un1boy vs Black Horse **WON**

[LeeS80]

Hi Uniboy,

 

Sorry to jump in! Is your black horse finance for a car or loan? Reason I ask is I'm just starting out with these buggers and on the back of my agreement section 2 it says;

 

"you must pay our costs resulting from your not complying with this agreement. You must pay a charge of £25 for each unpaid, rejected or cancelled cheque, standing order or direct debit, and for each reminder letter, notice or call we make on you"

 

Is your agreement the same?

 

Thanks,

Lee

[Guest ian cognito]

Glad I found this thread, bit flumoxed by the statement but I'll just follow the lead of you guys and claim as listed.

 

Un1boy - are we living parallel lives?

[un1boy]

Hi Uniboy,

 

Sorry to jump in! Is your black horse finance for a car or loan? Reason I ask is I'm just starting out with these buggers and on the back of my agreement section 2 it says;

 

"you must pay our costs resulting from your not complying with this agreement. You must pay a charge of £25 for each unpaid, rejected or cancelled cheque, standing order or direct debit, and for each reminder letter, notice or call we make on you"

 

Is your agreement the same?

 

Thanks,

Lee

 

Hi Lee,

 

This particular agreement was for a motorbike actually and is in my Father's name. I've not seen the original agreement and unfortunately he hasn't kept a copy, but I would guess it had similar clauses. I'm not quite sure I undertand what you're asking here, but if it is "can I still claim if I have agreed to this caluse?" Then yes, absolutely; every bank account application and credit card and loan apllication has this clause (or one similar) in it. The point is that it does not costs them £25 or whatever they ask for to return a DD etc....has this helped?

[un1boy]

Glad I found this thread, bit flumoxed by the statement but I'll just follow the lead of you guys and claim as listed.

 

Un1boy - are we living parallel lives?

 

Yes, the statement is quite confusing. I claimed for the following, which the solicitors have confirmed is correct:

 

 

COLLECT ACTIVITY FEE

 

LATE PAYMENT INT

 

 

 

I also claimed for the Doc/Opt Fee at the top of my statement under charges as the advisor told me it was a charge for late payments. Their statement is that confusing I had to call somone about it, I have asked them to provide evidence of the contrary (see my reply above!) because they say it is an admin charge. We'll see what they come back with.

 

Yes Jan, we do seem to be bumping into each other a lot in my threads!! Guess we can learn from each other's cases?

 

It is spooky - we do seem to be running parallell at the moment!

[LeeS80]

Hi, Yep, I was comparing types of agreement, but I would think it is the same type. I'm still waiting on the statements, got the other stuff today (which included some poor sods paperwork - he owed them £50k!!) The statements are said to follow!

 

Thanks very much for the help, scales clicked!!

 

Cheers,

Lee

[un1boy]

Hi, Yep, I was comparing types of agreement, but I would think it is the same type. I'm still waiting on the statements, got the other stuff today (which included some poor sods paperwork - he owed them £50k!!) The statements are said to follow!

 

Thanks very much for the help, scales clicked!!

 

Cheers,

Lee

 

Hi Lee, no probs and thanks!

 

Come over anytime and ask for help, or feel free to PM me! It might be worth starting your own thread and come back here and let us knwo what it's called. That way, we can help you better!

 

Any problems with that, let me know and I'll talk you through it!

[un1boy]

As promised, here's my reply:

 

___

I am writing in response to my letter dated xxx November 2006 in which you offer a settlement for the above claim.

I respectfully decline your offer of settlement and request, once again, that you return to me all charges imposed on this account, totaling £xxx. I would like to remind you that a daily interest rate of £0.07p is payable from the date of issue until the date of payment and also extra postage costs are £7.75, these are in addition to the balance.

You mention in your letter that you do not understand where I obtained the figure of £xxx based on the statement of account. The statement I received from your client included under total charges £90.00 with the description of “Doc/Opt Fee”; after calling an advisor in the Black Horse credit department, I was advised that this was a charge applied to the account due to missed payments etc. I would consider deducting £90.00 from the total balance I am claiming upon checking through your evidence that this “Doc/Opt” fee has nothing to do with late payment charges and the like.

You also mention in your letter that the dates of Statutory Interest became payable from different dates. The information I have used to compile my Claim have been taken directly from the last Statement Document I received from your Client and are therefore correct to the best of my knowledge. If you are able to provide any other evidence for me to consider, please feel free to do so.

 

In summary, I will accept the sum offered of £100.00 only as part settlement and on the clear understanding that I will pursue recovery of the remainder until the full balance of £xxx plus the daily interest plus the extra costs I have incurred since your recent letter, has been received, without withdrawing the County Court Claim until I have received the above balance in full.

 

I trust this clarifies my position.

 

___

 

Hope all this is he;ping you guys....I know not many people are posting in this forum and especially not for Black Horse!!

 

Oh I am getting bored with them now...here's their reply:

_______

 

Thank you for e-mailing your reply dated today’s date.

The reason for the delay in us receiving it and being unfamiliar with the signature is that you have sent to Brighton.

In respect of your letter we remain a little confused. As we said in our earlier letter the charges actually debited to your account and showing on the Statement of the account are £xxxx. If you are claiming a larger sum you will have to provide evidence of your calculation of it.

That appears to be difficult when £xxxx was all that was debited. If you are able to prove the higher figure, please let us see the calculation and we will take further instructions.

We will also need to see a breakdown of your interest calculation. As we have said you claim suggests that you seek interest on the full amount from the date of the agreement. It is our position that you will only be entitled to interest on the sums that you actually paid from the date you paid them if they are found to be as you claim and not valid reasonable contractual charges.

The Statement of account shows that the default charges were not debited until the xxxx 2006 and your payment of them appears to be included in you last two payments on xxx and xxxx 2006. Interest can not start to accrue before those dates.

We attach a copy of the Statement of Account.

We note our clients offer of £100 is rejected.

As we have said, this is not economically viable to contest and on that basis alone our clients are prepared to increase their offer to £150.

This is on the basis that whilst making no admissions the above factors will be taken into account by the court and even if you are successful in principle, it is likely that the court will find that an element of the charges was reasonable having regard to the contract and the defaults.

If this offer is still unacceptable please let us have the appropriate calculations/break down of your claim by way of early disclosure for our further consideration.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Yours faithfully,

[un1boy]

And here's my reply:

___

 

I am writing in response to your email dated xxx 2006 in which you offer a settlement for the above claim.

Firstly, I would like to thank you for clarifying the confusion about the location of my letter.

Secondly, I must inform you that I respectfully decline your offer of settlement and request, once again that you return to me all charges imposed on this account, totaling £xxx which include costs and interest. I would like to remind you that a daily interest rate of £0.07p is payable from the date of issue until the date of payment and also extra postage costs of £xxxx, which are in addition to the balance.

You mention in your letter that you do not understand where I obtained the figure of £367.54 based on the statement of account. I explained in my last letter that the statement I received from your client included, under “Total Charges” £90.00 with a confusing and not clear of its meaning description of “Doc/Opt Fee”; after calling an advisor in the Black Horse credit department, I was advised that this was a charge applied to the account due to missed payments etc. I would consider deducting £90.00 from the total balance I am claiming upon checking through your evidence that this “Doc/Opt” fee has nothing to do with late payment charges and the like, contrary to what I have been told by someone whom works for your client. Put simply, I was advised by your clients representative that the £90.00 was a charge levied for late payments and charges.

You also mention in your letter that the dates of Statutory Interest became payable from different dates. The dates I have mentioned in the claim merely confirm that the interest has been calculated for the whole period of the account, rather than a specific period; if you calculate the interest, you will notice I have only calculated the interest from the date of the first charge. The information I have used to compile my Claim has been taken directly from the last Statement of Account I received from your Client dated 18th September 2006 and are therefore all the information is correct to the best of my knowledge. If you are able to provide any other evidence for me to consider, please feel free to do so.

As requested, I have included my calculations of the interest which confirms that interest has only been claimed from March 2006; as the charges were applied to the account on this date that is when the interest is accrued from, not when I made payments against them, as suggested in your previous email.

In summary, I will accept the insulting sum of £150.00 offered only as part settlement and on the clear understanding that there are no conditions to its payment and also that I will pursue recovery of the remainder until the balance of claim, plus the daily interest, plus the extra costs I have incurred since your recent letter as mentioned above, has been received; the County Court Claim will only be withdrawn once all payments have been received in full. I require all payments in the form of cheque made payable to xxxx

[un1boy]

And this is what they just said:

___________--

Thank you for e-mailing your reply dated today’s date.

Unfortunately we do not seem to be making much progress in this case towards a reasonable settlement and have still yet to see from you how you calculate the sum claimed of £367.54. Even your own “Calculation of Interest” attached to your letter does not total that sum.

We have sent you a full statement of the account and as you can see there is no £90 debit to your account. Your calculation does however seem to agree that the collection fees and late payment interest were £225.00 and £7.79 respectively.

Our clients’ position is:

1. if your claim is successful in principle, the court will still find that our clients were entitled to charge for the administration cost of dealing with late payments and will allow a proportion of what was actually charged.

2. you will only be entitled to interest on the sums that you were actually “out of pocket” i.e. paid by you (and are found to be recoverable by you) and only for the period from the date of payment by you.

3. any costs will be subject to your evidence of an actual expense. We do not believe you will recover postage costs and certainly not for letters sent to an incorrect address.

4. this is a Small Claims matter and legal fees are recoverable by the successful party but not legal costs.

On this basis our clients repeat their offer of £150 and are prepared to add to it the Court fee for issue of the proceedings of £50 making a total offer of £200 in full and final settlement these proceedings.

We look forward to hearing from you,

________

 

Cheeky fcukers! I am, so tired of this - I'm goign to draft a response and post it up here asap.

[bearo]

£200 in full and final? What else are you looking for? I think that is a fair settlement tbh and I would guess any judge would agree.

[un1boy]

The claim is for over £300 with all the interest etc

[un1boy]

Ok, I have told them that I will acept £300 as full and final - this includes all charges, interest and court costs. Nothing else.

 

They are sending me a cheque today -yay!!

[sezj127]

Congratulations!! I know it wasnt excatly what you had wanted to get out of them, but maybe with the headache you must have been getting it was worth settling that little bit lower. I have just posted my (huuby's) prelim off today so will keep you posted in my tread. Again congratulations and have a Merry Xmas with your extra £300 (even if it is your dads, im sure you will get a prezzie!!! LOL)

[Guest ian cognito]

Well done! I must get round to doing mine.

[un1boy]

Thanks - let me know what your thread is called when you start it and I'll help you out if I can!

[un1boy]

Congratulations!! I know it wasnt excatly what you had wanted to get out of them, but maybe with the headache you must have been getting it was worth settling that little bit lower. I have just posted my (huuby's) prelim off today so will keep you posted in my tread. Again congratulations and have a Merry Xmas with your extra £300 (even if it is your dads, im sure you will get a prezzie!!! LOL)

 

Hi there, only just seen this post. Thanks loads. Well I haven't really lsot with this - they offered me £250 and I said I wanted £300 - this included all charges, interest on the charges, 8% interest, court courts and I just rounded it up.

 

The extra I was claiming for was the £90.00 which I was originally told was for charges, but then was told by them it was an admin fee, so realised I couldn't really claim it so didn't mind reducing it....

 

So, I didn't lose out at all to be honest.

 

Let me know the name of your thread and I'll come over to help!

[sezj127]

Just search my name (sezj127) in the quick search box at top of the page. I got about 5/6 threads going on at once and get confused myself...LOL

[mollymoo]

can the "collection activity fee" be claimed from black horse??

[un1boy]

can the "collection activity fee" be claimed from black horse??

 

No unfortunately it can't because it's an admin fee.

 

I tried claiming it but they wouldn't let me....

[mollymoo]

oh balls.

 

never mind. i can't claim anything from them then. it was a few years ago that i had the loan with them and i just remember having to pay charges left, right and centre. however after looking at my statements it seems that lloyds honoured all my payments to black horse and it was to lloyds that i owed all of the returned direct debits etc... and i have already got all that back.

 

ah well, onwards and upwards. who's next......

 

c & g me thinks.

[un1boy]

Oh well, at least you tried!

[pt2537]

Hi un1boy

 

i just wanted to ask when you say you wanted to claim for the collect activity fee and "They" wouldnt let you , who do you mean by they? its just that i was advised that the collect activity fee is a result of late payments and as such are reclaimable as they are penalty charges for late payments. im currently a second year law student and through my contact i have had some advice from a solicitor and they seemed to think both types of charge were recoverable

 

im just interested as im currently filing a claim for both charges from black horse

 

Good Luck with your claim

 

regards

paul

[un1boy]

Hi Paul and others,

 

 

I am SOOOO sorry, I got it wrong, collect activity fees are recoverable.

 

It's the DOc/Opt fee that aren't

 

I am sorry....you are correct Paul.

[un1boy]

I've PM'ed Molly to tell her

 

I am so sorry guys.....I know it is no excuse, but I am in the middle of studying for some work related exmas and we are sooo busy here.

 

Just to clarify what you can claim for:

 

Collect Activity fee: YES

Doc/Opt Fee: NO

[Erica_The_Penguin]

Hey,

I am really glad to hear that you won uni1boy.

 

Blackhorse have charged me the following:

 

C105 - due date charge, £25.00

C129 - W/B Arrears fee, £29.38

996 - Ddr Lack of funds, £72.02

996 - Ddr lack of funds, £72.02

C119 - Collection activity fee £250.00!!!

 

I will be glad especially to be claiming the collection activity fee!

 

Erica