Sayonara vs McBarclays

[Sayonara]

Right, after a good few hours of sifting through papers and fiddling with spreadsheets, I am now in a position to send my preliminary to Barclays.

 

Just one question:

 

- What's the best format to send a schedule of charges? Is a list of dates and charges with a running total enough, and should the interest charges be included?

 

I have used the complex spreadsheet. Could that be printed out and sent with the letter? Since they ought to know everything tha is on it anyway I don't see any risks, but it is best to check

 

 

This morning I got a letter from Barclays saying "Hi, we noticed you went over your limit by £5 on the day before your salary goes in, so we charged you £30 on your payday."

Needless to say, I added it to the spreadsheet

 

 

Here is my prelim letter so far. I have made some minor changes to the template:

 

Request for repayment of charges.

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: ********

 

 

My request:

 

I am writing to ask you to refund to me the charges which you have levied from my account during the six years prior to the date of this letter.

 

I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits, and so forth, are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent consumer regulations. If you consider those charges to be lawful, then will you please demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been exposed as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your penalties really do reflect your costs.

 

Additionally, it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT, who reported on the 5th April 2006, and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary.

 

 

 

Your responsibilities:

 

I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.

 

I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary. I consider your repeated representations that your charges are fair and reasonable to be deceptive, and that they have deceived me into agreeing to pay them.

Your concealment of the true nature of your charges has prevented me from asserting my right until now.

 

 

 

What I require:

 

I calculate that you have taken £*** in charges, plus £***.** which you have applied as overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. The total is £****.**.

I enclose a schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter.

 

 

 

My targets to resolve this matter:

 

I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter, and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

 

I will give you 14 days to reply to me accepting, unconditionally, my request in principle and letting me know a date by which I will receive payment.

 

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. I believe that these targets are more than sufficient for a large company such as yours with dedicated staff and departments.

 

After that, there will be no further communication from me, and I shall issue a claim at the expiry of the second deadline.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

Sayonara

[Welshman]

Hi. What you need to do is to enter all the Charges in three of the columns in the spreadsheet stipulating Paid Referral or Unpaids Out, the date and the amount charged. At the foot of the spreadsheet it will have automatically totalled it. Now delete the two columns "Date of Offence" and "Interest @ 8%" and your done. Print out two copies as you will need to send the second at LBA stage.

 

Good Luck

[Sayonara]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I am using the "Charges and Interest" worksheet of the complex spreadsheet, with the columns headed:

 

DATE PENALTY APPLIED

DETAIL OF PENALTY

PENALTY CHARGED

CUMULATIVE PENALTIES CHARGED

INTEREST DATE

INTEREST CHARGED

ACCOUNT BALANCE AT INTEREST DATE

INTEREST FREE OVERDRAFT (ENTER AS +)

INTEREST ON PENALTIES

 

Obviously I will not be sending any 8% claims at this stage.

 

Should I just print it out "as is", with all those columns?

[Welshman]

Don't know is my honest answer. I found the one I used sufficient. But, if I'd used the above, I'd use the first three only in the early stages.

[essjaysea]

That looks like the spreadsheet you use in order to work out the interest they have charged you as a result of the penalty charges they have applied to your account.

 

This interest is claimable and can be included in the preliminary letter.

 

The 8% interest that the courts allow you to charge, can only be added when you actually file your claim with the court or MCOL

[Sayonara]

So I'll just print the page of the spreadsheet that I have identified above then, and send it with my prelim.

 

Cheers guys.

[Sayonara]

No positive response by the deadline, sending LBA tomorrow.

[Sayonara]

An interesting development.

 

I received a letter from Barclays yesterday telling me all about their wonderful terms and conditions, which went on to offer me £600 as a final payment (about 2/3 of the charges on their own, ignoring interest, which actually does seem quite generous in terms of the responses others have had).

 

The catch is that I would have to sign a form that came with the letter, stating that I accept the money as FULL settlement and will generally be a good boy and go away quietly.

 

Oh, and there is a freepost envelope to send it back in.

 

My response is below. Any comments, criticisms, or factual corrections (before I send it off tomorrow) would be much appreciated!

 

Dear Mr White,

 

Thank you for your letter of 14th October 2006.

 

 

I appreciate the fact that Barclays have made an offer of repayment so quickly, however I am unable to accept the sum of £600.00 as full settlement. I can only accept such an amount on the clear understanding that I will be pursuing the remainder, with a County Court claim if necessary.

 

 

I am aware that Barclays intend to maintain the position that their charges are fair and transparent. Unfortunately Barclays have not at any time, to my knowledge, provided specific and convincing evidence that their charges are fair under the terms of the pertinent acts. Since the Office of Fair Trade has ruled that disproportionately high penalty charges are unfair, I must insist that Barclays provide such evidence forthwith.

 

 

This was – in point of fact – a request I made in my first letter on this matter on 19th September. The request, which I consider to be entirely reasonable in the context of our relationship, has thus far been entirely ignored.

 

 

I am emphatically not making the complaint that Barclays have issued the charges per se; I am making the statement that the charges are so out of proportion to the infractions that they are deemed unlawful penalty charges under United Kingdom law.

 

 

This is therefore a legal matter, and not simply a customer dispute to be handed off to the Financial Ombudsman Service. If Barclays will not make a repayment in full, and cannot or will not provide sufficient evidence that their penalty charges are fair, I will be taking this matter to the County Court without delay.

 

I calculate that you have now taken £**** in charges, plus £***.57 which you have applied as overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken. The total is £****.57. I enclose with this letter a schedule of the charges which I am claiming.

 

I require repayment in full of this money. If you do not comply fully within 14 days, I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest, plus my costs, without further notice or delay, and without any additional extensions to my time scales.

 

 

You should be aware that when I file this claim with the courts I will be adding a further 8% APR, under Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984. There is also the chance that the case will be referred to the Mercantile Court, which could result in a test case ruling against Barclays Plc.

 

 

It is therefore clear that Barclays should work quickly to resolve this issue.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Sayonara kiss kiss

[bearo]

fine good letter,

[Sayonara]

Yesterday I received a letter from Barclays Bank Plc (in an envelope which was not even sealed, just tucked in) advising me that the settlement amount I rejected last week was full and final, and that the bank — after careful consideration — have decided not to alter the amount.

 

If I wish to receive the amount offered, I can send back the form they gave me which declares that I accept the amount as final settlement. If I don’t want to do that, then it “appears we are unable to reach a mutually acceptable resolution.”

 

I am drafting the particulars of my claim right now, so I can start the MCOL process.

[Sayonara]

Here are the particulars of my claim for MCOL. Any comments?

 

Please note that I have moved the line "Alternatively, if the charges are a fee for a service, then they must be reasonable under S.15 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982." to part (b) of the contentions, rather than part (b) of the claims (which is where it sits in the example MCOL thread). Does this have any damaging implications?

 

The Claimant has an account ******* with the Defendant, opened 18th September 19**. Since July 2001 the Defendant debited charges and interest in respect of purported breaches of contract. The Defendant is aware of all details since a list of charges has already been supplied. Another copy will be sent.

 

The Claimant contends:

(a) The charges exceed the Defendant's losses caused by the breaches;

(b) The Term permitting the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and at Common Law. Alternatively, if the charges are a fee for a service, then they must be reasonable under S.15 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

 

The Claimant claims:

(a) Return of the amounts debited of £****.02;

(b) Interest per S.69 County Courts Act 1984 of 8% (£***.78 at time of claim) continuing at 8% until judgment or settlement at a daily rate of £0.30;

© Costs allowed by the Court.

[Sayonara]

No comments or corrections? I'll be firing this into Barclays' eyes this week.

[Sayonara]

MCOL finally filed 18/11/06 - wish me luck!

[Spotted Dog]

I wish you luck

 

Spotty

[Sayonara]

Barclays finally acknowledged two days before the deadline... now to see if they file a defence!

[Johnsworld]

Hi,

I wondered if you would mind me using some of your letter rejecting the offer from the bank. I loved the part reminding them of their failure to justify charges and I want to weave it in to the response I'm writing for my daughter.

Regards,

John.

[Sayonara]

Sure, go for it!

 

[Sayonara]

I have had the standard "we have not looked at your claim" stock defence from Barclays, and I'm ready to send back my completed Allocation Questionnaire.

 

Just one question, which might seem very silly but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere... to whom should I make out the cheque I am sending to the court? Will "Mytown County Court" do?

[Michael Browne]

Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS)

[Sayonara]

Cheers Michael!

[Sayonara]

Received word from the court today that my case is one of many referred to the Mercantile Court (this thread).

 

 

I will be attending the direction hearing on 7th February.

[Sayonara]

Settled in full.

 

** /me does the dance of joy, dooo dee dooo daaaa bam bam **

 

I will still be at the direction hearing if no cheque received by then.

[msawouldlikejustice]

Hi sayonara, Congratulations.

 

I am at the hearing on the 7th at leeds. Did you get a letter or a phone call offering settlement?

I had a call yesterday from an anthony lombardi saying mine and his figures dont match up, i wonder why they settle with some people and stall others!

 

Enjoy the money.

 

To follow my claim against barclays Msa V Barclays Bank 5 days till court

[Sayonara]

Anthoni called me yesterday and said "we have confirmed your charges". They know I have every sheet of every statement since the account was opened ten years ago, so they couldn't very well say anything else