Advantis chasing Amex 'debt'

[dori2o]

Since sending the above letter I had heard nothing from AIC, AMEX or HL......Todau I got a telephone call from Newhams (I think that is what they were called)...They said they werecalling about my Amex card and how I had been unwilling to resolve the matter, I advised them I had been totally wiling but I had yet to receive the information I had requested...I then refused to go through their security questions... and the woman said she will send me a letter instead.

 

I take it this means AIC have either passed on the debt, or have passed it to Amex and they have farmed it out again.

 

Do I just send a letter advising I have already made a CCA request and suggest they refer it back to where it came from?

 

Can anyone please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dori2o]

Any advice from anyone... Many thanks

[42man]

There isn't much else you can do at this stage.....you could possibly send a SAR off to them.

[Desperate Daniella]

Hi Dori20,

 

I think Amex got it back from AIC and farmed it out to Newmans. AIC sent me back to Amex when I requested the CCA. Now I have RMA Resolve.

 

Sorry if I have missed something, but did they ever send you any Terms & Conditions? I appear to be the only person to get an agreement with T & C apparently on the back, which I find very hard to believe. I think mine were in a separate leaflet too.

 

I've just posted up the conditions which were supposedly on the back and I think might meet the requirements on the Act, but if they were in a leaflet it's all academic as it wouldn't be enforceable. I think I will have to make a personal visit.

 

I'm finding it difficult to believe I had a unique form with the T&Cs on the reverse so maybe Amex are trying to be clever because they have had so many challenges.

 

DD

[dori2o]

They have sent no T&C's as yet, but did send me someone elses application form.

[Dipply75]

Subbing with interest, have dealt with these muppets and they will bully, lie, intimidate and do anything for the money...except maybe just their job and follow the rules.

 

They are so used to bamboozling folk with all the legal talk and threats, they are getting lost when people fight back with knowledge.

 

Dori2o - complain to everyone!

 

Desperate Daniella - I can bet none of them actually own that debt at all, you should complain to the world too, kick up a right stink.

 

Good luck

[shakespeare62]

Since sending the above letter I had heard nothing from AIC, AMEX or HL......Todau I got a telephone call from Newhams (I think that is what they were called)...They said they werecalling about my Amex card and how I had been unwilling to resolve the matter, I advised them I had been totally wiling but I had yet to receive the information I had requested...I then refused to go through their security questions... and the woman said she will send me a letter instead.

 

I take it this means AIC have either passed on the debt, or have passed it to Amex and they have farmed it out again.

 

Do I just send a letter advising I have already made a CCA request and suggest they refer it back to where it came from?

 

I'd be inclined to send them something along the following lines :-

-----------

 

[YOUR ADDRESS]

 

The Company Secretary

[DEBT COLLECTION AGENCY ADDRESS]

 

By Fax no: XXX XXX and post

IMPORTANT

 

[DATE]

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Your Ref: XXXX

Alleged Client : [NAME]

 

ACCOUNT IN DISPUTE

Office Of Fair Trading Debt Collection Guidelines (OFT 664)

Consumer Protection Against Unfair Trading Agreements 2008 (CPUTR 2008)

 

I refer to the letter from your company dated [DATE] which was sent by 2nd Class Post [AMEND AS APPROPRIATE]

 

I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT TO YOUR COMPANY.

 

1) I do not recognize your authority,

 

2) if you act for a Creditor then the OFT guidelines dictate that the Creditor MUST advise me that you will be acting for them and in what capacity.

 

3) In the event that you decline to comply, then please supply your Consumer Credit License to enable me to complain to the OFT that you are not a fit company to hold that license and request it's removal.

 

Yours faithfully

 

[YOUR NAME] - PRINT YOUR NAME - DONT SIGN IT.

 

cc. Senior Manager, [Debt Recovery Agency NAME]

-----------

 

If they start to harass you by phone, then send them a notice of harrassment informing them that all communication is to be in writing only. You can get plenty of advice on here for that. By the way at the top it should read CPUTR 2008, don't know why this text editor inserts a blue smiley for letter 8.

Edited February 9, 2009 by shakespeare62
edited typos

[dori2o]

Having sent Newmans the standard go away letter I today rceived a letter from them.

 

It says

 

I refer to the above outstanding balance.

 

After conducting a land registry search at the above address we have ascertained that the property is registered to you. As a homeowner or mortgage holder you may be in a position to be able to release equity in oredr to clear this debt.

 

Please contact this office immediately to discuss the matter with one of our advisors.

 

Is this not against the FSA guidelines.

[DocH]

Having sent Newmans the standard go away letter I today rceived a letter from them.

 

It says

 

 

 

Is this not against the FSA guidelines.

 

It's the OFT Debt Collection guidance, in particular:

 

Physical/psychological harassment

 

2.5 Putting pressure on debtors or third parties is considered to be oppressive.

 

2.6 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:

b. pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing.

[dori2o]

Thanks.

[Dipply75]

OMG, they have actually put in writing asking you to borrow on your house to pay them a debt they still cannot prove is yours/exists?

 

This is now clear, purposeful and constant harrassment. Is it sheer arrogance or just stupidity that they still think they can do this to you?!

 

To be honest I am a little unclear on what you can do when a company breaks the CPUTR regs, I mean they are not just guidelines....will have to find out

[dori2o]

I couldn't believe it either. I may now beg them to take me to court, after all, they have not produced the agreement, the Default Notice is invalid and they have now requested payment of the full balance, and to top it all they send this letter.

 

I fancy my chances when it comes to the crunch.

[dori2o]

Well after sending Mewmans this letter

 

Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

 

Thank you for your recent letters.

 

It would seem that you are of the belief that your client had discharged their obligations under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 in particular section 78(1).

 

The have provided me a copy of an application form and I feel it is my duty to draw your attention to some serious flaws in your comments.

 

Firstly, to comply with section 61 of the consumer credit act 1974 which by the way refers to the signing of an agreement (Not an application), a document must conform to regulations made under the provisions of section 60(1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 otherwise it cannot be properly executed

 

Now then, these regulations I refer to are the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 1983 (SI 1983/1553). These regulations set out the form and content of agreements. For an agreement to be compliant with the regulations it MUST embody within the agreement, the prescribed terms laid out in the SI1983/1553 without the prescribed terms the agreement does not conform to section 60(1) 1974 and therefore cannot be properly executed as described in section 61(1) CCA 1974.

 

For your information in case you are unsure. The prescribed terms referred to are contained in schedule 6 column 2 of the Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 1983 (SI 1983/1553) and are inter alia: - A term stating the credit limit or the manner in which it will be determined or that there is no credit limit, A term stating the rate of any interest on the credit to be provided under the agreement and A term stating how the debtor is to discharge his obligations under the agreement to make the repayments, which may be expressed by reference to a combination of any of the following--

(a)Number of repayments;

(b)Amount of repayments;

©Frequency and timing of repayments;

(d)Dates of repayments;

(e)The manner in which any of the above may be determined; or in any other way, and any power of the creditor to vary what is payable.

 

Now nowhere on the application form that I have supplied is there any reference to these terms. I wish to remind you that the absence of these terms will render a document unenforceable in court and I also wish to point out that these terms MUST be contained within the agreement and NOT in a separate document headed terms and conditions or words to that effect

 

Since the document supplied is a clear mailer application form, I cannot believe for one moment that these very important terms would be contained on the opposite side of the form, unless they are there for the postman to read while he delivers the mail. Therefore they must have been contained in a separate document, which is prohibited by the SI1983/1553, as there is no clear link to them within the signature document.

 

Therefore, you and your client have failed to supply an enforceable document, which is correctly executed as to be so; it must conform to the Regs under s60 CCA1974

 

I am of the opinion that a court is precluded from enforcing this agreement by s127 (3) CCA1974 as it is improperly executed under s61 CCA 74, the consequences of improper execution are set out in section 65 CCA 1974 and s65 sets out that only a court can enforce an improperly executed agreement subject to certain qualifications, one of those is that the document is signed and contains all the prescribed terms. Now since this document does not contain all the prescribed terms s127 (3) CCA 1974 strictly prevents the court from enforcing this agreement.

 

If you cannot supply me with a document, which complies with the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and ALL of the Regulations made under the Act, I shall be forced to make a complaint to Trading Standards and I will also draw this to the attention of the Office of Fair Trading .

 

I respectfully request you review this matter in light of my comments above and I request that you supply me the required information or alternatively confirm the account is closed and the debt written off with a zero balance.

 

I respectfully request a reply within 14 days of the date of this letter.

 

I have received this reply.

 

Dear Sir/Madam (Is this a standardised reply?)

Having had the opportunity to consider your recent correspondence, we now provide you with our response. Please note that we have no intention of responding to every point raised by you, all of which are without substance or merit. However, our decision not to respond to a particular point does not represent our acceptance of it.

 

We have been advised that the agreement could only be unenforceable if (a) it were not signed by you,or (b) it did not contain the prescribed terms as set out in Schedule 6 CCA 1974. In summary, the terms required for a running account credit agreement are:

 

1. A term stating the credit limit or the manner in which it will be determined or that there is no credit limit;

2. A term stating the rate of any interest on the credit to be provided under the agreement;

3. A term stating how the debtor is to discharge his obligations under the agreement to make the repayments, which may be expressed by reference to a combination of any of the following--

(a) number of repayments

(b) amount of repayments

© frequency and timing of repayments

(d) dates of repayments

(e) the manner in which any of the above may be determined;

or in any other way, and any power of the creditor to vary what is payable.

 

With reference to the terms and conditions previously supplied (none have been, just a copy of the original application form) it can be seen that the prescribed terms are contained therein under the headings of "Credit Limit", "Interest Charges", "Statements and Payments" and "Varying or Transferring this Agreement".

 

When entering into a credit agreement with you, we were required to send you three copies of the agreement (I'm not aware that I entered into an agreement with Newmans). The first copy (set out as an application form) was sent out in duplicate. One copy would have been signed by you and returned to us. The second copy (unexecuted, in that it would not have been signed by us) would have been yours to keep. The third copy sent to you would be an executed copy of the agreement, as by that stage it would have been signed by you and us. We do not send out a version that shows both signatures, but nevertheless send an executed copy which is the 'card carrier' copy sent with your American Express credit card.

This executed copy excludes the signatures, but nonetheless complies with the "true copies" requirement of the Consumer Credit (Enforcement, Default and Termination Notices) Regulations 1983. These regulations allow us to omit any signature and/or signature box, so although the card carrier is the executed copy, it does not have to include our respective signatures. On the basis that you received and have been using your credit card, we can only assume that you have been provided with the card carrier and therefore the executed copy of the agreement.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Mrs R Marriner.

 

So, they claim that they ahve sent the executed agreement when they sent the card, however as I made my CCA request after this, does this mean they have still not complied with the request as all they have sent me is the application form shown in the first post of this thread.

 

Any advice on how to proceed would be thoroughly helpfull.

[dori2o]

***bump***

[Dipply75]

Am I reading that right, they are basically taking a longwinded approach to saying the same old 'since you used the card, we are assuming you received all the necessary paperwork initially'?

 

And what? You have asked for a copy of the CCA now - to see if it was properly executed, you can check the amounts you have been charged, the actual T&C's you agreed to blah blah, and anything else you feel like seeing it for....as is your right.

 

I think you have annoyed them going by the tone of the letter "we have no intention of responding to every point raised by you, all of which are without substance or merit"....ooooooo, handbags at dawn lol

 

I think a nice letter pointing out that the assumption you received any kind of paperwork in X year is absolutely nothing to do with your current legal CCA request, the legalites of which you think a company authorised by and or that holds a consumer credit licence (amend to suit) would be well aware of, therefore you can only assume the response given in their letter is to mislead me regarding my rights. Please supply a copy of your complaints procedure, and just re-iterate your demands for account closed etc.

 

Follow their complaints procedure, defo report them to Trading Standards, and when they fail to resolve your complaint, report them to everone else....just for the arrogance in that letter i think!

[Dipply75]

Hi Dori, in fact, this is the company that actually wrote to you asking you to borrow on your house was it not?

 

Put major complaints in to everyone, this company are obviously the real pond **** and the tactics they are using are disgusting and draconian even now.

 

Still follow their complaints procedure though (they must supply you with this in writing at your request), just to see how many more lies they hang themselves with.

[dori2o]

Just a quick letter I have put together, should I sent this?

 

Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

 

Thank you for your recent letter dated 9 March.

 

It is unfortunate that you, as a company, who claim to be a debt collection agency, do not seem to know the Law when it comes to matters concerning the enforceability of clients accounts.

 

You state in your letter that your client will have issued me with a copy of their terms and conditions when I was first issued with a credit card from them. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm whether this is the case.

 

However, you seem to be of the impression that, by confirming that the terms and conditions of the account were issued at the point of receiving the credit card, this clears your client of their obligations with regards to my request for a true executed copy of the signed agreement , a request that was made as per S.78(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 on 12 November 2008, it does not and to this date, neither you nor your clients have fulfilled this request.

 

Until such a time as this request is completed and the information requested is sent to me, or until such a point as you concede that (a) this information does not exist and/or (b) that this agreement is unenforceable, I WILL NOT BE PREPARED TO CORRESPOND WITH YOU OR YOUR CLIENT AGAIN REGARDING THIS MATTER AND NEITHER SHALL I BE MAKING ANY PAYMENT.

 

I do however wish to make a complaint regarding the methods and tactics you have used to try and bully me into paying you money that I simply do not owe.

 

Please supply me with a copy of your complaints procedure in your response to this letter.

 

I will allow you no more than 14 days to comply with my request. Failure to reply within this time could result in complaints being raised with Trading Standards and the OFT and the Credit Services Association.

 

 

Yours faithfully

[Dipply75]

That seens fine, if they do not supply that complaints procedure within that time, get complaining to everyone...don't give them an inch

[dori2o]

Thanks Dipply.

 

Can anyone confirm if they are correct on this as per their letter, it refers to what they are stating is the 3rd copy of 3 of the agreement and is what they call a Card Carrier, I assume this is what the card is attached to when they send it..

 

This executed copy excludes the signatures, but nonetheless complies with the "true copies" requirement of the Consumer Credit (Enforcement, Default and Termination Notices) Regulations 1983. These regulations allow us to omit any signature and/or signature box, so although the card carrier is the executed copy, it does not have to include our respective signatures. On the basis that you received and have been using your credit card, we can only assume that you have been provided with the card carrier and therefore the executed copy of the agreement.

Does this mean that to fulfil the request they could simply respond with a copy of the Card Carrier and fulfil the request? OR to fulfill their obligations do they have to supply the agreement that contains the prescribed terms and is the signature document. Edited March 12, 2009 by dori2o

[Dipply75]

Will try and get some help on that one, someone be along soon hopefully

[dori2o]

*****bump*****

[silver1977]

subbing!!

[Gazza112]

Subbing

[dori2o]

UPDATE:

 

I have had a reply from Newmans!!!!!!!

 

They have sent me a copy of my application form and some terms and conditions which they claim are from the account I have with Amex.

 

There is a signature box on the bottom of page 1 of the T&C's that has no signature in it.

 

Also the minimum payment section says 2.5% of the balance, when I took out the card in 2001 it was 3.5%.

 

Where it talks about late payment fees it says that they are £8, but when I took out the agreement they were £25.

 

So, am I right in thinking that they have supplied the current T&C's for this account? Does this meet their requirements under the CCA 1974 request? Does this now make the debt enforceable?

[dori2o]

any help please