smackbat v Smile ***WON***

[Smackbat]

I've just posted this letter, I'm not going to accept their payoff!

"Thank you for your letter dated 2nd September 2006.

I am pleased to see that my complaint is finally being dealt with, and regard the refund of £3,292.50 as a step in the right direction. However I do not feel that this closes the complaint I have made.

On 25th September 2006 I filed court papers, with a final claim of £4,429.28. The breakdown of charges is as follows;

£3,417.42 for unlawful charges

£202.19 for debit interest

£689.67 in interest charges (pursuant to s69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% per annum, from the dates that the debits were made to my account until 25/09/06). Interest will then be added at a daily rate of 0.022% up to the date of judgment or earlier payment date.

£120 for court fees

In your most recent letter, you have stated that debit interest does not constitute a charge or fee and has not been refunded to my account. In my letter dated 8th August 2006, I stated that I was giving 14 days to respond and “If you do not respond or you do not respond positively within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect. If I have to do this I will be claiming the Debit Interest charges of £194.40 + £4.21 to be charged on 21/08/06 as well.”

I feel that I have a right to claim this back due to the unlawful handling of my account, and that if I had not had these unlawful charges levied on my account, I would not have had a need for an overdraft and therefore would not have incurred any charges.

You have also stated that £85 has already been refunded on 26/09/06, this was received after I had filed my claim so had not been taken into consideration at the time, thank you.

Your letter also informs me that the charges I list covered a period greater than 6 years. At that time I started my claim with my request to refund these charges on 08/08/06 all charges dating back to 21/08/00 were within this 6 year period. These charges now fall outside this 6 year period, however this is due to you not responding to my complaint until 02/10/06, therefore I am still claiming all charges up to 21/08/00.

I intend to continue my claim through the courts, unless full settlement is received before the court date."

[caro]

You can claim the interest on the charges only. You can always allow the court to settle the dispute over this if it cannot be agreed beforehand. Somehow though I don't think it would come to that. It is perfectly acceptable to claim back 6 years from the date of your preliminary letter, which I assume was August.

[techtalkonline]

Hi Smackbat,

 

I am glad that you are not settling for their paltry offer. Just a few pointers r. your letter.

 

As caro pointed out, you can only claim the portion of the interest which makes your account overlimit, i.e. If you have a £500 overdraft and a balance of -£480.00 when a £25 charge is applied, you can only claim the portion of debit interest on the £5.00 that you are now overdrawn. As you can see, this is an absolute nightmare to work out! How you would justify continuing to claim the debit interest, or how it would look if you suddenly removed it, well i am not sure about this one. Anyone have a good solution?

 

Regarding the wording for the daily rate of interest, this appears wrong to me. I think you meant to put 0.22p per day and not 0.022%? Then further down in your letter i think you contradict yourself. When you gave the breakdown of charges near the top, you claim £202.19 debit interest. Then further down you state £194.40 + £4.21 debit interest. This doesn't look good unless i am missing something?

 

I have just seen the top line:

I've just posted this letter, I'm not going to accept their payoff!

As in, posted on here or actually sent the letter to Smile? Not to worry if it is the latter. Just see what they come back with, hopefully a better offer!

 

Best of luck, we've got our fingers crossed for you.

[caro]

As caro pointed out, you can only claim the portion of the interest which makes your account overlimit, i.e. If you have a £500 overdraft and a balance of -£480.00 when a £25 charge is applied, you can only claim the portion of debit interest on the £5.00 that you are now overdrawn. As you can see, this is an absolute nightmare to work out! How you would justify continuing to claim the debit interest, or how it would look if you suddenly removed it, well i am not sure about this one. Anyone have a good solution?

 

This is not correct techtalk. You can claim interest on the entire £25.00 charge if you are overdrawn by that amount. The easy solution for the calculation of the interest is to use the sites spreadsheets which can be accessed from the bank templates library.

Regarding the wording for the daily rate of interest, this appears wrong to me. I think you meant to put 0.22p per day and not 0.022%?

Smackbats formula is spot on.

Then further down in your letter i think you contradict yourself. When you gave the breakdown of charges near the top, you claim £202.19 debit interest. Then further down you state £194.40 + £4.21 debit interest. This doesn't look good unless i am missing something?

You are missing the date. The first figure you quote is the debit interest as at the date the court claim was submitted in September. The latter figure you mention is the amount when Smackbat wrote his letter in August.

 

Please try to ensure that advice is accurate or it can cause unnecessary confusion and worry.

[techtalkonline]

This is not correct techtalk. You can claim interest on the entire £25.00 charge if you are overdrawn by that amount.

Agreed.

 

I truly believed this was not right, but now i have thought about this some, i can see where you are coming from. If the charge is illegal in the first place then so would the interest be.

 

Smackbats formula is spot on.

Agreed.

 

I was using information directly from the HMCS leaflet EX302 which states:

 

"0.00022 x the amount of your claim gives you the daily interest. For example, If you are owed £1,000, the rate of interest would be as follows: 0.00022 x 1,000 = 0.22 So the daily rate of interest is 22p"

 

Now, i couldn't get my head around this 0.022%. Mind you it was just past midnight and i had been up since 06:30! That's my excuse and i am sticking to it. But now, again i have given it some thought and although it is not a formula what the leaflet uses, it is indeed correct because 0.022% is exactlt the same as 0.22p!

 

You are missing the date.

Jesus, once again i agree!

 

Sorry, i don't have an excuse for this one.

 

Please try to ensure that advice is accurate or it can cause unnecessary confusion and worry.

Agreed!

 

I would like to apologise to Smackbat for my bungling attempt at a helpful posting. What an absolute load of garbage i wrote. I have been humbled by caro who correctly responded to it. Sorry Smackbat. As for you caro, that was a very diplomatic response, instead of saying "Please refrain from such crap again!" Points all taken on board.

 

Kind regards,

Colin.

[caro]

LOL You are forgiven Colin. It's not like me to be so diplomatic!

[Smackbat]

Thanks for examining that so closely guys, thought I'd sent them a load of crap then but I feel more assured now. Haven't heard anything back yet, but I have spoken to the court house today as I haven't received any paperwork. They sent it out to my road without a house number on it! clever. 28th September was the date of service, so they have until 12th October to file a defence or I win by default!

[Smackbat]

Thanks for examining that so closely guys, thought I'd sent them a load of crap then but I feel more assured now. Haven't heard anything back yet, but I have spoken to the court house today as I haven't received any paperwork. They sent it out to my road without a house number on it! clever. 28th September was the date of service, so they have until 12th October to file a defence or I win by default!

 

Bugger, they've acknowledged the service today, the 14th day, so they now have a 14 day extension. My maths tell me the 26th of October is D day now.

[Smackbat]

Silly me, should have checked my bank account before I posted that last message. They have now paid the remainder in full!

 

SO they have paid all my charges from 6 years and two months ago, my court fee, all the interest and most importantly they also paid the Debit Interest levied as well!!!! In total just over £4,400!

 

So everyone out there, include the debit interest because you wouldn't have had a need for the overdraft if they hadn't charged you

 

Thanks to everyone for your words of advise, especially Caro and Techtalk, I'll be making a donation as well.

[caro]

Cheers Smackbat - congratulations. Don't forget the survey and details for the litigation section.

 

I bet your weekend will start early!

[gazzah]

Congratulations and enjoy the windfall..time for them to pay my claim now, acknowledge claim on Monday and have until 4 Nov to file a defence.

[midge61]

well done on the win

[Robbop]

however all my direct debits have been cancelled. The first I knew about it was when I started to receive letters saying that my bank had cancelled the payments!!!!

Has this happened to anyone else?

 

Yes this has happened to me - but before I took action so I assume it is a standard tactic of theirs. They secure messaged me to tell me what they had done (note the tense!) and gave as a reason that it was to stop my account going over the limit. But the reason it was going to go over the limit was of course their excessive charges!!

[Robbop]

Oh and BTW

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

[closey]

Another win...fantastic news. Well done. Enjoy your money x