traceyrmj against Abbey... bring it on!

[traceyrmj]

we banked with the abbey for years, they have sent less than a years info, just giving it a few days before i write back and ask for the rest within my original timetable, £400 so far :o

their letter to me was interesting, they said they are happy to provide 6 years statemens free of charge, but if i want information previous to that they will have to retreive it from microfiche, blah blah blah so i told them 6 years is sufficent for my purposes.

20 days and counting for S.A.R - (Subject Access Request)

[traceyrmj]

letter recd 9 sep...

 

thank you for your letter dated 30th august which we received on the 6st sept requesting information on your bank account. i also acknowledge receipt of your £10 fee.

i would like to advise you that under a DPA request you will only receive transactions that are currently held on our systems, these will be forwarded to you within 40 days, free of charge, under seperate cover. any earlier transactions have been archived onto microfiche which is not covered under the DPA. these archived transactions will not therefore be supplied to you under a DPA requestand will not be subject to the 40 day ruling.

abbey is not normally required to hold past transaction details on accounts for more than six years we are therefore unable to give you all the details you have asked for.we can however supply details of transactions held on microfiche on payment of an admisnistration fee of £10 for multiple monthly statements per account that have been archived.... blah blah

 

so they have to hold details for 6 years and will supply all the details they hold free. so far i have only had 13 months statements tho...

[traceyrmj]

they have had another 5 days to get the rst of the statements to me ( or some of them) they have failed to do so so i have posted the noncompliance letter giving them 20 days to comply

[traceyrmj]

statements arrived this morning copied form microfiche ( very obvious by the look of them)

 

collated charges amount to £608. prelim letter written and ready to post off monday recorded post.

[traceyrmj]

i wanted to charge abbey back the interest they have charged me on the charges they have charged me. i have got my dh looking at the spreadsheet cos i have discalculea ( cant read large bodies of numbers they just kind of swim in front of me and i panic) anyway the statements that abbey gave me ( without a fight i might add) list just the date and the detail, the type of transaction and the amount. there isnt a starting balance or an ending balance thru about 5 years of the paperwork. i have one lot of about a years worth of statements that does have interest on it but that is the most recent and i wanted to charge them interest on the whole lot. not talking about the 8% interest will get to that if it gets to court.

is there anyway i can get the info or do i find out the interest % now and charge them that back on the other details and see if they then are willing to help me with the calculation?( assuming i get it wrong in my favour they will be more than willing to help with the maths im sure) have posted this query for vampiress but am faffing now cos i wanted ot get the prlim out tomorrow so i need to sort the calculations out today if im going to include the interest in my calculations and not just wait for the 8% if it goes to court.

help greatfully appreciated...

[traceyrmj]

given that we credited more than 1000 a month we qualified for the prefferential overdraft interest rate of 9.9% ( or should have done according to their webby) do i just add 9.9% with notes that the figure is adjustable if they are able to provide me with actual intereest details on the charges i am claiming for? is this being cheeky? i really cant work it out as they havennt given me one opening or closing balance for the whole 5 years of microfiched info. i have interest on the one years worth and openign and closing and running balances but no clue of how to work them out.

[traceyrmj]

also do i just take the whole amount and add 9.9% to it or am i supposed to do it another way?>

[Kerrie78]

Tracey - you seem to have the same situation as me. We too have the 9.9% preferred o/d rate (I phoned and checked on Fri before I sent my soc and letter).

The way I did the calculation was to enter the list of charges and the date, but then I just changed the 8% interest rate on the spreadsheet to 9.9% instead.

 

Please nobody come and tell me I have done it wrong cos it's posted now!

 

Hopefully somebody else will clarify for you soon.

 

Kerrie

[traceyrmj]

my other question tho is do i take the lump sum owed and add 9.9% or is there another more complicated way of doing it that might be more acceptable?

[Guest Confuddled]

You cant just add 9.8% on to the charges total as it is an annual percentage rate so would accrue annually. It is very very (like impossible) to accurately work out the interest they have charged you on your charges without having the balances at the date of each charge.

 

You can say you claim the overdraft interest charged on each charge back and inform them you are unable to work this out becuase of the lack of information provided by them ????

[Glenn UK]

The way it works is you claim the charges you paid, then you can claim back the interest you paid.

 

Does the statements indicate interest payments made?

 

If so you can allocate some or all of this as interest paid. Delcare it as an estimate too. Even if you have all the account data and use the spreadsheet templates its only an estimate.

 

Then when you have these values and the dates they were applied you can if you wish claim the contractual rate of interest to those charges from the date they were appllied to your account.

 

The logical contractual rate to apply is the excess overdraft rate, Abbeys is currently 28.7% or at least it was a week or so ago i havent checked it more recently than that.

 

The advantage of claiming contractual interest is that you can add it to your prelim and LBA letters which means assuming they settle you get it whether you go to court or not.

 

If you only wish to claim the 8% county court act interest then you can only claim this logically if you go to court or at least file your claim and the other side decide to settle.

 

HTH

 

Glenn

[michellej]

Morning Glen,...So I can put contractual interest in my LBA, I have just sent off my prelim letter but never menstioned this,..could I still add it to LBA?Thanks M

[traceyrmj]

the statements show interest payments being made but as i dont have a saingle opeing of closing balance covering over 5 years i cannot work out the balance at the time the interest was applied. i have the dates the interest was applied but not the relevant information to claim back the interest using vampiressess spreadsheet.

i have drafted this passage to add to the prelim..

as you failed to provide me with complete information under my S.A.R - (Subject Access Request), i have no opening and closing balances for the years 2000 to 2005 and therefore cannot extrapolate the interest i was charged on the charges i am now disputing. i have therefore calculated 9.9% ( the preffered overdraft rate i was on having paid in £1000+ a month) against the whole of the principal sum. if you will provide me with the details i requested under the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) in full i will recalculate from those figures and adjust my claim accordingly. please note that should this claim come to court 8% interest willbe added to the entire amount under s69....."

do you think i should calculate on 28.7% interest we were over the over draft a fair bit hence all the charges, sureley this will encourage them to provide me with the correct data if i am wildly overestimating the interest charged???

 

that figure takes the amount owed form £681.38 with 9.9% interest to £797.94 :o dont want to appear to the judge as a moneygrabbing unreasonable person???

[Kerrie78]

Hi Tracey.

I think I did it wrong then because the way I did it was to list each charge from 2000-2006 and then I used the interest as 9.9% on each of those charges. Well it's too late now cos I've already sent the letter and charges. I hope they don't throw it out now.

[traceyrmj]

they might offer you information you didnt have in order to ammend your data kerrie but more likely they will defend the claim in full and a judge will see that you did the best you could with the figures you had, that is the line i am going to take. given that i dont know if i was in agreed overdraft or excess overdraft as they havent given me the balance figure, i am planning to ask for 9.9% interest on half the charges and 28.7% on the other half we shall see what they make of those numbers.

[Glenn UK]

The way i did mine was to use the spreadsheet from the library which allows you to put the amount of interest paid and the balance at the time that interest paid, a value is then provided which is an estimate of the interest paid due to the charges for that month.

 

However, since the spreadsheet preusmes you are in overdraft if you have a postive blaance it assumes you never paid interest, even if you did.

 

So all i did was assign all of that months interest as if i had paid it.

 

On the surface this seems very crude, and it is, however, you are not a forensic accountant (or at least impresuming youre not bearing in mind youre asking these questions) so an estimate isperfectly fine based on theinformation you have to hand.

 

 

Should it get to court its perfectly reasonable for you to estimate what you have paid out and the defendant can correct it if they wish to provide the true values.

 

Personally I wouldnt bother with calcualting a particualr rate of interest per charge because the actual interest calculation is complex in reality and this wont reflect the true impact.

 

Its just my opinion but i would simply use the spreadhseet and if you cant just insert the interest you paid.

 

As i said in a n earlier post make it clear in your schedules that its estimated and will be corrected if and when you get the correct information.

 

Re adding contractual interest I added it at the LBA stage for my abbey claim. So i hope its ok.

 

JMHO

 

Glenn

[traceyrmj]

thanks glenn, i am out of my depth here. dont wanna mess up. have put in my letter that as they have failed ot provide mw with the info i will assume the following rate was applied and that iwill of course ammend the figure when they are able to prove the data to me as incorrect. am sure they will get that sorted out asap!

[traceyrmj]

i have included this passage in the prelim and we can only wait and see.

"What I require

You have failed in your legal requirement to provide me with complete account details for the period in question, having provided me with only a list of transactions and not one single balance to indicate if my account was in credit, agreed overdraft or unarranged overdraft. Over 5 years not one opening or closing balance to show me which level of interest was applied. I can only therefore assume that approximately half of these charges were compounded by interest at the preferred rate of 9.9% and approximately half of the charges were compounded by interest of your unarranged borrowing rate of 28.7%

I calculate that you have taken £620.00 and interest on these charges as discussed above is calculated as £620.00 /2 =£310.00 at 9.9% £30.69 and £310.00 at 28.7% £88.97 making the total estimated interest I have paid on these charges I am now disputing £ 119.66 the total I am claiming therefore is £739.66 I am of course happy to amend these figures prior to a court case if you are able to provide me with the information lawfully requested under my Subject access request to demonstrate the level of interest I have paid on these charges. I enclose a schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter "

[Glenn UK]

i have included this passage in the prelim and we can only wait and see.

"What I require

You have failed in your legal requirement (if you sent them the standard S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) then i believe they are olbiged to send a list of transactions and charges, not balances since i dont htink its included.)to provide me with complete account details for the period in question, having provided me with only a list of transactions and not one single balance to indicate if my account was in credit, agreed overdraft or unarranged overdraft. Over 5 years not one opening or closing balance to show me which level of interest was applied. I can only therefore assume that approximately half of these charges were compounded by interest at the preferred rate of 9.9% and approximately half of the charges were compounded by interest of your unarranged borrowing rate of 28.7%

I calculate that you have taken £620.00 and interest on these charges as discussed above is calculated as £620.00 /2 =£310.00 at 9.9% £30.69 and £310.00 at 28.7% £88.97 making the total estimated interest I have paid on these charges I am now disputing £ 119.66 the total I am claiming therefore is £739.66 I am of course happy to amend these figures prior to a court case if you are able to provide me with the information lawfully requested under my Subject access request to demonstrate the level of interest I have paid on these charges. I enclose a schedule of the charges which I am claiming with this letter "

 

My view is you are making it unecessarily complex.

 

The interest amounts monthly are typically relatively small and will not be the key issue over whether a case is won or lost.

 

If you dont have any idea of the interest charged then fine do a simple calc, but if you do simply use that value and let the defendant challenge it.

 

JMHO

 

Glenn

[traceyrmj]

thanks glenn im sure they will correct any errors on my part

[traceyrmj]

LBA off today... tick tock shabbey, tick tock

[traceyrmj]

letter received this morning...

 

dear mrs traceyrmj

thank you for your letter dated 25th september, about your bank charges. i am sorry you feel these contravene the unfair terms in the consumer contracts regulation 1999.

having carried out a full investegation, i can assure you that the charges do not contravene those regulations and therefore i cannot agree to refund them.

the regulations say that we must explain our charges in plain launguageand that we have to act in good faith, which, according to the office of fair trading, means dealing fairly and openly with customers.

i therefore reviewed the literature and information you received when you opened your account including the terms and conditions.(again interesting as my husband opened this account before he met me so i have never seen or signed for anything) this explains that charges will be applied if you do not keep toi the terms of your account. because of this i beleive we have been fair and open in tellign you about them. the charges were correct, because you did not have enough money in your account to cover payments requested form it. when i looked at the history of your account i found that unfortunatly this was not the first time this has happened. oh yes lets all waggle fingers at tracey!

i am confident that i have been fair and have taken into account all the points you have made in your letter but if you have additional points you would like to discuss with me please call 08456006014 i have enclosed a leaflet about the financial ombusmen service in case you are not happy with my investegation or decisioon. if so you shoudl contact them withint 6 months of this letter enclosing a copy of it as they will need this for their investegation.

please note the charges applied to your account are no reflection of the transactional value and they are a set fee therefore i am not able to provide you with an exact breakdown of the charges values individually at present. hmm interesting so you are charging me but you dont know for how much at present

i have as you requested in your letter ordered a charge history for you to see the charges relating to your account over the last 6 years, this documentation will however follow this letter in due course.

i hope we can work together to avoid charges in future, little things can help like looking at your balance as often as possible and changing the dates of direct debits to make sure they are taken shortly after money is paid in. in addition we might be able to provide an overdraft facility... blah blah at this point i stopped reading because we closed the acount nearly a year ago

 

from mr russell misrty - preston at milton keynes

 

my main question, lba went on the 9th october, this letter is in reply to a much earlier letter, do i still wait 14 days form the LBA in the hopes they may reply to that or do i just go file court papers now as they seem to have concluded their investegation.??? thoughts please?

[traceyrmj]

after advice form the chatroom i decided to file N1, they have made their position clear and they intend no further communication or investegation so i have only the option of continuing with my course of action. no real reason to wait a week to do so.

for those who dont knw it is easy to file n1. you just go to your court room with three copies of the paperwork and your list of charges to support, and the cash ( you can pay bu cheque but what if the bank bounce it ) and hand it over, they give you a receipt and away you go. easy peasy!

[traceyrmj]

im taking that as a reply to all my letters as they have all ( except for the first one) gone to this chap and i know he had my LBA at least a week before this letter he sent me was dated. it sounds final to me, still if they offer me all my money back before the deadline i should have filed ill only loose out £80 court fees as ill be getting a full refund which is what i want so its all good.

[traceyrmj]

yeah they are referring to the date of my prelim ( which is the only letter i didnt send to him LOL) but deffo dated after they received my LBA.