Curve Card - No response to letter before claim - claiming interest when using MCOL **WON**

[parity4all]

The value of final judgment is £61.54.

 

Are you sure that I shouldn't contact Curve by email or letter (they  only have a phone number to report a lost/stolen card) and give them 7 days to pay-up before enforcing judgment?

Maybe I can attach a copy of the judgment to the email.

 

If I do enforce judgement and Court sends bailiffs to the Curve office, what are the chances of them recovering the money?

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

I don't know what the chances are of recovering the money.

You can certainly send them an email if you want – all the other thing you can do is you could try asking the financial ombudsman to help you or even the FCA. If you send a copy of the judgement of the FCA then they might do something – although frankly I think it's unlikely.

It's certainly not a lot of money and I can imagine that you feel uncomfortable about spending another 50 quid or so on an enforcement was might fail. If you went to the FOS at least it would be free

[parity4all]

Please mark this thread as won. Received cheque for £61.54. Cleared yesterday. So I will be updating claim status on MCOL site today as 'paid'.

 

Just some background for others in similar situ.

 

If I hadn't received payment, I would have heeded your advice and approached the Financial Ombudsman while having the 'request warrant' option in the backburner (for later use) if ombudsman don't uphold the complaint.

 

The reason I didn't go to the ombudsman to begin with was because i've had a few unfavourable decisions from ombudsman lately (only a handful were favourable and they were very strong cases). The ombudsman complaints also take ages to be decided and it's pretty much luck of the draw when it comes to the adjudicator's competence.

 

I wanted to try the MCOL for first time, because it is similar to a Court and cases are not decided on 'what is fair' but according to law. I took a case against Paypal to the ombudsman once and quoted the specific terms of the agreement. Adjudicator responded with:
 

First, please allow me to explain the role of this service. The Financial Ombudsman Service is an alternative to the court system and, as an alternative, we make our decisions on a fair and reasonable basis. This is in accordance with section 228 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which defines how we can decide on complaints. The arguments you’ve presented may be better suited to a court of law as it’s primarily courts who have the power to interpret legislation and EU regulations. So, there’s nothing to stop you from pursuing your complaint through other means.
 
Notwithstanding the points you’ve put forward, I still don’t think it’d be fair or reasonable to uphold your complaint....

 

 

Rather than pussy footing around with endless emails to and fro with the adjudicator (and maybe even have to complain ABOUT the adjudicator), I figured MCOL was more certain because of the time limits in place - so no cases dragging on for months/years.

 

Also, the final response from Curve I received telling me about the right of appeal to ombudsman seemed they were sure how it was gonna turn out with the Ombudsman (may be this is conjecture - but it's just how I feel).

 

If I did go to Ombudsman and they did not uphold complaint, I would have paid the 75 quid and gone ahead with requesting warrant. Hopefully, the bailiffs would have visited Curve offices while there were some clients/customers there at the reception. How embarrassing.

 

If anyone is interested this is what I said in the MCOL 'Particulars of claim':

 

 

1. The Claimant's claim is partly for the sum of £34.03 being monies owed by the defendant
for fees levied contrary to the agreement between them.

 

2. In accordance with the relevant pre-action protocol, the Claimant has asked the defendant to rectify the matter by refunding the fees of £34.03 and pay postage costs of £2.06, but has not received a response.

 

3. The sum of £36.09 remains due and outstanding.

The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 04/08/2020 to 11/09/2020 on £36.37 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier
payment at a daily rate of £0.01.

 

Thanks to everyone on this forum for their advice and support. 

[BankFodder]

Well done on your win.

Thanks also very much for your explanation of why you preferred to go to the County Court than FOS.

I completely agree with you. I think you've done exactly the right thing and I think your explanation is extremely helpful for anybody who is not sure which way to go.