Marbles/HFC Bank - weird letter?

[jim1972]

The postman just arrived, & in my stack of mail was a weird letter from Marbles. It goes like this:

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

Thank you for your letter dated 07 September 2010 regarding the credit agreement. I am sorry that you have found case for complain & I appreciate you taking the time to bring the matter to our attention.

 

At the moment we are unable to trace the reconstituted version of the executed agreement & are therefore not in a position to provide a copy at this time. However, we did provided a copy of the signed application form & current Ts & Cs. The signed agreement was made with HFC Bank Ltd & we can confirm that their procedure has always been to obtain the customer's signature to an agreement containing the prescribed terms before entering into a credit card agreement.

 

The regulations define what is required of a "copy". Whilst regulation 3 provides "every copy of an executed agreement... shal be a true copy". Regulation 3(2) (b) provides that a copy can omit any signature box, signature or date of signature. [?!?!?!]

 

Your account was charged off on t26 February 2010 & the current balance owing is £.

 

As we have been unable to provide the original Ts & Cs, we will not seek to enforce the agreement as defined by the case of McGuffick vs RBS. However, even if an agreement is unenforceable, the contract still has legal effect & is not void, the lender is merely prevented from seeking an enforcement order from the court.

 

I note from your letter you are also disputing liability for this account but have given no basis for this dispute. As we have provided a copy of the signed agreement & you have not disputed the fact you have had the benefit of the agreement, we do not see on what basis you as disputing the liability. We will continue with our normal collections & credit reference reporting activities.

 

I hope you understand my reasons for being unable to agree with your complaint. If, however, you still remain unhappy you can refer your concerns to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

 

 

If you do wish to refer the matter, you must do so within 6 months from the date of this letter.

 

Your faithfully,

 

 

Customer Relations

 

Can I get a comment or half-dozen on this please?

[dpick]

What a load of old crap. They cannot find a reconstituted agreement prats. That letter is not even worth a reply but keep it they admit they cannot find any signed agreement.

 

dpick

[jim1972]

This is what I thought; does it mean that my £ may be written off if they can't come up with the necessary paperwork?

[firstship]

It is very unlikely that your debt will be written off,the part of their letter states "being unable to produce a copy of the original signed agreement means it is not enforceable in court"is true ,however the debt will still remains.Did you CCA them and the letter you have on your 1st thread is their reply?????????,did you send letter"account in dispute"??????if not do this.The rest of their letter is K..........rap.If you have sent the account in dispute letter,if you so wish you do not have to pay anything,however you will get a black listing on your Credit File and the account will be passed to a DCA,which they must not do when the account is in dispute,if this happens there is a template letter on the Cag file to cover this situation,if you are unsure we can help you.......FS

[PRBrown]

That's a good letter to receive - I got a similar one many months ago. It effectively means that they have given up and it's one of the few banks that will almost (sort of) admit they don't have an enforceable agreement. I did eventually receive a copy of an application form that was so laughable that even they didn't have the gaul to suggest it was an agreement. They will go through the usual processes of asking for their money and defaulting you, but if that doesn't bother you then I'd not lose any sleep over it. I had a couple of additional too-and-fro's, mostly caused by me writing to them, and then no response. I've not had a single telephone call from them.

 

Even though my account was in dispute with them and they acknowledged there was a dispute - didn't stop them defaulting me either - I received a letter from a DCA about 5 months after my last correspondence with threats they couldn't carry out. A reply to them telling them to get lost, a complaint to them for what they said in their letter (with a grovelling apology in reply saying they were "acting in good faith" from the information supplied by their client) and a complaint to the OFT (why make it easy for them?) since they were under caution for the content of previous letters, and haven't heard anything for the last 2 months.

 

It's been almost a year since I last paid them and they don't seem to be in a hurry to do much about it. I've no doubt I'll hear from other DCA's over the next few years but I'm not worried as I know they have no enforceable agreement. If only they hadn't increased their interest rates by 40% in one year I'd still have been paying them, but thanks to this site and the excellent advice, I got a good education on the CCA, and the confidence to take back some control.

 

 

I think you're in a good place with them now.