Mozstar vs LloydsTSB - just starting out

[mozstar]

Hi everyone. I had already sent a prelim letter to the lovely folk at Lloyds TSB (as well as to Halifax and Capital One, whom I am also pursuing for the return of my money) before I discovered this wonderful forum - I had simply used the template to be found on the BBC website (has anybody got any comments on this template?).

 

I have since discovered the whole notion of charging interest on the amounts that were unlawfully taken from me and have decided that this would be a fair and proper route for me to take. I am therefore about to recalculate the amount which I will be demanding from them and intend to send a new prelim letter, once I have done a bit more reading up on the subject.

 

Do I need to refer to my previous letter in my second prelim letter ie. by saying something like "please disregard my previous correspondence" or "following my recent correspondence I have since discovered..."? Or just pretend I never sent it? What have other people done?

 

Anyway I'm really glad I found this forum, I look forward to following some of your threads and I wish you all good luck!

[elsinore]

 

Do I need to refer to my previous letter in my second prelim letter ie. by saying something like "please disregard my previous correspondence" or "following my recent correspondence I have since discovered..."? Or just pretend I never sent it? What have other people done?

 

 

Hello Moz, welcome to the LTSB forum.

 

I don't think you need to apologise or excuse yourself for your prelim letter. I wouldn't even refer to it.

 

Your next letter should be your LBA (assuming you've had the usual sodoff letter from our mutual friends!). Try and get the claim details right in that one, because the step after that will be your County Court Claim and it will look better if you are consistent from then on.

 

Good luck with all your claims.

 

Elsinore

[mozstar]

Thanks for the advice Elsinore. I just need to find the time to calculate the interest before this Friday, which is the deadline from my prelim letter. I don't suppose the banks will care though if my LBA is slightly delayed! I just have to decide whether to go for it at the authorised or unauthorised rate. Is there any poll on the forum anywhere which shows how many people have claimed for which interest rate, or even for none?

[mozstar]

PS. No actually I haven't heard anything from LLoyds yet, nor Capital One - Halifax did send me a letter assuring me that a customer services manager would call me within 4 weeks!

[lucid]

I just have to decide whether to go for it at the authorised or unauthorised rate. Is there any poll on the forum anywhere which shows how many people have claimed for which interest rate, or even for none?

 

I haven't heard many successful claims that I can refer to for contractual interest. People have had it refunded with other banks and I think both rates have ben accepted. But I haven't heard of any Lloyds claimant getting it refunded yet. Not because Lloyds have refused but because no claims have been resolved. We're going for the unauthorised rate and our hearing is 7th February so we shall have some news soon. We did have an offer in which they said the bank will not entertain interest at 29.85% but in our reply it was pointed out that it's not up to them - it's up to the court to decide.

 

Good luck with your claim. Lucid

[mozstar]

That's interesting Lucid, I'll have to read some more (so much to read here, so little time!). But to bring me up to speed can you explain your point about "no claims have been resolved" with Lloyds? I take it you mean claims including contractual interest, but how come they are taking so long? I see your hearing is four months after Lloyds registered their defence.

 

Good luck, I shall follow your progress with interest...

[lucid]

Yes sorry, I meant no Lloyds claims have been resolved (that I know of) with contractual interest. Lloyds like to drag it along - probably in the hope that you will get fed up and give up. But that coupled with the courts being a lot busier now means that hearings may not be given dates until a fair way along. But it will finally be over for us soon. Whether we'll have to turn up in court is going to be a matter of how much Lloyds don't want to give us the contractual interest. If they don't pay it to us, then we will turn up in court and then it will be left up to the judge.

 

Lucid

[mozstar]

Yes I've just been reading your thread (but not yet finished, wow what a saga!) and I have to say it's really inspiring stuff. This forum is one of those classic things which thoroughly justifies the usefulness of the web and has made my brain go all gooey in a way I haven't felt for ages about how it can help empower us all!

 

Going for the full whack interest rates will be worth it so I can make a decent donation to put something back I reckon. But I see now what a long path it will be. :o

[mozstar]

Well I think Lloyds might be aiming to put me off by confusing my brain: first they send a letter refusing to repay me anything, then out of the blue they write to thank me "for getting in touch with us again" (I didn't) and offering me partial repayment - which they put into my account the next day.

 

I am rejecting the offer and also (as mentioned in my last bout of posting above) adding on compounded contractual interest. I believe Lloyds unauthorised rate is 29.85% - can anyone please verify this as I can't find it on their website?

 

The following is the letter I am going to send once I have completed my spreadsheet. I planned to send it both to the person who wrote to me recently with an offer and copied to head office. If anyone has any comments or advice please let me know before I send this off on Wednesday. Cheers!

 

 

*UPDATED; this is the actual letter sent:

 

16/02/2007

 

Dan Shorey

Customer Services Officer

Lloyds TSB PLC

Andover Service

Recovery Centre

Charlton Place

Andover

Hampshire

SP10 1RE

 

 

Response to settlement offer.

 

Re: Sort Code XX-XX-XX Account No. XXXXXXXX

 

Your reference: XX/XXX/XXXXXXXXX

 

Dear Mr Shorey,

Thank you for your recent letter dated 5 February 2007 in which you offered me a repayment of £680, however I respectfully decline your offer and request, once again, that you return to me all charges imposed on the account named above, totaling £771.

Furthermore since my previous correspondence to you I now understand that I am also entitled to claim reciprocal contractual interest on the sums that you unlawfully debited from my account using your own unauthorised rate of 29.8%. This interest is claimed on the basis of consumer contract legislation, which provides that where a contract has not been individually negotiated, the party dealing with the consumer cannot insert advantageous terms into contracts where there is no comparable term in favour of the consumer.

Therefore I now require you to repay to me the total amount of £1,190.68. I have included herewith a schedule that details how I have calculated this amount.

I would only be prepared to accept the amount that you have offered as part settlement and on the clear understanding that I will pursue recovery of the remainder, with a County Court claim if necessary. I hereby give you 14 days to pay the total sum to me otherwise I shall, without further notice, begin a claim against you for the full amount plus daily interest which will continue to accrue up to the date of settlement plus my costs.

If you do not accept my conditions, or you do not respond within 14 days, I wish to stress that I do not accept your offer and the money transferred to my account should not be viewed as my acceptance. I hereby authorise you to remove this sum accordingly.

I trust this clarifies my position.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Mozstar.

 

 

* UPDATE; I also sent the following to the credit card section of Lloyds who had contacted me separately:

 

16/02/2007

 

Josie Coventry

Senor Concerns Officer

Card Concerns

Lloyds TSB Bank PLC

Sussex House

Gloucester Place

Brighton

BN1 4BE

 

Letter Before Action

Credit card Account No. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

 

Dear Ms Coventry,

Thankyou for your recent letter dated 15 January 2007 in which you declined to make a repayment to me for the £60 charges which I believe to have been unlawfully debited from the above named credit card account.

I now understand that the regime of charges that you applied to my account are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations as they are automatic and punitive penalties. I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract that you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner that complies with UK law, and I am frankly shocked that this has not been the case.

Although you reference that the OFT’s recent statement about the level of credit card charges has influenced Lloyds TSB’s decision to reduce its current level of charges to £12, however this does not make the charges legal in nature - which they could only become by being levied at the true sum of the actual costs incurred by you in administering late payments. I believe this cost to be a much lower amount and, as you imply, it may only be for a court to decide both the legality of your charges and an appropriate level of fair and accurate costs. Therefore I must inform you that I am quite prepared to go to court to recover the amounts you have taken from me.

Furthermore since my previous correspondence to you I now understand that I am also entitled to claim reciprocal contractual interest on the sums that you unlawfully debited from my account based upon your own rates . This interest is claimed on the basis of consumer contract legislation, which provides that where a contract has not been individually negotiated, the party dealing with the consumer cannot insert advantageous terms into contracts where there is no comparable term in favour of the consumer. Therefore I now require you to repay to me the total amount of £98.21. I have included herewith a schedule that details how I have calculated this amount.

I hereby give you 14 days to pay this sum to me otherwise I shall, without further notice, begin a county court claim against you for the full amount plus daily interest which will continue to accrue up to the date of settlement plus my costs.

I trust this clarifies my position.

Yours sincerely,

Mozstar

[mozstar]

I've begun filling in a Money Claim Online form to finally take Lloyds TSB all the way, but I have a question about how many times I should have sent them my schedules.

 

To bring things up to date, I've sent a prelim plus a rejection-of-offer letter and a letter before action - the latter because confusingly Lloyds split my initial claim covering both my bank account and my credit card into two separate claims and two different people contacted me about each bit. I therefore replied to both parties individually - to the bank account person to reject their settlement offer (which has been paid into my account) and to the credit card person with an LBA (because they just refused to pay me anything).

 

Now I have come to Money Claim time I plan to bring the two back together again because it is the same organisation - unless anyone advises me otherwise?

 

Anyway I was just reading through the FAQs again and saw this advice about using Money Claim:

This method can ONLY be used if money is the only thing being claimed. However, you must make sure that the bank has received a schedule of your charges at least twice during your preparatory correspondence.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/faqs-please-read-these/24031-frequently-asked-questions.html?garpg=9

 

I only included schedules with my second set of letters (the response to settlement and the LBA) not with my prelim, so I have actually only sent the schedules once not twice. Is twice strictly neccessary? On another FAQ it suggests:

If you have not already sent a full schedule of charges

and overdraft interest to your bank -- then -- stop!

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/34887-5-money-claim-line.html

 

- which suggests to me that sending the schedule once would be ok. What can anyone suggest is the right thing to do? I would like to get this claim moving now, but don't want to do anything which could scupper the claim.

 

Secondly, and some of you might think I was mad to do this, but as I was having a lot problems calculating the overdraft interest I was paying on the charges due to my account drifting in and out of my overdraft facility, I therefore decided to omit the interest from my claim. Does anyone think this could cause me any problems for any reasons I have not foreseen? My thought was that it was simply up to me to decide if I wanted to claim an amount of my overdraft interest from them, and anyway this figure would have amounted to hardly anything at all as far as I could tell. I have added on compound contractual interest however.

 

Your help and advise at this crucial stage would be much welcomed....

[elsinore]

Hello Moz.

 

You might be better completing a form N1 which you will find here http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/HMCSCourtFinder/GetForm.do?court_forms_id=338

 

You have to complete it and print it as you cannot save it, but one advantage is that you can then submit a further copy of your charges schedule with the completed form. Also you don’t have to worry about cramping your POC into the limited space on MCOL. Taking or posting your claim form to your local County Court is also very satisfying.

 

Like you, I didn’t bother with calculating the charges element of the overdraft interest. I was content to simply add 8% Statutory. (My next claim will have compound contractual added though!).

 

I see no reason why you should not combine the two accounts in one claim, although others might take a different view.

 

Els:)

[mozstar]

Firstly my apologies Elsinore for not acknowledging your previous response to me - for some unknown I just didn't know it was there!

 

OK - so I decided to make sure my claim is as tight as I can make it by issuing another, final letter before action that brings the two accounts back together again, and including two new schedules of compound interest that bring all the figures up-to-date. I will be posting this new letter on Wednesday, so once again if anyone has a chance to read through this and has any comments to make before then I would be very grateful.

 

One thing to note is that I have continued to accrue the compound interest on the total original claim despite the fact that Lloyds have made me a part payment of £680. I'm really not sure this is legal but as I found it impossible to calculate the interest if I stopped adding it to £680 but continued to add it to the remaining outstanding amount, I just decided in the end to play dumb. I figure that if Lloyds want to take issue with my interest calculation they will have do that in court, where I would be more than happy for a judget to arbritrate. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

25/4/2007

 

Lloyds TSB PLC

25 Gresham Street

London

EC2V 7HN

 

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

 

Regarding: Sort Code XX-XX-XX Account No. XXXXXXXX and Credit Card Account No. XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am very disappointed that to date you have failed to reimburse the full amount of the sums that I believe you have unlawfully debited from the accounts referenced above. I originally wrote to you on 29/12/2006 regarding both accounts, which you chose to respond to me about individually. I therefore replied to each of your separate responses in my last two letters dated 16/02/2007, which I enclose copies of with this letter. As this will be my final request before action for you to pay the total amount owed to me, I now intend from hereon to contend the charges on both accounts as a single claim once again.

I understand that the regime of penalty charges which you have been applying to my accounts are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations, and I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my accounts. It is an implied term of those contracts that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner that complies with UK law. I am frankly shocked that you have operated my accounts in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as my fiduciary.

As I have previously written to you, you have levied £831 in charges on the two accounts referenced above. I also understand that I am entitled to claim reciprocal contractual interest on the sums that you unlawfully debited from my account and I included two schedules with my last set of correspondence which detailed my calculations of the total amount owed to me by Lloyds TSB PLC, which I include again with this letter. It should be noted that the interest owed has now risen due to your failure to reimburse me to date, and continues to accrue on a daily basis. Therefore I now require you to repay to me the total amount of £1,351.89.

You have credited the above referenced bank account with £680 and I informed you in my last letter regarding this account that I would only accept this payment as part settlement of the total claim. Therefore the sum of £671.89 remains outstanding.

I hereby give you 14 days to pay the full owed sum to me otherwise I shall, without any further notice, begin a county court claim against you for the full amount plus daily interest which will continue to accrue up to the date of settlement plus my costs.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

MOZSTAR.