[victoria_siempre]

Thanks Elsa

 

It's rare that I laugh this early in the day! And I recall the original sketch.

 

I've had similar problems with egg and CCAgencies and would pay them £1 per month save that I complained about them phoning my OH at work.

 

Whilst they say they'll stop phoning (at this time), they maintain the right to 'phone. It's not harassment, just being 'helpful'. It's their 'final response'. Complain to the FOS if you have an argument.

 

This is not an argument. yes it is.

 

love

 

vic

[Undercover-Elsa]

Report them to the Ministry of Silly Walks!

 

Going back to Tina, well done on the default judgement. What were the POC?

 

Elsa x

[TinaTurner2]

Summary of POC was that there was no allowance in the original T&Cs for them to continue charging interest and applying charges after the account was contractually terminated. Egg said "yes there is, it's in another set of terms from some later date". I said "but my original terms says you can only fix mistakes in the terms if it's not detrimental to me. and that's detrimental to me. so you can't do it". Egg said "we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, that's our final answer"

 

So went to court.

 

Anyway, they continued debt collection activity after the got the judgement but they didn't settle the judgement. We complained to the Ombudsman. Egg then said it had all been a silly mistake and they would put a hold on debt collection activity until the matter was settled. That letter was dated 26th Nov. 2nd Dec they issued a DN. We wrote and said something along the lines of "what the 'eck are you doing? you said you wouldn't do this!". They said they could do whatever they liked. The DN was for £1.5k and didn't take into account the £4k they owed us. So it's invalid. February they issued another DN. Still wrong as didn't take into account the judgement. This week they terminated the account (again?!?) due to no response to DN.

 

Judgement order is still outstanding. In November they said they were going to apply to have it set aside. To date they haven't.

[couresportivo]

Hi

 

I am in a similar position. I wrote to them offering to pay reduced interest payments and stopped DD while they replied. Now been passed to DCA. Was there an outcome?

[TinaTurner2]

Hi

 

smEgg applied to have the CCJ set aside but the judge denied it at hearing in April 2011. smEgg then immediately went and logged a default on the credit file (even though smEgg had marked the record had settled in Feb 2009).

 

We raised a complaint with smEgg in May 2011 which was ignored.

 

We then raised a complaint with the Ombudsman about the Default in August 2011. smEgg then wrote to us in September saying that it was the same complaint that we'd made in November so they were associating them together. Obviously it cannot have been the same complaint as the thing we complained about (the Default) didn't exist until May. We think smEgg did this because you only have 6 months to raise a complaint with the Ombudsman and they were trying to make out that the 6 months had passed. But we wrote to the Ombudsman pointing this out.

 

In the meantime, smEgg got taken over by BarclayCad. We already had a card with BC, all bobbing along smoothly with no arrears or anything. smEgg didn't send BC the full files so BC saw that smEgg had defaulted the account and so they suspended our BC card! We spoke to them saying that they didn;t have the full info and there was a complaint with Ombudsman. BC said tough and wouldn;t reverse the suspension.

 

smEgg sent their internal files to Ombudsman but they didn't contain any reference to any defaults. So we duly sent our copies instead plus all documentation that had passed between us - just in case there was anything else smEgg had missed out

 

Was contacted by the Ombudsman a month ago out of the blue to say that Barclays had reviewed the case and were offering a settlement. Not only did they revers the crap on the credit file (in fact, they deleted the record altogether), they arranged for smEgg to pay the county court judgement in full including interest, agreed that no further interest or charges would be added.

 

And we had a letter from their solicitors yesterday saying the the account balance had been amended to be zero.

 

So pretty happy with the outcome

[TinaTurner2]

Forgot to mention...the default on the credit file did not take into account the outstanding county court judgement so it was unlawful - that's why we complained to the ombudsman.

 

Also, as the agreement was terminated, they no longer had permission to report on credit files.

[couresportivo]

TT thanks for quick reply could you pm me your email address

 

thanks