MBNA Charges Reclaim Gm Card**won**

[TUTTSI]

Hi all,

Letter received this morning on hubby's MBNA claim, they say they are settling in full and the the money is going into his account but as yet, it has not happened. As soon as it is there a donation will be made and the survey completed.

Thanks to all on site who have helped make this possible.

DS

[Bicester1]

Well done!

 

Bicester1

[Bicester1]

Ds

 

Hi. how goes it with GM? Sent my LBA off last week no reply yet.

 

Bicester1

[TUTTSI]

Hi Bicester

I have received the defence and have now dealt with the AQ and sent it back. The case hase been transferred to my local court as I had done a MCOL. I would imagine the way it goes a few days before the court date they will pay up, unless they want a test case with the press. I am sure when you deal with the AQ, I copied it from the CAG site and I would imagine when the courts get it the Judge will ask them for disclosure and they ain't going to do that so that is when they will pay. It is very interesting to see how different companies react to these claims. I have exactly the same with Barclaycard and both are for the same court.

Good luck and let me know how yours is going.

regards

DS

[fivelaws]

I settled with GM last June. It was a generally painless operation, so I'm sorry you've had to go "all the way". I just rang them up after the LBA was ignored and we came to a mutally acceptable number on the phone. The b*stards sent me a rubber cheque though, which caused me to go over my overdraft limit with my then bank A&L. Still - it all worked out well in the end...

 

Maybe the tougher stance is a result of the deluge?

[TUTTSI]

Yes - but I believe they will pay before Court, I am sure they do not want to be the first test case. Besides I hope that the Judge on his own motion will ask them for a breakdown of their charges - and since they will not want that they will pay.

DS

[Bicester1]

Hi DS

 

Had my reply to my LBA offering me almost exactly the sum [-£5] they have taken in charges, but no interest, "as a goodwill payment in full and final settlement." Written back with a "sod off" letter!

 

How's your case going any more news?

 

Best wishes

 

Bicester1

[TUTTSI]

Hi Bicester

Good for you, crack on with it as they will not back down until the last. I have already sent back my AQ and I am just waiting for the court date, I presume it will be in March/April, still I do not expect I will see the court room and if I do have to go I will expect to get my costs as well and enjoy my day in court. I personally think they will back down just before, that way they hold on to the money longer.

Regards

DS

[TUTTSI]

Letter received today from DG Solicitors acting on behalf of GM Card.

Firstly, they are saying that I cannot claim for charges going back bejond 6 years only from the date of the claim. It was my understanding that once I had put it in writing which was within the 6 year period I would be OK, can someone please help on this point.

They also only want to pay 8% and not 19.90% as they have charged me. Capital One paid out so I do not see why this should be a poblem and I think I will fight this point if someone could guide me here.

They say they will make an ex gratia payment, providing I will sign a confidentiality clause, this I will not, again can someone advise.

I would like to write back rejjecting their offer, or at least accept it on a partial settlement! what do you think!

Thanks andy help very much appreciated.

DS

[hagenuk]

Letter received today from DG Solicitors acting on behalf of GM Card.

Firstly, they are saying that I cannot claim for charges going back bejond 6 years only from the date of the claim. It was my understanding that once I had put it in writing which was within the 6 year period I would be OK, can someone please help on this point.

 

The Limitation period runs back from the issue of the claim.

 

It is my understanding that you then get a further four months to serve the claim. So you may serve the claim out of time, but only by four months. If the defendants want to rely upon the Limitation Act then it is they who must raise the issue and plead it. There is no duty on the claimant to refer to the Limitation Act.

 

I think if you really wanted to push it, you could simply suggest to them that you intend to rely on s.32 of the Limitation Act and are perfectly happy to let a Judge decide.

 

They also only want to pay 8% and not 19.90% as they have charged me. Capital One paid out so I do not see why this should be a poblem and I think I will fight this point if someone could guide me here.

 

If you have done this with Capital One then you should know what to do here, the process will be identical and I feel sure, if pressed, they will fold and again, inform them that you will let the Judge decide this point too. There is a huge amount of information on the site regarding the claiming of contractual interest.

 

They say they will make an ex gratia payment, providing I will sign a confidentiality clause, this I will not, again can someone advise.

 

This really is personal choice, if it matters to you that you are able to talk about this claim, then refuse to agree to any confidentiality clause, again I am sure they will concede this point - it will not be a deal breaker

 

I would like to write back rejjecting their offer, or at least accept it on a partial settlement! what do you think!

Thanks andy help very much appreciated.

DS

 

I would use the rejection letter in the library, adapted if necessary for your circumstances.

[TUTTSI]

Thanks Hagenuk

Fortunately Capital One paid in full with once a MCOL was issued they did not impose any restrictions. The rejection letter in the template liabrary is not entirely appropiate so I will piece something together, I will accept partial settlement without any conditions and advise them that I will only settle for the full claim or I will see them court. I used the same calculations with Capital One so I see no reason why GM Card will not agree in the end. My Hubby had the same with Halifax and eventually they agreed the full whack. Thanks for your help it is very much apreciated.

DS

[TUTTSI]

Letter done and will be posted tomorrow. So lets hope that they will see sense and pay up!

[Bicester1]

DS Hi

 

Victory over GM

 

They have offered charges plus s69 interestand that was before MCol!

 

I am going to accept as the sums involved, and difference, are not great and I am mindful of the courts attitude about "reasonableness."

 

They were very quick to offer me s69 anyone else same experience?

 

Bicester1

[TUTTSI]

Just an update, received today from the courts the identical notice to the small claims track from Judge Steel - exactly the same as Barclaycard. The court hearing date is also on the same date but an earlier time than Barclays and I have to send in all my Documentation in by 19th February so now I am panicing and today being the 15th. Also they have the same error on this as the Barclays one that we picked up on where it says that the Defendant do by 4pm 19th March 2007 clarify the defence by filing in court and serving on the Defendant the following information......

Also, since writing back to the Solicitors following their letter I have heard nothing so if nothing is received in the post today, My plan is that I will check my balance on the card just to see if they have settled then if that is negative I will phone the Solicitor's to see if I can get them to agree and if not I will have to get my bundle together and send off today.

I do not think it fair that the courts have only given me a couple of days and really only 1 working day to deal with it. I did try calling the courts last leek but was on hold for over 30 minutes and I had to terminate the call. I will start as soon as the courts open today as I need some clarification.

Also, what legal materials do I need to include to be relied on!

[hagenuk]

Take a look at the Court Bundle here, http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/33060-basic-court-bundle.html and adapt this for your own case. You will need to edit it and add documents (such as your Prelim, LBA, schedule of charges) pertaining to your own claim. The legal materials are in there and where they are not, there are links so you can download them.

 

However, can you clarify the above, as it seems to me that the order you have recevied puts the onus on GM to supply the court and you with information by the 19th?

[TUTTSI]

Take a look at the Court Bundle here, http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/33060-basic-court-bundle.html and adapt this for your own case. You will need to edit it and add documents (such as your Prelim, LBA, schedule of charges) pertaining to your own claim. The legal materials are in there and where they are not, there are links so you can download them.

 

However, can you clarify the above, as it seems to me that the order you have recevied puts the onus on GM to supply the court and you with information by the 19th?

 

I wish that were the case, I have to supply by the 19th February to the Defendant:-

My Schedule of Charges - OK I have this

Copies of Statements showing where the charges have been made and or other documents that I rely on. OK I have this

Statement of Evidence of all matters relied upon as tending to show that the charges are irrecoverable as penalties or otherwise. What is this!

Copies of any decided cases and other materials to be relied upon. I take it that is all in the bundle!

Do i take it that I have to photocopy the bundle by 3.

Any help that you can provide would be very helpful

Regards

DS

[hagenuk]

Hi

 

Look here for a statement of evidence http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/53570-new-strategy-allocation-questionaires-3.html#post482194 post #55 and yes, the rest of what you will need is either in the bundle or the links are there so that you can download the information.

 

Yes, you should have three copies, one for the Court, one for the Defendants and your own copy.

[TUTTSI]

Ok, letter received today from GD Solicitors (WITHOUT PREDUDICE) , the gist of the letter is:-

1.They do not want pay me 19.9% interest, but want to restrict my

claim to 8% and they want to know my Legal basis for claiming the higher amount. Is there any legal basis I can quote apart from the obvious that their client charged me that rate.

2. They go on to repeat what they said in the previous letter about the limitation act and that it can only be taken into account from the date of the MCOL.

3. They have however increased their offer (execptional is the word they used) to £572.08 which is a whole £27.17 increase!! My claim with them is for £704.37 so they still have some way to go!!

4. You will like this one, they say HSBC are entirely confident "that their charges are reasonable, are properly and fully disclosed in it's terms and conditions and published price list". They also say " that HSBC is confident that it was entitled to apply these charges and that it would successfully resist your claim in court" YEH RIGHT, I do not think they would!!

5. They want me to sign a confidentiality if I agree. - NO WAY

So, having spent last weekend strugling to get my court bundle together and the amount of time and photocopying I have done, postage, delivering bundle to court to ensure that it got there in good time, there is no way I am going to cave in now.

When I write back should I ask them for a full disclosure and breakdown of how their charges are made up!!

Should I ask tell them how much my costs are at £9.25hr + + + +

and tell them that they should either settle in full now, or I will see them in court.

Any help that anyone can give me, I would be very grateful.

Thanks

DS

[hagenuk]

The argument for contractual interest is not as clearly defined as some may wish to promote. It is my opinion however, that with a credit card at least, there is a more reasonable argument to be made for contractual interest and if I were in your position, I would hold out and see what a Judge would have to say.

 

I would be inclined to reply and inform them that you see no need to discount for risk and that you are perfectly happy for a Court to decide whether or not their charges are "reasonable" and to award an appropriate rate of interest.

[TUTTSI]

I picked up on another thread - which has been posted by Michael Brown and appears to be a good answer with regard to the Contractual Rate:

 

"The Claimant believe this rate to be justified under the principle of mutality and reciprocity and is based on the Defendants annual percentage rate that would applied under the terms of the above mentioned account."

 

I will use this in the body of my letter to D & G Solicitors.

 

DS

[TUTTSI]

This is the letter which I have today faxed and posted to D & G Solicitors. I hope that they will see that I am taking a firm stance on this matter and that hopefully they will concede rather than go to court.

DS

Myself v HFC Bank Ltd T/A GM Card

Willesden County Court Claim No 6QZ91497

Thank you for your letter dated 20th February 2007, and I have noted the contents of that letter.

Firstly, I must advise that I am only prepared to accept the full amount of my claim, which currently totals £704.37 which includes court costs but does not include other accrued costs including out of pocket expenses incurred to date.

My claim is based on the contractual rate of interest. I believe this rate to be justified under the principle of mutuality and reciprocity and is based on your clients (the Defendants) annual contractual rate of Interest of 19.9% which they had applied under the terms of the account held with your client.

Furthermore, I would advise that I am perfectly happy to let the Court decide whether or not your clients charges are “reasonable” and for them to award an appropriate rate of interest. Please advise your client that I have not compounded the interest and had I have done this, it would have increased the interest amounts vastly. I think therefore I have been exceptionally fair in my claim.

Secondly, I would advise that should this matter proceed to court on 30th April 2007, I would draw your attention to point 7 in my particulars of claim where I have asked for costs to be allowed by the court. I would also advise you that my costs in this matter have already escalated since having to serve the bundles of documents as requested by Judge Steel both at court and on your clients, and a great deal of time went into executing this matter. I drew this matter to your attention during our brief telephone conversation last week.

[TUTTSI]

Letter now received from DG Solicitors - on behalf on GM Card.

They basically are not budging an inch. They say that unless I can provide them with the relevant legislation regarding the interest they will only pay S69 8% and not 19.9%.

They are also going on about costs as I told them that I would be claiming costs for all the work that I have had to do with the court bundles. They say

 

"We should like to refer you to the CPR 1998 s27.14 which states that fixed costs in a small claim are recoverable. Costs may be summarily assessed by the Court if either party has acted unreasonably, which our client has not during the course of these proceedings".

They have firmly not upped their offer and they have stated that they will hold their offer open for my acceptance. They have said nothing about going to court. Do I just call their bluff?

Does anyone know if there is a legislation! I have pulled off from CAB web advice, an article about claiming interest. It states that

"Unless your contract with the trader specifies the rate of interest you can claim, you should claim interest a statutory rate of interest, which is currently at 8%.".

So according to this I should be able to claim the contractual rate which they charged me. Even though I have not compounded it like they have.

Has anyone got any idea on how to respond or should I now just play a waiting game for them not to send their bundle into court.

DS

[hagenuk]

I'd play them at their own game and wait.

 

They are of course correct about CPR 27.14 but in case they try to be clever about unreasonable behaviour CPR 27.14 (3) states "A party's rejection of an offer in settlement will not of itself constitute unreasonable behaviour under paragraph (2)(g) but the court may take it into consideration when it is applying the unreasonableness test."

Unfortunately there is no legislation regarding contractual interest save for the fact that you are entitled to claim any interest rate you see fit, but you must be prepared to argue why you have chosen to apply it.

 

Finally, as I said above, now you wait them out...

[TUTTSI]

What I am not sure about is on the HSBC site which owns GM card, the same solicitors are paying claims for contractual interest. So why are they being so difficult here.

Also, it appears to me that as GM card is part of HSBC, should the GM thread be with the section for HSBC, as more peaple dealing with DG Solicitors are on those threads. The letters from DG only state HSBC!! and not GM.

I agree with you Hagenuk, it is a waiting game and now they only have untill 19th March to get all their bundle to the courts and to me and I really do not think they will.

DS

[TUTTSI]

Hi All,

I received a letter from Cap Quest stating that they purchased a debt from Halifax.

 

In fact 6 months ago, Halifax's Solicitors Heatons LLP wrote to us stating that we owed an amount to their client and as the amount was incorrect we disputed the amount, a letter was sent by recorded delivery and signed for. We requested that their client supplies us with an up to date statement of account as the figures were totally wrong. No response was ever received despite a second letter having been sent to them also by recorded delivery and signed for.

 

Now, Halifax have sold the debt to CapQuest and they are now chasing for an amount which is in dispute. They have now instructed their Solicitors H L Legal to write to me/ funny not us it was a joint account with a very intimidating letter.

 

I have written back telling the Solicitors that this debt is in dispute and that halifax had no right to sell the debt whilst there was a dispute in place. I have told them that if they do pursue it further I will report the matter to the law society.

 

Is there anything further I should be doing to safeguard my/our interest!

Is their any case laws I can refer to! just in case they come back heavy handed.

 

DS