LOWELL and cap1 debt - won reclaiming - no debt now!

[jaffacat]

Can anyone help me with the above idiots?

I had an old debt with Capital One. I hadn`t heard from them in years then out of the blue in September last year I got a letter from them saying they had sold the debt (£700) to LOWELL FINANCIAL. I recieved a letter from them straight away demaning payment.

I ignored a few letters from them, but they started getting threatening so I decided to do something about it.

I sent an S.A.R to Capital One to see what my charges had been on the account.

Got my statements and the charges over the last 6 years came to over £1000.

So I decided to start claiming them back - which would obviously wipe out the debt and more.

Then the phone calls started coming from LOWELL. I explained that the debt was in dispute and that I was taking legal action against Capital One and they actually owed me money and not the other way around. I told them that they shouldn`t have sold them the debt because it didn`t exist.

I was getting phone calls from LOWELL every day and I was going through the same rigmarole explaining the situation to a different person every time.

Eventually I lost it with them and sent the following letter:

 

Lowell Financial,

PO Box 172,

Leeds,

LS11 9WS

7th December 2006

 

 

Ref No.

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

 

I was disappointed to receive yet another FINAL DEMAND letter from you today, dated 4/12/2006.

I spoke to one of your colleagues last week on the phone and told him the situation regarding this “debt”.

Just to confirm the details of the conversation, I told him that the debt doesn`t exist as far as I am concerned and Capital One shouldn`t have sold it to you.

As you may be aware, following recent media coverage and the ruling by the OFT in April this year, charges made to an account in respest of late payments, missed payments and overlimits etc have been ruled unlawful and therefore unenforceable.

The above mentioned account incurred charges of over £1000 and therefore as far as I am concerned, Capital One owe me money.

I am in the process of reclaiming these charges through the legal system.

I hope this clarifies the position for you and look forward to receiving no more demanding letters from you.

I would ask you to refer this “debt” back to Capital One as you have no business with me.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

I thought I had heard the last from them but started getting letters offering me a 50% discount if I paid in full before Christmas.

I ignored them and thought I`d heard the last from them.

But surprise, surprise I got another phone call from them today demanding payment. I explained the situation again and the idiot I was speaking to said he had no record of my dispute and they hadn`t recieved a letter from me.

 

I`m in despair.

What`s my next move with them?

Any help gratefully recieved!

[CG7]

Did you send your letter recorded delivery, I have been told that if its in dispute there is not much they can do until its sorted out, but how true that is i honestly don't know or you could inform your trading standards in your area. (that was suggested to me) they are just trying to ignore you in the hope that they will wear you down. I am having similar dealings with them myself. how old is your debt. ?? and whats an S.A.R.

CG7

[saxon]

Hello Jaffacat, I to have a debt from cap 1 that has been sold to these people, yesterday I sent them a CCA request, so they have to prove they have a right to collect.

 

I have also sent a prelim to cap 1 for charges and compound interest.

 

There is a letter somewhere on the forums telling them to desist from phoning you using legislation,though can't remember where I saw it, but someone will come along to guide you. Or you could search for stopping telephone harrassment.

 

best wishes sent to you.

[stan5131]

Here is the letter you need to send

1. Harassment by telephone - response letter

Send it by recorded delivery. You can add a paragraph of your own, refering to your last letter. Make sure you send it by recorded delivery. If you get one more phone call after they have received it, report them to Trading Standards.

 

Make sure you keep a copy of the letter for future reference and save the recorded delivery receipt.

 

Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.

[Seminole]

In the meantime, refuse to confirm your identity when they call. If you are a BT customer consider getting their Choose to Refuse service which allows you to bliock calls from a specified number or the last witheld number that called you. Send the letter as suggested and, if they continue to harass you, do complain to your local Trading Standards department.

 

Bear in mind that debt collecting is a numbers game for these people. The more people they write to, telephone and harass they more likely they are to get payments. They will rarely take note of individual letters (they're likely to log receipt but only to note that they have your attention and to send you more crap).

[jaffacat]

Hi. Thanks to all for your help - gratefully recieved!

Saxon, could you help me? When you say you are claiming compound interest, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean you are claiming interest at the rate they were charging you and not the 8%?

[saxon]

Hello, yes, originally I sent preliminary and LBA without, but finaces dictated that I couldn't afford the fees and have the money for AQ when it arrived, (have learned from previous mistake) so waited til I had the funds saved.

 

Then Cap1 in their wisdom wrote telling me they had sold the debt to Lowells, so now going for the interest and default removal.

[jaffacat]

Right - these b*****ds have really annoyed me now!!

Just checked my credit report online and LOWELL FINANCIAL have slapped a big red mark on my report.

It says the credit is for a credit card.

It says that Lowell are the issuer!

It says the account has defaulted and the credit agreement has ended.

How do I go about getting this removed?

And can I get them into trouble for claiming the credit agreement was with them?

[stan5131]

You need to send them a stroppy letter advising that they have not right to enter a default on your credit file as the amount is made up of unlawful penalty charges. You might as well get the ball rolling and tell them that if they do not remove it with immediate effect that you will issue court action against them to have it removed, together with damages and compensation.

[Bigmac versus]

If you were out to get them you could send them the cca request, they wont have the documents and will go default and possibly commit a criminal offence at which stage you could demand action be taken by the TS or even ask the police to investigate.

When you are sending your prelim and lba you will need to mention removal of default also as part of your settlement, or after Lowel do their bit of NON-COMPLIANCE of the cca request then demand they remove the default.

[stan5131]

Good thinking George!

[jaffacat]

Thanks for that!

But it gets stranger!!!

I phoned Lowell today to ask why they put a default on my credit file when the account was in dispute.

The guy said, I`ll stop you there, theres a note on the screen saying an update has just been sent to the credit reference agencies. I said, well can you tell me what it is?

He said that the account has been settled in full! ( I haven`t even filed my summary cause yet!)

I then said what about the default?

He said it would be removed at the same time - I`ll check my credit file every day to make sure.

I dont know if its got something to do with the CCA I sent them this week?

And I dont know if Capital One has settled my claim at LBA stage and not told me yet?

Anyone got any ideas?

[stan5131]

Got me puzzled..... Keep us posted.

[johnwilsonstorey]

I too have Lowell Financial (I think that they are part of Capitol one) out of the blue several months ago.

I complained to them by email saying that it was only excessive penalties that caused the account balance to be as it is today. After I wrote I received a complete set of statments going back to the start of the account and this confirms that they owe me rather than me owing them!

After reading this thread I am going to make a claim on them as they are still trying to push me for money.Can was charge contractural interest rats on this amount of basic 8%?

Lowell probably said that your balance was nil because they are frightened by a claim for more than the oustanding balance.

By the way is it possible for me to check my credit record free anywhere?

[chaddyowl]

how long have they got when you send a CCA request to them, sent it on 29th December and still nothing but they still hound me for the debt they say i owe.

[jaffacat]

Hi,

I`m still waiting for my credit file to be updated as they say! But in the meantime, I`m putting my claim in at court today anyway because I havent had anything in writing yet regarding the status of the claim!

You can check your credit report for free for 30 days at CREDIT EXpert at experian.

After you sign up they send you a PIN thru the post and you can access it as often as you want for 30 days the for £5 a month after that.

[jaffacat]

I think it`s 12 working days before they have defaulted and after 30 days they have committed an offence.

[johnwilsonstorey]

Thanks for the info re Experian

[johnwilsonstorey]

Would you belive it. I checked with Experian (thanks) and they had indeed entered a default notice against me! I did think that only Banks were allowed to do that.

So I decided that enough was enough and worked out a balance of charges and interest, this comes to much more than the balance they are asking for and that was only with basic interest, anyway a letter before action was emailed to Lowlifes, so we will see what action that brings.

[jaffacat]

I too thought that only banks etc could enter informaion on your file so I phoned Experian and they said that because they are a debt collection agency, then they can supply the info aswell!

I told Experian that, according to the Banking Code, defaults cannot be entered when an account is in dispute. They said that was nothing to do with them and I had to take it up with Lowell (as if they care - they are a law unto themselves)

[johnwilsonstorey]

Perhaps we could demand compensation for the entering a default. I am thinking now that maybe I should have sent the LBA to Capitol 1 and not 'Lowlife'

[jaffacat]

Got a letter today from Capital One saying they are settling out of court. £1150 minus £700 I owe on the card. I thought Lowell owned the debt so I phoned Lowell and they said Capital One had just bought it back!

I asked if they were going to remove the default they entered on my file and the daft girl on the phone couldnt tell me! She put me through to a supervisor who was just as thick! Said he would check it out and get back to me.

Still waiting - amazing isnt it, I dont owe them anything so they are in no hurry to phone me anymore!

Can anyone help though? Can I make them remove the default now?

Capital One have said in their letter that the charges were applied lawfully and admit no blame, so I cant go down the road of saying the default was caused by unlawful charges - or can I?

[NailPost]

You can say the charges were unlawfully applied because the authorites (and not Crap1) have deemed them so.

 

Just because Crap1 says so doesn't meant the default cannot be taken off.

 

Write a very stoppy letter to Crap1 and tell them that unless they instruct their monkeys at Lowell to remove the default at once you will take legal action against both firms for distress and nuisance. Remind Crap1 that they are responsible for the debt even if it is Lowell who are doing their dirty work.

 

If they don't do as you tell them slap in the legal claim.

[jaffacat]

Sent the following letters to Capital One and LOWELL:

 

 

Graham Daley,

Executive Office,

Capital One Bank (Europe) plc.,

P.O. Box 5281,

Nottingham,

NG2 3HX

 

 

 

 

Account No.

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

 

Thankyou for your letter dated **/02/2007.

 

 

I gratefully accept your refund of all charges and court costs etc., but I have to dispute your claim that the charges were applied lawfully. I only signed an agreement with you after being misled into believing the charges were a true reflection of the costs incurred by yourselves when an account went overlimit or a late/non payment occurred.

 

 

As reported by the OFT in April of 2006, these charges were ruled unlawful, and had my case gone to court, you would have lost – no doubt about it.

 

 

However, this is not my concern anymore as you have settled in full without any need for wasting valuable court time.

 

 

My concern is that the company you sold the “debt” to, Lowell Portfolio 1, have registered a default against me with at least one Credit Reference Agency. As the default was caused fully by unlawful charges, I ask that you contact them to have the default removed within 14 days of this letter.

 

 

If you fail to have it removed in this timescale, I will begin court action against you again to have it removed.

 

 

There will be no further communication from me regarding this matter, and hope you action this matter with immediate effect.

 

 

 

Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd,

1 Apex View,

Leeds,

LS11 9BH

 

 

 

Ref No.

 

 

Dear Sir,

 

 

I refer to the above account, and am dismayed to see that you have registered a default against me with at least one Credit Reference Agency.

 

 

This account was in dispute, as you know, and a default should never had been registered.

 

 

The dispute on the account was that the amount claimed by yourselves consisted completely of unlawful charges levied on the account by the original creditors, and was therefore unenforceable.

 

 

I have now settled out of court with the original creditors, after claiming back over £1000.

 

 

I now ask that you remove the default on my credit files within 14 days of this letter or I will have NO hesitation in commencing legal action at my local court in order to have it removed.

 

 

I also note that you have failed to comply with my CCA request of **nd January 2007, and are now in default of this request. This would look very bad for your case should it come to court.

 

 

There will be no further communication from me regarding this matter, and hope you will action this matter with immediate effect.

 

 

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Just checked my credit file online and guess what?

THEY`VE REMOVED ALL TRACE OF THE ACCOUNT AND THE DEFAULT!!!!!!!

Just shows what you can do when you know what you are talking about_ ALL THANKS TO THIS FORUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jaffacat]

Just wondered if anyone has tried to claim compensation against a DCA for not supplying a CCA (therefore illegally chasing for a debt) and for issuing a default on a credit file?

I`m seriously thinking about trying it on with Lowell coz I hate them so much!