Killbi11 vs Bank of Scotland

[killbi11]

Hi,

 

Just thought I'd post regarding my progress after reading the many useful posts here.

 

03/11/06 - Sent S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) to:-

 

Data Protection Manager

HBOS

Trinity Road,

West Yorkshire,

HX1 2BR

 

07/11/06 - Received letter back from BoS confirming receipt of the SAR and advising that I will receive statements back no later than 40 days!! This was a turn up for the books because I hadn't read of anyone getting a letter back

 

One question I do have is the issue about how far I can go back on the statements. I am in Scotland, so does that definately mean I can only go back 5 years instead of 6 years? If so, does anyone know why?

[maroondevo52]

Hi,

 

I'm sure it's only 5 years, something to do with Scottish Law I guess.

 

Best wishes.

 

Scott.

[killbi11]

Hiya,

 

Just an update, received a letter from BoS today regarding my statements and that they have complied all my statements and will be sending them out to be in seperate post.

 

So far, so good. I just hope that everything else goes this smoothly...

[killbi11]

Well, I received my statements today but they only go up to 13th May 2004!! Will be putting in a polite phone call tomorrow to ask where the rest of statements are. They have until 13th December, so they have a few days to get the rest of the statements to me .

 

I worked out the charges I have since 03/11/01 (5 years previous to issue of S.A.R.) and they come to £1517 (without interest added @ 8%)!! With interest they come to £1927!! I hope they take me to the court stage as I'd really love some extra cash

 

I'm not looking forward to putting my claims into court though as the Scottish small claims only allows claims of less than £750. For once, I wish I lived in England!

 

Oh well, I'm getting ahead of myself, so again thanks for all the help on this forum and I'll post some updates as they come.

[killbi11]

Hey,

 

I got the rest of the statements in and the total come to £1700 (without interest). I am going to write letter requesting they refund the charges but I have a question:-

 

1. Do I request the full amount back from them (£1700) or in increments of £750, as I am in Scotland.

 

 

Thanks for your help.

[killbi11]

Hi,

 

Prelim letter sent out today asking for charges totalling £1713. 14 days and counting....

[killbi11]

Just a little update to my claim.

 

09/01/07 - LBA sent

 

No reply or even acknowledgement. Wow, I think they must be getting a bit busy with all the claims

 

Oh well, I'm off to the Sheriff Court tomorrow to hand in my claim.

 

I will be claiming £720 (plus interest & court costs of course) on this visit. After this claim is settled I will be claiming another £700, and then after that £353. A bit of a hassle having to lodge 3 claims but as they say, patience is a virtue

 

I'll update sooner hopefully. Again, thanks for all the useful information on this forum. I have hardly had any questions regarding the process after reading all the posts.

 

Killbi11

[killbi11]

Hi,

 

Just to let you know, I only had to submit Form1 & 1b (and a cheque made payable to 'Scottish Court Services' for £39) at the Sheriff Court (Edinburgh). They said they did not need Form 1a.

 

This link provides both the forms you need to lodge the claim(s): http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/sheriff/small_claims/forms/Form1b.pdf

 

You can submit forms by post or by hand to your local Sheriff Court. One thing I did wrong was to put the defendants address as the correspondance address I used for the previous letters (BoS Dunfermline Customer Services address). This is wrong. You need to make sure the defendants address is in the same district as the court you are lodging it in (ie. your local branch address).

 

I used the same wording as in the following useful post:-

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/guidance-notes/11123-scottish-procedure.html

 

BUT the guy at the court made me change a few things from the above post:-

 

1. Box 4 on Form 1 he said I should put:-

"(i) The pursuer claims from the defender the sum of £XXX" (basic amount of charges - under £750)

"(ii) Interest of £XXX from to at 8% annually"

 

2. Box 7 on Form 1 he asked I add at the bottom:-

"Total amount of the claim is £XXX (amount of charges + interest amount) plus expenses"

 

Remember, on each claim, you are only claiming for the charges which make up the charges stated on each claim (under £750 for Small Claims) so focus on these specific ones for each claim.

 

Once one claim has been settled then you can lodge the next claim (if you have more than £750 of charges) and then the next etc etc

 

Good luck!

[margaretri]

Thank you so so so much, I had all my forms ready yesterday and decided to phone the court just to check I had completed the correct forms, I hadn't, so it was back to the drawing board to subsitute form 1a for 1b, having done all that I had them all ready to take to court today when I read your thread, thank goodness, I did, I've ammended the text just like you said and I' ve entered my local Banks address, hopefully that will be it.

Good Luck to you.

[Jaggythistle]

Good luck KB, they did the same with me - sent half statements requested and those statements went back to 1998, so I'll claim on what I do have statements for (£575 2005-2007) and when the missing paperwork turns up, they will be claim no 2

[Vagabond]

Hi,

 

The Sherriff Court has returned my forms today stating that I have completed "Block 4" incorrectly. I just spotted your advice on "Block 4".

 

Can someone please confirm if interest at 8% annually on £740 from 13/02/2001 to 05/02/2007 is £296? It seems a bit high to me.

[maroondevo52]

Hi, Killbi11,

 

You should go down the Summary Cause route. Its the same as Small Claims but you can claim up to £1,500. When you hand in your forms and pay your £39 court fee, the court will send your papers back and you must employ a Sheriff's Officer to serve your claim, this cost me £15.97

which you can claim back. The court will send you a list of local Sheriff Officers. You will get all your cash twice as fast.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[killbi11]

Vagabond,

 

To be honest the interest of £296 on a £740 claim sounds about right from the date you quote.

 

If you have submitted court papers you should have the charges and the interest itemised on a seperate sheet which should have been submitted with the court papers.

 

Use the following link to work out the interest and list your charges that you are claiming for. I used the 'Simple' spreadsheet which is much easier to understand:-

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/182-6-interest-calculation-spreadsheets.html

 

Hi Maroon,

 

To be honest I thought about this but I can wait for the money. I know the risk is near zero for any court costs to be paid etc but I have it all worked out in my head now so I don't want to deviate from my 'plan'

Thanks for the info

Looking at it though, I will probably submit my next claim as a 'Summary Clause' to get it all finished in the next claim.

 

KB

[killbi11]

Well, I got a settlement offer from BoS offering me about £500 less than I was claiming for.

 

I also got the confirmation letter from the Sheriff Clerk that the summons had been served.

 

Now, first of all, I am not accepting the settlement offer BoS have made. I have drafted them a nice letter which contained the following:-

 

Thank you for your letter dated Xth Feb 2007. Unfortunately, due to the length of time you took to respond, I have already started redress for these charges through the Small Claims Court (Edinburgh Sheriff Court) and am unable to accept your settlement offer.

 

Please note the Court Reference is XXXXX/XX. Return date is XX/XX/XX and hearing date is XX/XX/XX.

I have received confirmation that the summons has been served at the Goldenacre, Edinburgh branch.

Total amount of claim: £XXX + judicial interest of £XXX.

Total: £XXX + court costs.

 

Please note that this claim is for charges which were unlawfully taken from XX/XX/XX – XX/XX/XX. I will be filing a Summary Clause action after the first claim has been heard to recover the charges from XX/XX/XX to present which have been taken from me.

 

The only problem I have with this is the hearing date is in April!!

Surely the courts can't be this busy! Would like to know if anyone's had the same problem in Edinburgh.

 

Anyway, it seems to be progressing. Hopefully the BoS will settle my claim in full before the return date, but then again, I doubt it.

 

KB

[killbi11]

Well, today got a letter from Bank of Scotland claiming no responsibility etc etc and have re-imbursed me fully for my first claim - £1037.48 (includes interest @ 8% and costs)

 

The return date was today so it looks like they wait right up until the return date to settle your claim. Just checked my account and money has been credited to my account!

 

I now have £1091 left to claim. Instead of putting a 3rd claim in after this I am going to go the Summary Clause route as you can claim up to £1500 and this will settle all my bank charges up to date.

 

Firstly, I need to send off a 'Form 11' to the Sheriff Court to advise them the first claim has been settled. Best get it in the post today.

 

Can anyone tell me if they have had any trouble with the Summary Clause route in Scotland?

 

KB

[killbi11]

OK, I think I have run into a problem:-

 

IMPORTANT INFO:- EDINBURGH SHERIFF COURT DOES NOT ACCEPT SPLIT CLAIMS ON SAME ACCOUNT

 

I went to hand in my summary clause action for the remaining £1091 of bank charges I have. He asked me if I had claimed before and I said that I had (under small claim) and he said that the court is not accepting additional claims once the first one has been settled on the same account.

 

The reason he gave was that second claims were being defended in court (he did not say for which banks) and that the judge was dismissing the claim and awarding costs to the defendant (bank). The grounds for this he said was that the whole amount claimed should be claimed at once.

 

I have a few questions for some of the people here:-

 

1. Can they actually prevent you from putting in a claim (is it not your right to do this?)?

2. Has anyone experienced this and if so what did you do?

3. Would putting a small claim or summary clause into another court be worthwhile (ie. would I win?)

 

I thought this was going a bit too smoothly...does anyone have any help or advice???

 

Thanks.

[barj]

Hi Killbi11, I have only just started this 2nd day to be exact. I am a bit concerned having read your thread with the amount of money I will be claiming for. I have all my statements, and have every months for the last 5 years and more! total charges without calculating the interest £2049.00. How long can I go back and claim for, and are the statements I have sufficient to start the ball rolling or should I send a S.A.R, I'm loathed to give them any more money than I have to. Having looked into to both the small claims and summary claims, which approach do you suggest is better for this amount. Also is there any other way of re-claiming this amount, i.e. employing a solicitor and actually taking an action against the bank, bearing in mind that they would be liabel for court costs.

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[caro]

The bank that successfully defended second claims was Clydesdale, but you can claim using the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can still get interest, but you need to exhaust the banks complaints procedure first.

 

Financial Ombudsman Service

[Bigmac versus]

As Caro has said.

Spot on

[killbi11]

Thanks for the advice guys,

 

Can I assume I have exhausted the banks complaint procedure as I have sent them both a Prelim Letter and LBA and they have refused to refund the charges on both these requests? ie. can I go straight to the Financial Ombudsman Service now?

 

OR...I work in Livingston. Is it worth me using the Livingston Sheriff Court to submit the claim and pretending it's my first claim?? If I submit another small claim instead of a summary clause, if they do defend the action and it gets dismissed, costs will be minimal.

[maroondevo52]

Hi,

 

Edinburgh Sheriff Court did not say anything to me about not claiming for a second time, BOS paid me about a week and a half after they failed to respond to my court dates, maybe I was just lucky.That was at the end of March. As Caro and Bigmac Versus have said, the Financial Ombudsman Service seems the best bet, I've still got £5,000 to claim and that's the route I think I'll be going. Best wishes with whatever you decide to do, keep us posted.

 

Regards.

 

Scott.

[killbi11]

Well, I went back to the Edinburgh Sheriff Court on 11th May and thought I would chance it by not mentioning anything with regards to a previous claim when I was submitting it.

 

Turns out they have accepted my second claim and I got a letter in today with a return date at end of July.

 

We'll see if BoS actually put in a defence or not with regards to the problems had by Clydesdale customers lately. It was a small claim so I am not going to be loosing anything really if it gets thrown out. To be honest, I'm just hoping that BoS will just settle on the return date as they did with my previous claim.

 

Will keep you posted.

 

KB

[Bigmac versus]

Hiya they are now accepting 2nd claims and when reading your story i see that you were settled on your first claim before actually appearing at court so below should be interesting to you for your 2nd case if the bank feel like defending on these grounds.

 

res judicata need not apply to cases that have been paid out without going to court i.e dismissed etc. read this

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/C42014(B)98.html

 

Upon showing this at Edinburgh sheriff court they now will accept second claims, also for res judicata to apply each case needs to be the same. so why not use just the case law the first time and then the second claim to feature solely on UTCC's.

 

 

 

Refused a second claim after first one was settled without court appearance then the above should be interesting for you or you were thinking of raising a second claim as you had been settled without appearing at court but due to the likelyhood of it not being accepted you have delayed any action then how does this sound now.

[killbi11]

Thanks Bigmac,

 

Your post about res judicata actually prompted me to try and put the claim in again.

 

I'll just have to see if they defend it now

 

KB

[Bigmac versus]

And if they do then you know what to do, would like to see there faces then.