1st Credit

[trevor33]

I came across this from someone on CAG. Thought you may be interested. I have tried it a couple of times and it worked.

 

Quote:

Dear xxxxx

 

I acknowledge receipt of your notice of legal action sent by your company on xxx July 200X which was received on xxx July 200X.

Please be aware that any proceedings will be extremely vigorously defended and that a counterclaim will be made against ** DCA **. I am unable to respond further at this time, since you have given me inadequate information to investigate the claim. Please note that under the Overriding Objectives, you have a duty to act reasonably at all times.

 

As you are aware, under the pre-action protocols of the Civil Procedure Rules, your letter before action should have included the following information:

4.3 The claimant's letter should —

(a) give sufficient concise details to enable the recipient to understand and investigate the claim without extensive further information;

(b) enclose copies of the essential documents which the claimant relies on;

© ask for a prompt acknowledgement of the letter, followed by a full written response within a reasonable stated period;

(For many claims, a normal reasonable period for a full response may be one month.)

(d) state whether court proceedings will be issued if the full response is not received within the stated period;

(e) identify and ask for copies of any essential documents, not in his possession, which the claimant wishes to see;

(f) state (if this is so) that the claimant wishes to enter into mediation or another alternative method of dispute resolution; and

(g) draw attention to the court's powers to impose sanctions for failure to comply with this practice direction and, if the recipient is likely to be unrepresented, enclose a copy of this practice direction.

I note that your letter failed to enclose copies of the essential documents upon which you will seek to rely, failed to ask for acknowledgement of the letter, failed to ask for a written response within a reasonable period of time, and did not draw attention to the courts powers

to force all parties to comply with the practice direction.

I intend to provide you with a full written response, but as yet I have not got adequate information to investigate your claim.

To enable me to investigate this claim I require specific information regarding the account to be provided forthwith. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below.

If you fail to disclose this information, I may apply to the court under Part 18 and part 31 of the civil procedure rules.

I will be unable to respond to your claim without this information, and by failing to supply it before starting legal action you would breach the overriding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules.

 

Request for disclosure;

I request that you send me information vital to investigating your claims, including:

1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened.

2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to:

a. A transcript of all transactions, including charges, fees, interest, repayments and payments and both the original amount of the loan and any repayments made to it the account.

b. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations by your company, or by any previous creditor.

c. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual

intervention in relation to my account formerly held with ** CREDITOR **.

d. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.

e. Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).

f. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.

g. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.

h. A genuine copy of any deed of assignment, or proof that you have a legal right to this money.

i. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998

j. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.

3. Any other documents you will seek to rely upon in court.

4. A copy of your complaints procedure, as required by the Consumer Credit Act 2006.

5. Clarification of the date you acquired the debt, what organisation you acquired it from, their registered office, their company number (if any) and what legal title they had to this debt, and what credit license number they had at the time that the debt was purchased or entered into.

 

Please note, I will respond to your claim in full within 14 days of your providing this information. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, or if you start proceedings without furnishing this information, it will be reported to the Court that you are denying me the opportunity

to settle this matter amicably.

 

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

 

I await your rapid response.

Yours Faithfully,

Keep up the pressure. T33

[questioner]

Trevor - that is great and I for one will keep it to hand. Many thanks.

 

If that dont make the crudites shut the case and run away nothing will

 

Do hardline DCAs ever get sick of this and actually close cases they cannot win via not being able to comply to CCA requests?

 

Anyone?

 

I mean do debts ever die out?

[babybear39]

Trevor - that is great and I for one will keep it to hand. Many thanks.

 

If that dont make the crudites shut the case and run away nothing will

 

Do hardline DCAs ever get sick of this and actually close cases they cannot win via not being able to comply to CCA requests?

 

Anyone?

 

I mean do debts ever die out?

 

Some do some don't...

[questioner]

I will remain opitmistic and give back what I get then.

[questioner]

How very surprising - after my return threats that the accounts were in dispute the threats have now turned to

 

'we will be investigating the matter'

 

AGAIN!

 

MY AMBITION IS TO GET AT LEAST ONE OF THESE AMOUNTS CLOSED FOR GOOD.

[babybear39]

My ambition is to see 1st crud and it's subsiduries closed down by the OFT

[questioner]

great agree but why stop at them

 

Lets see all such misery-based bodies shut down under health regulations stating that they create undue stress and hardship for millions of ordinary families.

[babybear39]

Ok. I'll revise my last statment...Let's see all of the DCA ****, sols and collections departments that breach OFT guidlines and break the law closed down

[questioner]

Office of Fair Trading have now got back to me re worse credit and say

 

I have noted the details of your complaint, and we will continue to monitor ***** Credit's compliance with both the Requirements and the Debt Collection Guidance. We are therefore interested in complaints that details issues which have arisen after the Requirements were imposed. We will consider these alongside any other complaints we receive and would therefore be grateful if you could sign the enclosed consent form and return it to us. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose any details about any action we may take, due to legal restrictions on the OFT relating to disclosure of information. We note that your email raises concern in regard to copies of credit agreement.

As you may know, s63 of the Act covers how and when lenders must provide consumers with a first (and where appropriate second) copy of a regulated agreement. It is clearly in the lender’s best interests to retain details of the original agreement and any subsequent variations or changes made to it, particularly as consumers can request a subsequent ‘true’ copy of most types of agreement under ss77 and 78 of the CCA (and on payment of the appropriate fee). There are rules about what is likely to constitute a ‘true copy’ under these sections of the Act. Further, if a consumer does make a valid request for a copy of their agreement under these provisions and the lender does not comply with the request the agreement may not be enforceable in the Courts, subject to any other mitigating factors.

 

SEEM TO BE GETTING SOMEWHERE.

 

They also siad a lot more so I get the feeling that we are moving.

 

I asked worst c for the cca back in last May they failed to provide a proper doc.

 

"subject to any other mitigating factors."

Any idea what that is?

[babybear39]

Slowly but surely...That's the way big governement organisations work. Reminds me of the vogons from HHGTTG

[questioner]

I want their blood!

[babybear39]

There's a queue

[Mrs_Ryan]

*gets in queue and waits patiently*

[diddydicky]

How to deal with OC's and DCA's that are in default, won't provide an agreement(valid agreement etc)

 

firstly make sure that you have tons of letters to show that you have acted reasonably and made every effort to settle the matter without recourse to court

 

if they are still intransigent and wont accept even a F & F (these can be offered from a "third party" without admitting liability and without have to be without prejudice- thus they can also be produced in court THEN-

 

write to them registered post pointing out all these facts and that you will not engage in any further correspondence with them with the exception of accepting service of summons whereupon you wil defend vigourously.

 

(phone or fax a local solicitor and ask him to accept service on your behalf - it will cost you nothing unless they do serve - and at that point you can always take the case off him)

 

include in your letter that the address for service is this particular solicitor and advise that all other correspondence will be disposed of unopened on the basis that you consider that its sole purpose is to continue to harrass you

 

Change you home and mobile phone numbers

 

peace and quiet will ensue!

[questioner]

"peace and quiet will ensue!"

 

 

Wow I wish that was so!

 

-------

 

 

Worst cred are at it again

 

They now say the following

 

They say I have admitted the debt and made several payments.

 

This is not true. Although I did make payments originally I told them that they would stop unless they honoured my CCA request.

 

They did not honour the request - never have.

 

They say that I claim the debt is in dispute which is so and they I have not provided any valid claim of my dispute.

 

They now suggest I take legal advice and threaten me with a CCJ based on the “agreement” they claim is in their possession, which I have not seen apart from a badly scanned page of something

 

What do I do/say now under this harassment?

 

Surely if they did have a proper CCA doc they would just show it to me?

 

Mayby I should inform them that OFT are now aware of my case with them?

 

It seems wrong that they want me to prove the dispute when they wont give me the CCA. I thought they had to prove it first to me befoe they could attack me.

 

They are arguing that because I initially gave them a few payments the debt is a sure fire proven thing. It feels like a bluff to me.

 

Just what the hell are they playing at?

 

If they thought they were in the right with solid proof and would beat me why have they been harrassing me for all this time?

 

Its just silly.

Edited May 20, 2009 by questioner

[babybear39]

As they are threatening you with legal action send them an LBA to warn them that you will defend and infact go after them if they persist

[questioner]

Is there a sample letter anywhere please to do that?

 

I am so sick of these creeps that I am not thinking at my best now

[diddydicky]

its all a bluff to try and scare you, but let me just deal with ONE point

 

they say you admit the debt (as though that matters)

 

it matters not a jot whether you previously did or did not admit the debt

 

it matters not a jot that you have spent their money made repayments or whatever,

 

the plain fact of the matter is that THEN you were blissfully unaware that you were repaying on a flawed or non existent agreement

 

the CCA recognises that as a consumer you could not have had the finanancial or legal nous or knowledge that the creditor has - which is why all the onus was put on them within the act to cross the T's and dot the I's

 

The act also makes clear that if they fail to do so then the agreement that YOU thought you had entered into does not exist and therefore the money that you may have admitted receiving and spending was in fact after all a gift and therefore there was no need for you to make repayments of it.

 

now that you have become aware that this is the case you are entitled to make the challenge

 

what you are challenging is not that you received money from them but that they have no right to claim it back- it was a gift.

 

it does not hurt when repyling to creditors to "turn the tables" and remind them that if such an agreement exists , as they claim then they have signed it to say that they have accepted being bound by its terms and conditions!

 

Teh major condition of the agreement being that is that the agreement has to be in accordance with the terms of the consumer credit act 1974

[questioner]

Thanks folks – so what I will do then is write back – for the millionth time – and say re-read my last letter. The onus is on you to prove the debt and not me.

 

Will that suffice? Yes - I thought it was like a bluff.

 

 

 

Not sure that wasting too much energy on these twits is worth it.

 

 

I do hope that OFT can help more - they did sound interested in this shower.

[babybear39]

Personally, I'd write or email (you can find their email on the CSA website) a short missive saying that you are challenging them to prove the alleged debt. Always use alleged

 

State also that they should treat your comunication as a formal complaint. You then invoke the 8 weeks in which they have to answer your complaint to your satisfaction and then you can report them to the FOS if you're not happy.

 

When/if they come back with 'well you paid so must owe it' state clearly that you were paying under duress

[diddydicky]

it depends on what your personally want to achieve

 

 

 

 

My own personal opinion which is what i am basing a challenge on all 11 cards me and the OH have, (all pre 2006 back to 2001) is that:-

 

 

Credit card agreements are not eh Holy grail- there is nothing in or about them that is so precious that they should be squirrelled away only to be ever seen by a court judge

 

 

I believe- having extensively researched on these forums and elsewhere that if a creditor wants several thousand pounds out of me he will invest in 50 quid (which he can add to my account) to get a member of his staff to trawl the archives for the agreement to show me, rather than engage in countless phone calls and correspondence to avoid this simple action

 

I therefore take the view that the creditor has either not got the agreement or alternatively he has but knows it is flawed

 

I believe that many lenders have transferred details of agreements to microfiche and then destroyed the paperwork or have otherwise archived so badly that trying to locate them is like trying to find needles in haystacks

 

I believe that the rest are well aware that if they have the original agreements that they are flawed, and that is why they are reluctant to produce them

 

i believe that many companies Never issued agreements in the first place- they were so busy making money they simply issued cards on the basis of the application form

 

i do not believe that ANY of the creditors are deliberately withholding enforceable agreements to deliberately wait until they get into a court to show it - it just does not make commercial sense.

 

i believe that creditors who forward appliction forms and current T & C's or doctored documents are only confirming what i already know since it would be just as easy to provide the originals if they were there

 

having come to these conclusions i personally have decided to:-

 

CCA them

 

SAR them

 

Request under CPR to provide

 

in the event that all these fail to produce an agreement or have produced ( as most of them have produced a flawed application form with no or insufficient prescribed terms) then i am content that in fact they do not have what i want.

 

i am also then content that i could if necessary show a court all of the correspondence in order to that i have taken all reasonable steps to resolve the issue out of court and to defeat a costs order

 

armed with this knowledge and information i simply write and call THEIR bluff.

 

I inform them that i do not believe they have an enforceable agreement or indeed an agreement at all, and that if they have should explain why they are reluctant to show me a copy of it

 

I inform them that my solicitors address for service of summons (only) isxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

and i tell them that no further correspondence will be entered into until such time as a properly executed and enforceable agreement is produced by them or court proceedings are started, and that all other correspondence from them will be filed without reply.

 

 

It costs nothing to ask a local solicitor to accept service of summons on your behalf- he simply makes a note and will contact you (if he does - at that time you can simply say thanks and ask for the file to deal with yourself)- but the creditor now thinks you have legal advice

 

(many of you may have legal cover on your home insurance policies - take a look)

 

 

preventing the harrassment and annoyance is the biggest tool to aid this process which leaves you free to get on with your daily life and in this respect i must admit the truecall (125 quid with recorder) was an ace investment.

 

If the creditor has been harrassing you with phone calls then you could write and tell them that some of the money you would have paid them has now been spent on equipment to prevent this happening)

 

if you cant afford this then you can ask bt for a number change and this is NOT expensive- then just advise your family and friends that due to a nuisance caller you have changed your number.

I admit that the True call makes this process easier since all the calls 9about 15 a day) are being zapped and they never get to annoy me (the phone does not even ring)

 

the calls to mobiles is easier since we just look at the incoming number and ignore or stop the call - although it is fairly easy to ask your provider to issue a new number if there are too many - and if you are PAYG a new sim card and number on e bay costs as little as 1.99

 

 

I appreciate this course of action is not for everyone but i hope it might help some caggers

[questioner]

That all makes good sense. Many thanks

 

THE BAD SCAN THEY SEND ME AS AN EXCUSE FOR A CCA WAS TERRIBLE AND SMUDGED AS IF IT HAD BEEN COPIED IN THE RAIN.

 

I will write back as usual.

 

ALL I WANT IS TO HAVE A QUIET LIFE AND NO HASSLE OFF THESE CRETINS

Edited May 20, 2009 by questioner

[questioner]

I was under the impression that if DCA s could

not give a CCA as requested by their victim then they were in touble legally. This lot at worse cred seem to ignore this and bolder on into it as if they are in the right. Surely the authorities will sort this issue out soon and make proper rules that must by obeyed by the **** or at least start enforcing them when the cretins breach them as with my case.

[babybear39]

DCA land is a make believe place where the law and guidlines do not affect them

[questioner]

But they should be held responsible for their actions by the organisations that watch this sort of thing.

 

The last letter I had off 1st crud was so pathetic saying that coz had made some payments I had admitted the alleged debt.

 

Some time back they also wanted me to sign an agreement to pay them 1 quid a month for the next 150 years or so. I said no way and I reckon it was the correct decision.

 

I just keep saying prove the alleged debt with a CCA and all they do is counter with legal CCJ threats and gibberish which is mental abuse.

 

 

Most other DCA are just letting the token payments ride along - one tried to push for more but has just agreed to keep to the £1 per month. To be honest this is a lot easier than the hassle of fighting them all at once.

 

One bank had given an account to the Crudite Solutions lot. I asked for a CCA. They next closed this account saying it was being sent back to the bank. However, I then get nasty threats from another DCA over the same bloody account that CS have just closed. I therefore have now asked this new one RW to give me a CCA and told them that they should NOT be chasing this disputed debt.

 

Now will RW write back with lots of daft threats, like First crud always do or take a more reasonale path of action and tell the bank to stop being silly buggers?

I mean to say would they pay an alleged debt to a man on the street who just said they owed him money WITHOUT ANY PROOF?

 

It is all so stupid and this is what does my head in most!

 

AND CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EDUCATE CAB TO THIS FACT AS I HAD TO TEACH IT TO THE LOCAL STAFF WHO THOUGHT THAT JUST BECAUSE ONE GETS A NASTY DCA LETTER IT MUST BE TRUE AND SO HAD TO BE PAID UP ON BENDED KNEES.

 

 

CAB workers watching this thread - you do some great work but please get yourselves a national leaflet drawn up to educade your co-workers about teaching desperate people, being hounded by evil DCAs, to ask for CCAs.