DG solicitors/first direct

[chelsea101]

Hi All

Can anyone help me with this

I have just recieved a letter from DG solicitors on behalf of first direct demanding full payment of my outstanding debt.

I originally had a current account,loan and credit card with first direct.My wife also had a loan and credit card with them.

When we got into difficulty repaying they closed the current account,put the loans and cards into one total debt and asked us to pay £350 a month, which we agreed to.

I have been paying this for around 18 months without missing a payment.

In december they sent me a loan agreement to sign for 12 months at £350 a month with the balance due at the end of 12 months.

I didn't sign it and continued to pay the agreed sum.

 

I have now recieved a letter from DG solicitors demanding full payment.

The letter says we have been instructed to take legal action against you in county court to recover the debt if they dont recieve full payment of the balance.To avoid legal action must pay within 14 days.Maybe able to arrange time to pay if I phone them immediately.

I am reluctant to do anything over the phone.

 

Any advice on where i go from here would be greatly appreciated

[Seminole]

When did you take out the loan and credit card- was it before or after 2007?

 

Have you received a default notice from FD for either the loan or the credit card?

[chelsea101]

credit cards were taken out around 1995

loans around 2002

I did recieve a default notice but will have to go throgh paperwork to see if it was loans,cards or both

[Seminole]

This is a tree shake and I doubt there is any intention to take you to court. You're currently paying a lot of money each month and provided that this is the most you can reasonably afford, they would be laughed out of court if they tried to get more.

 

There are three big things you could do:

 

1) Ask them for a copy of the original credit agreement for the card and loan under the Consumer Credit Act. If they don't provide this within 12 days then you can place the accountin dispute and stop paying until they do provide it. Given the age of the debt I think it's quite possible that they would have difficulty locating it and, even if they did, it may not be compliant with the requirements of the Act. There's a template to make this request in the Library templates section of this site and it costs £2.

 

2) Check to see whether they have applied any charges to the credit card account for late payment, over limit fees etc exceeding £12 and claim them back. Ditto for any such charges on the loan. Did they make you take out any PPI? If so you should be able to claim this back as well.

 

3) Check your budget to make sure that you can afford £350 a month. If this is causing you undue hardship then you should tell FD that you will be reducing your payments. At the end of the day only you or the court can tell FD what you will pay.

[chelsea101]

Thanks for your help

would I need to send a seperate cca request for each of the loans and credit cards

Should i send them to first direct and also do I need to reply to the solicitors

thanks

[Seminole]

The CCA should go to First Direct. If the loan and c card were taken out as separate agreements then you will need to ask for both of these in two separate letters and with two separate fees. You should send the letters either by recorded (not special) delivery or ask for proof of postage at the post office counter.

 

I would tend to ignore the solicitor but if you don't want to do so, send them a short letter stating that you have asked FD for copy agreements and you will carry on making payments in the meantime.

[chelsea101]

Thanks for your help

[Old Cogger]

DG Solicitors are HSBCs group so called solicitors, send letter stating you have requested CCA/ loan agreements.

[Guest HeftyHippo]

you will probably find that DG ignore your correspondence, or reply after a couple of months saying they need a repayment offer before they can consider it.

[chelsea101]

Thanks Mike and Hefty I will get a letter off to them and await the outcome of the cca requests

[Guest HeftyHippo]

seriously, one of their letters was damaged in the post so I wrote and asked them to resend it. A couple of months went by and they replied saying they couldn't consider my letter until I had agreed a payment plan with them!

 

They are the usual in-house muppets. Solcitors in name but pretty useless for all their threats. They wouldn't know a CCA you stuck it up their rear end and set fire to it.

[chelsea101]

just recieved reply to my cca request

they returned the postal orders with a letter saying

we refer to your letters

please note that we are only required to provide information relating to loan/credit card pursuant to section 77/78 of the consumer credit act 1974 where some sum in respect of that loan/credit card is,will or may become payable.Accordingly where a loan/credit card has been fully repaid, whether by way of a refinancing or otherwise,we regret that we are unable to provide information relating to that loan/credit card in response to any request which is made pursuant to that legislation.

 

ok so because they lumped the debts together they are saying the original agreements are no longer in force.

having not signed anything when they lumped these together and not signed the new loan agreements they have been sending me does anyone know where i stand in relation to the enforceability of these debts.

i have been reading the few posts i could find which are similiar but haven't found any information as to where i go from here and what my response should be if any if i'm contacted by dg again

[Guest HeftyHippo]

ask them, by acting stupid, if they mean the account is closed, dur, I'm think spell it out what happened, if they say they were refinanced, ask them for a copy of the refinancing agreement.

 

if they first say the account was closed, stupido, then when yuo ask for a copy of the refinaning agreement, that there is nt one. bingo, what are they trying to enforce? the account that was closed, or the non existinng agreement.

 

I think what they say about the CCA is roughly correct. you only get one if there is money due on it. once satisfied, youre not entitled, but they could still give yu one if they wanted

[chelsea101]

Hi hefty thanks for your quick reply

so shall i send a letter off to first direct asking if the loan/credit card accounts are now closed and if so could they send me a copy of the refinancing agreement

[Guest HeftyHippo]

think carefully, did they ask your consent to merge the accounts, in any way, using any language?

 

Then, think, what is your objective or angle of attack? If youre thinking that they illegally closed the accounts and lumped them together illegally, then what I would do is to write to them acting a bit thick, asking why they wont send the CCA because you thought you still owed money. choose your words to get them to say what happened to the account eg "I am sure I hadn't paid it off, but am pleased to hear that I did, can you tell me when I paid it off as I dont have a record of it and am in a bit of a muddle." what you want is for them to say you didnt pay them off stupido, they were closed and refinanced. So then you write back and say, silly me, can you tell me when they were refinanced (bevause I don't want to get in another muddle if you ask for those debts to be paid as well)? and tell me that they were definately paid off and closed (that explains why I can't find recent statements.

 

Then when they say, "sigh, yes they were definitely closed, and settled with a refinance", you say, "can I have a copy of the refinancing agreement?".

 

Oh course, they can't produce one, because they isn't one. Theyve then said the accounts were closed, and unless they can produce an agreement for the refinancing, they may have problems. I would caution you though that what FD/HSBC do, is to issue Default Notices, and close individual accounts, and put all the money in another 'account' that doesn't attract charges or interest. As far as I know, they can do that because you did sign agreements in the first place. Then you defaulted on the payments terms. (The debt still exists unless they broke the agreement terms as well by closing the accounts without issuing proper default notices.)

 

In that instance, for accounting purposes, they transfer the debts into another 'account' with no charges etc, and collect what they can. They are not charging interest however, simply collecting a negotiated payment. this new account is not bound by the CCA as there is no agreement for it. Its the same as closing your original accounts and making them pay in only.

 

This may have happened to you. If they didn't issue proper default notices for each account, they have goofed by closing the accounts (unless you agreed to close them and lump the balances). If they did issue proper default notices, I don't think they have done anythng wrong, but FD are pretty bad at issuing DNs.

 

In my case, they told me all I needed to know, including that they had closed the accounts, and gave me copies of the letters and (defective) DNs as well. I just needed to act a bit dumb and say 'how did that happen, I dont remember it'

 

Check if youve had Default Notices

[lord_tiger_putin]

I also have the privilege of dealing with DG Sorry Souls:grin::grin::grin:

 

Just for info: I received the 3rd letter in their series of letters (do not how long the series is).

 

I had a loan and a overdraft (with a truck load of theft charges) with HSBC and the letters I get from DG Sorry Souls have the loan amount (more or less, actually slightly less) on it but with my current account number. Never talked, wrote, dream, wisper or had a vision from HSBC combining it in an overdraft on the current account.:eek:

 

Seems like a common theme? :rolleyes:

 

Did send a SAR to HSBC, received their expected fob off letter, responded to that. Will see what that will reveal. On the other hand, HSBC did tell me that a full search under a SAR would not necessary answer my question:eek:, I should rather ask for selective data - pretty daft attempt to avoid revealing what they were doing!

[chelsea101]

thanks for your replys

I definately didn't sign anything when they put the debts together but at the time may well have agreed to them doing it over the phone.

I really cant remember what was said in the phone calls other than my monthly outgoing was being reduced dramatically.

I do remember agreeing to them closing my current account which they use the account number for me to make payments to.

They have also been charging me interest at a rate of 1.5% above base rate.

I also have a letter from them stating that if I continued with the payment they wouldn't pursue the debt any further.

 

So I take it that if I agreed over the phone for them to merge the debt the cca is no longer in force

Do I still need to ask if the accounts are closed and if so what they have in place for the alledged debt.

[Seminole]

Bump

 

I don't know the answer to this. Can anyone else help the OP?

[Guest HeftyHippo]

well chelsea, there is a sea of confusion that you need to resolve. It seems a common theme with HSBC group that they merge accounts, and I know at one point I was offered that over the phone, told that the advantage being that the interest would stop, the downside that the accounts would be closed and that meant no current account. I declined

 

I would act stupid and confused and let them tell you what they did. Teh alternative is to be upfront about what you know and your rights. The former puts them off their guard and they may tell you outright what they did and you can work out if they did wrong. The latter may be faster, if they admit to anything, but if they have done something wrong, they will delay and put up smokescreens. Either way, you need to know the facts.

 

I believe they can close several accounts and merge them. They can do that with your agreement, or they can close the accounts and do it without your agreement. If they close the accounts incorrectly without issuing proper default notices etc they have made a serious error which could make part of the debt uncollectable (recission or repudiation). But, if they had your agreement, they have done nothing wrong.

 

If they are charging interest etc then there has to be an agreement that governs the account. If you haven't signed anything, they may have kept the current account open (or the loan or whatever) and trasnferred other debts into that. If they did that with your consent, then there's nothing wrong, and if they had your consent to close the others, there should have explained what they were doing.

 

Obviously you need to find out what they did and how. Theyve already said you cant have the CCAs because the accounts were satisfied, so I would start there. The worry is that things weren't explained to you correctly, or at all. They cannot just close the accounts and transfer money into others and charge yuo interest.

[lord_tiger_putin]

I made a SAR to them and receive a fob off letter that include the following:

 

"You may find it more beneficial to request certain information from your local branch, and, if so, we may resolve your query quickly by providing a combination of specific data, guidance from your branch account manager and, where necessary, itemized printouts. The fee normally charged may be waived if a local search is undertake".

 

If you have the account numbers, or some of them, then you can try to get their "itemized printouts" that could tell you what they have done.

[Guest HeftyHippo]

FD seem to be particularly opposed to Subjecdt Access Requests, their usual objection being that your signature doesnt match the one they have on record

 

it seems they and HSBC are simpl;y difficult about SARs

[lord_tiger_putin]

The remark has been made before that if they feel that their is potentially damaging data, they will go out of their way not to adhere.

[chelsea101]

Thanks Hefty and others for your input.

 

I was going to go the sar route but maybe leave that for a later date.

 

I'll start with a simple letter asking that as they wont supply the cca's can they confirm that the loans and credit cards have been satisfied and refinanced