Egg Default Charges

[joncow75]

Hi all, looking for some advice please. I started my claim against Egg back in December of 09 but got a refusal for anything below the £16 mark. Total was £560 I requested and their offer was for £64. None of these included any interest. I eventually got round to complaining to the FOS who backed Egg (nice of them) and stated Egg were still happy to pay back the £64 + interest but no more than that. Having started an MCOL claim against Crap One, I feel a bit happier about how to do that, but what is peoples experience of going up against Egg in court? I'm sure I read somewhere that they had defended before but the judge had ruled £5 was a sufficent charge, so were reluctent to again, but most threads on here are for other Egg related problems rather than default charges. These are now up to £688 and once interest was added, would almost wipe out the debt on this crappy credit card that they pulled the available credit on after the Citi take over. Should I pursue this avenue now?

 

Many thanks

[Bosund]

HI joncow75,

 

Cannot help with the charges but did notice that you mentioned having the credit pulled after citi took over. Were you one of those that were 'Terminated'.

 

If so, you may like to have a look at my thread dealing with Termination & Interest Rate hike.

 

Regards,

 

Bosun.

[Sare Heid]

hi joncow75 & bosund,

 

apologies for jumping on board but I also had my egg acounts closed back in Oct 2009 and despite my protests they insisted that i still had to pay the exhorbitant interest charges each month.....but now i have CAG and its time to take them to task.

 

i'd be interested to have a look at your thread bosund if you can you post a link.

 

cheers

 

SH

[Bosund]

Hi,

 

If your account was only closed in Oct 2009 then it would not effect you. The thread is under Egg.

 

You've been busy on CAG since the beginning of the month!

 

Bosun.

[Sare Heid]

Hi Bosund,

 

yes, life was turned upside down a few months ago and thats when i discovered just how friendly & helpful our banks were...not!

 

i'm taking back control now thanks to info & support i've had from CAG, i don't care what comes in the post now.

 

cheers,

 

SH:-)

[joncow75]

Hi Bosund, thanks for pointing me in the direction of another possible complaint. I think i'll try and see about getting my charges back first, which would only leave about £100 on the card. Much easier to get rid of, then see what else I can go for. I've never met a more unproffesional company. Despite 6 letters from me with my new address on, they still send everything to my old address!!!! I just want Egg out of my life, wish i'd never taken the card out

[Bosund]

Hi,

 

Understand, at the end of the day you're calling the shots, but, if you are in a similar situation to me you could be looking at quite a few quid to start the new year with. It will not affect your current cliam, I also have a claim with a FOS adjudicator which was running at the same time as the other claim. If you like I can email the details I sent to the FOS.

 

No pressure, all the best,

 

Bosun.

[joncow75]

Anyone have any experience of taking Egg on in court, esp after the FOS backed their charges?

 

Many thanks joncow75

[eggbasher]

Anyone have any experience of taking Egg on in court, esp after the FOS backed their charges?

 

Many thanks joncow75

 

Hi there joncow just noticed your thread. I went to up against Egg in Skipton County Court 25/1/2011 re Default Charges on my credit card and I won They were well gutted they requested costs against me of £1100.00 and got well blown out by the judge. If you are still pursuing these parasites let me know I will guide you through the case/story and arguments to beat them

[caro]

Well done eggbasher.

 

Would be great if you could start a thread about this and post how you did it so that anyone interested can see how you did it.

 

Thankfully credit card charges haven't been affected by the Supreme Court decision on bank charges, but it's always good to hear people's experiences.

[MARTIN3030]

Citi legal teams probably tried to argue that it cost them MORE than the £12 agreed by the OFT..as they have done in their Citi card cases.

[joncow75]

Eggbasher, thats brilliant and encouraging news. As caro said above please let everyone know how you did this, but I will also be dropping you a PM. Many thanks

[joncow75]

Hi Eggbasher, hopefully you still monitor the GAG website. Dropped you a PM, any help you could give would be brilliant

[MARTIN3030]

Gag ?

[lhmcr1]

Seems to be no further word from eggbasher on this, shame because it would have been interesting to find out what happened with Egg in court.

[joncow75]

I think i'll just go for it once i've moved house in May. Hopefully if things don't go my way then I will only lose my initial court amount.

[joncow75]

Right, back on this again now. Pulled together a new updated set of charges which total £768 (although they do go slightly over the 6 year mark - I do know what they are and from when. Also amended the interest which brings the total to a healthy £998.90. With a balance on the card of £861 this shows that 89% of my balance is made up of charges alone!

 

I've fired a quick letter back to Egg today that states I want them to reconsider - and that as I have an additional £206 of charges this is not covered ny their "Final Response" back in 2009. I've even offered them to pay me back £768 against the card balance (not arrears) so I can bring it down, as long as they come back in 14 days. If not then its off to court I go for the lot. Egg is the last credit card for me to get sorted (other than a PPI claim on a GM card which is ongoing).

 

Does anyone know if Egg's position has softened since their buy out by Barclaycard who are very easy to deal with when it comes to charges?

[joncow75]

No-one had any joy with Egg then? Sent my letter off last week - but not exactly going to hold my breath that they will offer anything at all. Anyone who has gone down the court route who could offer some encouraging advice would be great

[joncow75]

Well I've had a fairly quick response from Egg which is that as the FOS had found in their favour that £16 was not a disproportionate charge, they have again offered the original £79 which was the difference between £16 and £20 with a little interest. Very dissapointing - I hoped the change to Barclays may have lessened Egg's stance on this, however I can't say i'm too surprised.

[lhmcr1]

Hi Joncow75,

I have just got a final response from Egg, not repaying etc... now going to go down the small claims route and take it from there, see what difference that makes!!!!

[joncow75]

A see the disappoitment is spread around then! Sorry to hear that lhmcr1, but can't say i'm too surprised. Had you gone down the FOS route before or are you just going straight to court. Not sure how much difference it will make if the FOS made a ruling - will the court just agree with them, as I'm pretty sure Egg will argue this.

[ims21]

As far as court goes it matters not what fos says.....the banks pay their wages!

 

What does matter is how strong you put your case in court and how well you prepare.

 

Regards

 

ims

[lhmcr1]

I have complied a letter from moc1982 letter that is on this site and added some extra parts:

Thank you for your letter dated 17th August 2011.

I am writing to state that I do not consider this a satisfactory response. I refer to the points raised in your letter as follows:

 

(1) Regardless of whether the credit card agreement states that charges will be added to the account if the credit limit is exceeded or fail to make contractual payments, it is the amount of the default charge which is in question.

 

(2) You have been charging me charges that are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Schedule 2 (e) of the said regulations gives a non-complete list of terms which may be regarded as unfair, such as a term that requires me, as a consumer who fails in his obligation, to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation. I believe your charges are disproportionately high and therefore they are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999. In addition I believe that your charges are a Penalty. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this was Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor Co Ltd [1915] AC 79 along with Murray v Leisure Play [2005] EWCA Civ. 963. It was held that a contractual party can only receive damages for an actual loss or liquidated loss. It is clear that your charges do not reflect any actual and/or real loss.

 

If your charges are indeed a genuine pre-estimate of the administrative costs likely to be incurred by you in dealing with defaults then in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs, I request that you provide me with a breakdown and proof of all costs involved with regard to your actual or liquidated losses involved in any breach of contract to which these charges relate with yourselves and that these charges reflect your true costs in relation to the said charges and are proportionate to the charges levied on my account as defined in Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

Schedule 2(e). I would expect this to include a comparison of all charges levied against all customers and the actual costs incurred by you when those customers default.

 

(3) I refer to your comment regarding the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) default charge threshold of £12.00. I am aware that the OFT have stated that “where there are exceptional business factors... for example where a card issuer has a policy of requiring customers to pay minimum monthly repayments by direct debits, such as that operated by Egg….it may be able to set a fair default fee at a level above the threshold”. However, this does not mean that your £16.00 is considered fair. The OFT state that only a court can decide finally whether a term is unfair.

 

I will pursue recovery with a county court claim, if necessary, although I sincerely hope that it will not be.

I would like to point out that I have great respect for Egg’s genuine pre-estimate, and great respect for any future pre-estimates that Egg provide.

As a former cardholder I cannot help wondering, if after many years in business Egg has ever tried to reconcile Pre-estimates against Post-event audits. I am confident that a company devoted to justice and truth like Egg will not withhold evidence from the cardholder, that Egg will present evidence in court to show after-the-event costs, as well as before-the-event Genuine Pre-estimates.

I would also like to know how Citi Ireland had a £6 charge for credit card customers, but U.K. Citi card holders pay £16.

 

I do hope that you will respond positively to this letter in order to avoid court proceedings. To clarify, a positive response being no less than an offer of full settlement of all charges incurred on my account.

 

I am aware of many cases that you have settled in full out of court to date and I assume therefore that would also be your intention in this case. If that is so, then to allow this claim to get that far may be considered an abuse of the court process, so I once again, respectfully request that you refund the total amount of charges I am claiming, now totalling £284.71 as per the attached schedule. I will give you 14 days to respond to this letter before taking the matter further

Any comments or ideas to tidy it up and to make it sound better are much appreciated.

[lhmcr1]

Double post

Edited September 29, 2011 by lhmcr1
double post

[mills1]

I think what matters is what a court decides, if Egg, or any company, levy a charge of say £16 for late payments etc and the customer disagrees with it the customer complains.

Where the situation arrives at where a dispute arises the company has two choices, either accept that their charges are unfair and refund, or default if they feel they have done nothing wrong.

The customer can then either, provided the default notice is above board, remedy the breach or wait for their day in court.

Letter tennis does very little when trying to get to the bottom of it, once a person makes up their mind that they are right they wait for the summons to appear and present their evidence to the court.

As the OFT then say, only a court can decide.