My battle with the Lloyds, Gm-Law, FV-1 ameoba's

[TripTens]

Hi all,

 

Just wanted to post on here to say a big thank-you to all the contributors whose posts have given me a tremendous amount of insight into dealing with dca's and the courage to stand up to the bully-boy tactics that they employ.

 

I am currently helping my better half with her dealings with the pondlife at Gm-Law, here is a brief summary of her story so far:

 

Back in 1997 she ran up an unauthorized overdraft of around £1000 on her Lloyds current account with her chequebook, which (as far as she remembers) was passed to Gm-Law when she couldn't repay at a satisfactory rate for Lloyds.

 

Since that time she has been making payments to Gm-Law at a rate of £25 per month, as a rough calculation she has repaid around £3500! ,without really thinking about how much she had paid off.

 

What triggered my involvement was when she was reduced to tears the other day on the phone by an incredibly aggressive sounding phone bully from Gm who threatened her that he would 'get my client Lloyds-Tsb to add interest on to this loan from when it was first taken out if she didn't come up with a better repayment plan' and basically implying that she was **** for ever having fallen in to debt in the first place. After he hung up on her for daring to argue her case, we attempted to call them back to complain and were met with sarcasm and further veiled threats regarding increasing the amount owed 'if she didn't behave accordingly'

 

Naturally, as the queen would say, I was not amused by this and began furiously googling to try and establish the facts regarding her rights in this case when I stumbled across this site and the veritable goldmine of information it contains. After several hours of reading it seemed that the best approach would be to throw up a CCA and dispute the account in order to hit them where it hurts, in the pocket! I must stress that my girlfriend has every intention of paying back the money owed, but it would appear that she has already done this 3 times over now and I do not see why Gm-Law should make a penny out of the 'administration of her account' when they seem to think it is ok to treat her so poorly.

 

After reading several similar horror stories on here she has now issued a CCA to Gm-Law and we are keenly awaiting a response and I will update this post as events unfold (hopefully in a positive fashion!). Apologies for the length of this post, it has turned out to be a very long (and rambling!) thank-you to those whose contributions have helped us.

Best wishes to you all

[Bazooka Boo]

Whilst waiting for their response, I am assuming that there is no further payments being made?

£3,500 for a £1000 debt is in my eyes extortion and should lead to a counter sue to have that money returned.

 

You MUST make a complaint to Lloyds immediately and question this http://www.lloydstsb.com/contact_us/complaints_procedure.asp

If they are unaware of this GM-Law, who appear to be the Sols for Global Debt recovery, then some questions need raising. So it might be that Lloyds passed this onto Global Debt first however the length of time that has transpired is going to make this nigh on impossible to trace, although they did threaten telling Lloyds to add the interest from when it was removed, so maybe Lloyds do still have some involvement.

 

I'd be bloody seething, you should drop your payments to the minimum token £1 a month, and please tell me this is paid via standing order and not DD? If it isn't cancel the DD immediatley and set up a SO, besides you'll only be paying them a £1, send them the CCA request, with a £1 postal order made out to Lloyds and whilst you are waiting for them to fail make a formal complaint about Lloyds GM-Law and Global Direct to the OFT&TS via http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/contact

 

And for the extremely immature GM-Law a formal complaint to http://www.legalcomplaints.org.uk/home.page

[TripTens]

Thankfully yes the payments go out as a SO not a DD and yes these have been suspended pending further communication from GM.

Thanks for the advice and the links, I will chase them up first thing tomorrow am. I have been trying to get hold of LLoyds debt recovery team on a number found online, but so far no-one has picked the phone up regardless what time of day we have tried calling.

As for Lloyds still being involved my research thusfar would lead me to believe it was probably just an empty threat designed to pressure the GF into stumping up cash on the spot, the letters that we have from GM so far all have the FV-1 name on them as a reference and as I understand it this mysterious lot will have pobably purchased the debt from Lloyds.

[TripTens]

UPDATE

 

Received this letter back from Gm-Law today:

 

Dear Sir/Madam

We acknowledge your request. We do not hold the information you require therefore we have referred the matter to our client and await their response.

Meanwhile we have suspended collection activity

Yours faithfully

Gm-Law

 

Does this mean that the 12+2 day rule for them to get the necessary paperwork to me is not valid until their client receives the request, or does this time limit still apply? Does anyone think I should now send a CCA to FV-1 directly? (I am unable to find an address for them that is more recent than 2007)

 

Rather interestingly they have also sent another letter dated the day after stating that they have 'Undertaken a review of your account and in line with our acceptance of your offer it is now time to increase the payment amount', this letter comes complete with an invite to fill in the enclosed statement of means form or telephone the above number to discuss your account!

 

Surely this letter is an attempt, despite the statement in the previous letter that collection activity has been suspended, to collect money and would put them in breach of the OFT guidelines on debt collecting which state that they cannot 'ignore and/or disregard claims that debts have been settled or are

disputed and/or continue to make unjustified demands for payment

 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as always

Edited August 10, 2010 by TripTens
Poor spelling

[Bazooka Boo]

All it means is that they are acting for their clients 'Lloyds' which IMO is a damn good thing as Lloyds will have all of your data still, so there could be scope for getting a rebate on any overpayment from them.

 

The time limit is exactly the same, as soon as they (GM-Law) have gone past 12 days from receipt of your request you can place the acount in dispute until such time that they provide the agreement, you can also 'legally' withhold payment.

 

I would ignore the other letters, just file them away with the date you received them, for future reference.

 

Sorry I'm a little confused Why are FV-1 (Morgan Stanley) rattling your cage?

Not for the same account surely?

 

Either way, there is NO LEGAL requirement for you to send these a copy of your I&E, the ONLY person who is legally able to view such information is a Judge, not some tin pot DCA.

[TripTens]

Thanks for that info Bazooka Boo, I will take your comments on board and hang fire until the 12 days is up.

FV-1 is a reference quoted on every piece of paperwork that we have received, but the GF is positive that these repayments are for the Lloyds overdraft and that she has never had any dealings with Morgan Stanley. The research that I have done so far seems to suggest that FV-1 are a company that purchased debt from a number of companies, HSBC, Lloyds & MBNA included, although I have only done limited research on them so I will bow to anybody elses superior knowledge.

[Bazooka Boo]

The Post code FV-1 use when put into the register of data controllers off loads Morgan Stanley as the addressee.

 

I must have missed the bit about the Lloyds account being an OD, if that is the case then this will be a little harder to prove as they will tell you OD's don't come under the CCA, technically they are right, except that it doesn't come under the acts you would have requested. There's a lot of research going into the exact part of the act your required to ask them to produce at the minute, and it gets very confusing.

 

Who was sent the CCA for the Lloyds acct? GM-law? They will no doubt come back with it doesn't apply to OD, not to worry, cross that bridge if you come to it..

[TripTens]

Yes the CCA was sent to Gm-Law, unfortunately I am at work at the moment and do not have any paperwork or any research links to hand, but I am sure that I found a thread somewhere relating to the use of the CCA for unauthorised overdrafts I will dig it out tomorrow at some point and post it up here...

[Bazooka Boo]

Ok will look in tomo..

[TripTens]

TYVM for your help Bazooka Boo

[TripTens]

Here we go then links relating to whether OD's apply to overdrafts:

 

Abs V. Lowell

 

Gaznak's Thread

 

Jon's Thread

 

I think that there are other instances where the CCA has been used to successfully contest the validity of an OD on here, but I appear not to have saved the links, I am going to have another trawl through and see what I can find.

 

I think though the bottom line is that there is legal precedent for use of the CCA in our case and I have to wonder whether the scumbags involved, having demonstrated their ineptitude previously, would be all that keen to contest me should I have to fight them all the way.

 

I hope I am not counting chickens before they have hatched though!

[TripTens]

Here we go then links relating to whether OD's apply to overdrafts:

 

What I actually meant was whether CCA's apply to overdrafts not OD's