MarkyT vs Cahoot

[MarkyT]

Letter turned up today with 45 pages of statements and my £10 cheque returned.

The ball is now rolling. I'll keep you all posted of my progress.

[MarkyT]

Got all the charges worked out - £2085 which is about what I'd estimated in my head.

 

Letter goes off to Cahoot this afternoon. I must say this is rather exciting.

[sharmal]

Good on you. I hope things go a bit easier for you than they have me. I dont often say alot but read a lot of the threads. Sharmal

[MarkyT]

I recieved an email today from Cahoot to say that my complaint has been brought to the attention of their service relation managers.

 

Now, do I give them 14 days from when they sent the letter or 14 days from when I sent it.

I'm still a little confused about this.

[sharmal]

14 days from when you sent it. Your timetable not theirs

[MarkyT]

Ok, just recieved the standard go away email from cahoot:

 

Dear xxxxxxx,

 

 

We don't accept that cahoot's charges are unfair or unlawful under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The object of these Regulations was not price control nor were they intended to interfere with people's freedom to agree the terms of their contracts.

 

 

It's well known that banks make charges and cahoot's charges are in line with those of other banks. The terms and conditions of the account and the charges that apply are clear and fair and were provided to you at the time you opened it. You freely agreed to the terms and conditions and the charges when you opened the account. You weren't under any obligation to do so and could have gone to another bank if you didn't agree to the charges. Equally, you're free to move your account to another bank at any time if you don't agree with the charges.

 

In any event, we don't agree that the charges are disproportionate. The charges are reasonable and proportionate to the administrative costs incurred by cahoot.

 

I'm therefore unable to refund the charges you've incurred fully appreciating the disappointment this may cause.

 

 

 

Please be assured I have carried out a full investigation for you and I hope you feel I have offered a fair response to all of the issues you've raised. I will keep your file open for the next 8 weeks and if I don't hear from you within that time, I will assume that everything is resolved and will close your file. If you remain dissatisfied though you can find details of how to take your complaint further within Abbey at legal T&Ts under the heading 'Complaints policy'. The complaints policy also explains your ultimate right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

 

 

 

This bit at the bottom in bold has me stumped a bit now. Do I continue with the letter before action (which I have sitting printed next to me waiting to go now) or do I have to take this up with abbey?

Would the court see this in a bad light if I don't?

[121o121]

Hi Marky

 

After sending Cahoot my prelimary latter, they wrote back saying their final response was issued and that I should contact Abbeys stage 2 complaints team now.

 

I sent my LBA to them and got no reply, so filed the MCOL yesterday.

[MarkyT]

thought that would be the way to go - LBA is in the post:-D

[121o121]

I take it with 45 pages of statements you are claiming charges from a current account?

 

I'm claiming from a credit card, but I expect our claims to run concurrently.

 

What area are you in? I'm in Bedfordshire.

[MarkyT]

Yep, its a current account opened 6 years ago this very month. I'm in Tyne & Wear.

What I do find rather amusing from the statements is how the cost of the charges seems to steadily rise from £20 for a returned DD to 35 at the moment. And now I noticed that in the last 2 months since I first sent them the SAR letter, they are now allowing DDs to go through if I'm over my overdraft. Normally, if I went a penny over, they would bounce it and hit me with a charge. This happened xmas 2005 when they charged me £175 right at the beggining of december and left me with the most miserable christmas ever.

[121o121]

I had the same with LloydsTSB. What I do now is cancel the direct debit before it goes out, then set it back up when I can afford it. Internet banking makes it so easy now to do.

 

They settled my claim just before an allocation hearing in November. If I get a letter now telling me of charges, I write to them stating I will start another litigation and their earliest attention to this matter will save them my costs etc. To date, their response has been "we will waive the charge". No doubt their attitude will soon change.

 

When I started my Halifax credit card claim, they settled the full amount after the LBA letter. I didn't have to start MCOL and there were no conditions imposed either.

 

Not expecting an easy ride with Cahoot though. Am well aware this will hang around for a long while yet, and that it will drag out until the last possible moment.

[121o121]

Forgot to say, just make sure that when you submit your MCOL all the charges are still within the six year period.

[MarkyT]

The first charge they applied was in March 2001 so it looks as if it'll be ok.

I've been looking under the court bundle this morning and don't understand this one bit. How much of this stuff am I exected to learn and understand and how does it get used?

[MarkyT]

Well well well, received a letter from Abbey yesterday. I thought a little odd as I bank with Cahoot.

 

"Dear Mr MarkyT

 

thank you for contacting us and I am sorry that you have been so unhappy that you have felt you must complain.

 

One of my team will be responsible for investigating you complaint and I have enclosed out Complaints leaflet, which explains our procedure for doing this. High quality customer service is of great importance to us at Abbey and we will do everything we can to resolve your complaint in a timeley and satifactory manner.

 

I know it is important to you that we resolve you complaint quickly, but we want to complete a thorough investigation and sometimes this can take time. If we have not contacted you before then, we will write to you in four weeks to let you know what is happening.

 

If you have employed someone to handle you complaint on your behalf, please note:

employing a third party complaint-handling firm, or a solicitor, or financial advisor does not affect how we review your complaint. Please be aware that:

Abbey does not charge you to investigate your complaint

Abbey will not be liable for any costs incurred if you do decide to employ a third party to handle your complaint during this review

Abbey, in general, will only make payment directly to account holder(s) if your complaint is upheld and redress is due.

 

Although I do not know what the outcome will be, I do hope that we will be able to find a solution that you are happy with.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Andrew Nelson

Business Manager"

[121o121]

I got a letter from Abbey on the 31st January saying my complaint is taking longer than first thought to investigate.

 

Then, on the 1st February (the next day) I had a letter saying after investigating the complaint in full they cannot refund my charges.

 

Are you set to start the claim Monday / Tuesday?

 

The right hand not knowing what the left hands doing springs to mind.

[MarkyT]

Not really ready to make the claim on Monday due to things happening at home over the last couple of weeks.

 

Haven't had a chance to prepare anything yet. Probably will be what I spend all weekend on now.

[MarkyT]

OK folks need help on this. I'm finally able to enter the MCOL today and am confused with something.

The total of my charges is £2085. I have indicated on MCOL that I wish to claim interest totally £429.24. Do I add this to my claim ie the box in which you add the numbers or do I just enter the £2085 while detailing the interest in the text box in which I detail my claim?

Please help cos I need to get this in asap.

 

EDIT: Meant to ask as well, I've entered the defendants name as Cahoot and on the second line c/o Abbey National plc. Is this correct?

[121o121]

On my claim form I wrote the defendants name and address as:

 

Cahoot

Friars House

P.O. Box 1981

Coventry

CV1 2ZD

 

Amount claimed is the amount plus interest. Then the court fee is added (depending on amount of your claim) . This makes the total amount.

[MarkyT]

Brilliant. Thanks 121.

[MarkyT]

Claim now in. Reference number 7QZ23915

[121o121]

Hunt down a mod and they will add it to the "litigation in progress" sub-catagory.

[MarkyT]

Defendant acknowledge my claim on the 2nd March 2007. Only took them 3 days to acknowledge. That seems worryingly fast. Anyone have any idea if this is a good or a bad thing?

[121o121]

Thats OK Mark.

 

Now they have a further time scale to enter their defence.

[MarkyT]

Recieved a letter from Abbey this morning.

 

"Dear MarkyT"

 

YOURSELF -V- CAHOOT

CLAIM NO. 7 QZ 23915

 

We are in the process of reviewing this claim and preparing our response. A defence will be filed in due course.

 

In the meantime, we note that you have claimed the sum of £2514.24 in respect of charges that you say have been made on your Choot account. However, you have not provided details as to how this sum has been calculated. Similarly, you have not provided details of the interest showing how that amount is made up with reference to each charge.

 

As you will appreciate, you will need to produce evidence to the Court regarding these amounts, and this information should have been supplied by you when you filed your claim. We should be grateful if you would provide such details to us as soon as possible.

It would also be helpful at this stage if you can provide e-mail and telephone contact details to us.

 

We look forward to hearing from you.

 

Yours faithfully

 

Abbey National plc."

 

 

Now, I sent 3 letters on 26th Febuary. One to the court - recorded delivery, one to cahoot - recorded delivery and one to Abbey - standard delivery. Each of these letters included my schedule of charges. The recorded items were signed for on the 28th.

 

Should I send another schedule to abbey (recorded this time of course)?

 

I also noticed that the letter has been hand signed but there is no name on it. The signature looks like a squiggle so I have no idea who sent it.

[jellybabe]

hi there,

this seems to be a standard letter. I had exactly the same. I did send another copy of the schedule to them, of course all recorded, with the following covering letter:

Thank you for your recent letter regarding the above claim.

I appreciate very well that i need to produce evidence to the court regarding these amounts and have done so at all stages, prelim,LBA, at date of filing my claim and email to cahoot customer relations department, and for Abbey National to claim otherwise is simply untrue. However, as a courtesy i am enclosing yet another copy and look forward to an early settlement in full.

good luck