JP Morgan/Rooftop Arrears fees- The saga continues.

[BankFodder]

You say that you had an agreement in place to repay the arrears at £50 per month in addition to the regular payments. Is that correct

[BankFodder]

How long has this implied scheme of overpayments been going on?

[BankFodder]

Okay. You have been making overpayments for 12 months and these have been accepted by your original creditor without causing any problem and without trying to protest against what you are doing. I think that this amounts to an implied agreement and my immediate recommendation to you is to keep on making the payments without fail. One mistake and there could be a problem for you.

 

Mortgage lenders and the people who take them over are bound by MCOBS. In keeping with the other FCA COBS regulations there is a duty to treat you fairly. There is no doubt in my mind that if they buy a debt then they are saddled with any existing agreements. There is no doubt in my mind that despite the lack of writing, there is an implied agreement that you will repay the arrears at the rate you are currently making and that they will accept that repayment scheme.

 

I think you need to state your position very firmly.

 

Write to them and tell them in no uncertain terms that you have been making overpayments in respect of the arrears for 12 months and that you propose to keep on doing so at the same rate. Point out to them that they are subject to the FCA MCOBS regulations and if they try to deviate from the agreement or if they try to levy any other charges or if they start to make any threats against you, that at the very least you will begin a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

 

Tell them that if they begin any court action against you that you will counterclaim under MCOBS. Tell them that you fully expect to be successful before the County Court's and that in the event that you do obtain a judgement on the counterclaim that not only will you enforce whatever figure compensation the courts decided but also you will send a copy of the judgement to the FOS and to the FCA.

[BankFodder]

They are not entitled to apply charges which are not reflective of their administrative losses. In other words they are not allowed to make profits from this. Read about Kensington mortgages and also Deutsche Bank. Also Redstone

 

Follow the mortgages link to get more information.

 

In your letter remind them of the rules relating to charges and also that they are not allowed to add these charges to any mortgage arrears. Tell them that unless they withdraw this immediately that you will be making an immediate complaint to the FOS. Make sure you do this. Don't bluff.

 

Tell them that if there are any additional charges they wish to levy then you want a full breakdown and a full explanation of them which will satisfy not only you but also the FOS.

 

Make sure you send all communications by recorded delivery or preferably special next day delivery. Keep all proofs of posting and all proofs of delivery.

[BankFodder]

Please will you post up a copy of your SAR request in PDF format and also a copy of their response in PDF format.

[BankFodder]

Thoroughly fed up and hacked off with this bunch of crooks now so can some kind person please advise what to do next?

 

Obviously not fed up or hacked off enough or else you would engage with this thread and respond to the questions which have been asked.

[BankFodder]

Whilst I will of course value and appreciate your advice, I feel this kind of comment from such a prominent member of the forum is beneath you. I am not ignoring the comments but sadly don’t have the letter to hand at this moment, but will scan them up as soon as I get back home.

 

Then you only had to tell us.

 

Please scan the letters up in PDF format as soon as you can because it will influence the advice that we will give you.

 

You might also like to give some response or acknowledgement to the question which was asked by the other site team member.

[BankFodder]

Thank you.

 

when we see the sar that you send them then we can understand more fully exactly what they have responded to.

 

I'm not too sure how a claims management company could submit an sar on your behalf. Have you got a copy of the request that was submitted by the claims management company?

 

I think it may be useful to get a full bullet pointed chronology from you on this.

 

I certainly do think that if you have submitted a valid sar and they haven't responded then you should move very quickly to a claim for breach of statutory duty and we will be happy to help you with this. However we need to be sure of our ground and make sure that all our ducks are in a row first of all

 

if you don't have copies of the correspondence sent by the claims management company then you should also send an sar to them.

[BankFodder]

Has this problem been resolved to tour? Or is there any movement on it?

[BankFodder]

That is dated 4th of January so they are still within the 30-day deadline. what date was the previous sar when they said that they wanted the money

[BankFodder]

well let's see the other letter anyway and monitor this thread for a fuller reply tomorrow.

 

We will have to do a response to the letter which you have posted above

[BankFodder]

If we can go through this and check the statutory request which you have made and decide that they do in fact comply with the statute, then if the requests had been breached then I would suggest that you bring a claim for breach of statutory duty under the DPA. In order to do this you would claim for a very modest amount – say £50 – with the intention not of accepting any settlement but of proceeding to judgement.

 

You can get an idea from this post here https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?492106-Npower-2-year-nightmare-Please-help&p=5170199&viewfull=1#post5170199

[BankFodder]

I'd like to start having a look at this problem but this thread has started to become a little bit strung out.

 

Would you mind starting a new thread and laying out a chronology of events in bullet pointed fashion in an attempt to pull together what you have discovered so far in one easily digestible chunk. Then we can have a look at the possibilities.

 

I'm going to close this thread

[BankFodder]

I'd like to see the letter from the claims company to see if it was a valid sar.

 

Also, where are their responses? Can you post up in pdf format please

[BankFodder]

This was the response to the 2nd request, still struggling to find the first one but it said exactly the same apart from, as explained, saying that there had been a request for info in October from Mortgage Claims which thinking about it wasn't most likely a SAR but just request based on my signing an authority for them to request info. The first letter also asked for a fee of £2.20 to cover their costs.

 

I expect that you are correct that it wasn't a true SAR – but I would prefer to be certain about it before using it as a basis for litigation. I think it would be a very good idea to send an SAR to your claims management company and see if you can get a copy from them of what they sent.

 

I think that it is worth taking time to stack up the evidence and load the dice against them if at all possible. I don't see that there is a huge rush on this at the moment. Send the SAR to the claims company immediately. You have about 14 days to wait for the expiry of your SAR of the fourth January so there will only be about another 14 days after that for the CMC to produce their disclosure.

[BankFodder]

Data Subject Access Request

[BankFodder]

They still cant charge anything. A SAR is free no matter if you request it a dozen times. And what costs? If they complied with the other SAR, as they said they had, theyd have all info on hand. So should just copy it.

 

I'm sorry but this is not correct. There are circumstances in which they data controller can require a reasonable fee and a repeated request is one of those circumstances.

 

If the claims company really has made a valid SAR then £2.20 for what amounts to a repeated request is not unreasonable. What is more interesting here is that they seem to be shifting the goalposts.

 

It is entirely possible that there is no breach here because if the original request was a valid DSAR then they have certainly offered to provide a copy or even a fresh SAR for the payment of £2.20.

 

I'm not too clear whether the £2.20 was actually paid or offered and they then went on to refuse on second grounds. If that is the case then maybe we have a breach.

 

Where they certainly have breached – but it is pretty technical – is that where they make any kind of refusal then they have to outline various things including the reason but also they must identify the section of the act under which the refusal is made and also explained to you your rights to complain to the ICO. This is pretty rarefied stuff and frankly I wouldn't bother to sue on it.

[BankFodder]

Well I don't understand their response of the 19th because on one hand they want a payment of £2.20 because it is a repeat of a DSAR made on your authority by the claims management company – and then in the same letter they say that they can't supplied to you because they are unable to verify your authority.

 

I really don't understand what they are doing – and I still think that you should send an SAR to the claims management company.

 

What date did you supply them with the £2.20 payment?

[BankFodder]

In the absence of a copy of the request made by your claims company:

 

Dear Sir/Mdm

 

I refer to your letter of 19 December in which you informed me that you will comply with my statutory disclosure if I provide you with a payment of £2.20. This payment has now been provided to you on the XXX date. Despite this I have received no disclosure from you.

 

I also refer to your statement that you cannot let me have the statutory disclosure because you are unable to verify my authority.

 

In the same letter you tell me that however, if I want to make a new subject access request, then the above fee will apply.

 

Of course I understand that you are entitled under the data protection legislation to require that I provide sufficient information few to verify my identity. However in this case there should be no doubt as to my identity because the name I am using, the signature that I am using, the address to which I am asking you to send the statutory disclosure are exactly those to which you have been content to send statements, demands and threats on several occasions.

 

For this reason it is clear that your claim that you are unable to verify my authority is spurious and calculated merely to obstruct the exercise of my rights under the data protection act.

 

I'm writing to inform you that as my subject access request was received by you on the XXX date, you have now exceeded the statutory 30 day time limit and so you are in breach of your statutory duty. I'm proposing to sue you in the County Court for breach of statutory duty and I'm not sure that there is much you can do to prevent this.

 

I still require that you make the statutory disclosure and I'm giving you an opportunity to reduce the seriousness of your statutory breach by providing you with 14 days notice of my intention to begin a County Court claim against you so that if you do provide me with the disclosure, at the very least you will be able to tell the court that you did eventually comply with your statutory duty. Of course I will inform the court that your compliance was only obtained as a result of a threat of legal action by myself.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Does that work?

 

This assumes that you are prepared to bring a legal action whether or not they make the disclosure. If you would rather not take this step then please let us know and we will amend the letter

[BankFodder]

… Or if you don't get any reply at all – day 15 you issue the papers. You had better let us know by about day 12 if you have heard anything

[BankFodder]

You have already pointed out that you have been receiving various demands and threats as well as statements – all of which contained sensitive personal data. Furthermore I understand that you have been receiving visits to your address.

 

On this basis it's very clear that they don't need this identity verification. Although they are permitted under the Data Protection Act to take steps to verify data, this is only when it is necessary to do so.

 

That doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

I understand that you have sent them two SARs and they are in breach of both them.

 

Can you just clarify what is this third letter which you have just sent them on the 27th?

 

Do I also gather that they ask you to pay £2.20 – and you have paid it?

 

 

How did you pay?

[BankFodder]

Thank you. So how did you pay that £2.20 fee?

[BankFodder]

When you say cash – do you mean coins?

 

Have you banked the cheque?

[BankFodder]

Okay, well I suggest that you complain to the information Commissioner. You should try to this on the telephone but in any event right in with your complaint and try to get a reference number. The information Commissioner is overrun with complaints the moment and whereas it used to be able to get a preliminary decision within about six weeks, it now seems as it might take as long as three months simply to get your reference number – but you better get started.

 

So you will complain that you have sent to SARs using your identity your contact details et cetera which rooftop are happy to use to send threats, demands, visits – personal data generally – and even a cheque for £2.20 made out in your name and sent to your address – and yet they are prepared to disclose your data.

 

Furthermore, they asked initially for a payment – which you gave them and once the payment was given they then change the reason for declining and said that it was a question of identity verification. Once again, they are happy to use your contact details for authors other reasons but not for data disclosure and you consider that this is a breach of the data protection act.

 

 

 

Now we have to decide if you are prepared to take legal action. Once again I rather lost the flow of the story. Have you send them a letter before action? Did you give them 14 days or else you will sue in the County Court?

If you did send them the letter before action then are you prepared to proceed. If you did not send them the letter before action then if you are prepared to proceed then you should send them a letter before action.

[BankFodder]

Okay, well I suppose that they are unlikely to respond to your LBA so you had better start preparing. Register with money claim online and start understanding how it works. You can also stop preparing your particulars of claim. However don't send anything off or click anything off without checking here for the draft.

 

Also, you can refresh your memory by reading around on this forum about how to bring a small claim in the County Court.

 

You will be claim for breach of the data protection act and that they failed to disclose your data within the statutory period of 30 days.

 

I don't think it's worth mentioning their ID verification request at this point. The thing to do is to keep your particular is a claim to an absolute minimum so as to establish a cause of action but without giving too much detail.

 

No doubt they will refer to the ID verification in the defence and then you can make a reply or simply go for the hearing.

 

I will try to monitor this and support you as far as I can – although I have to warn you that I'm extremely busy trying to organise a major upgrade of this website and it's taking more time than I would like.