Kimba69 vrs Barclays

[kimba69]

Well after introducing ourselves to the CAG forum, we got a rather nice reply from mrsfoot and she recommended we started a thread to keep a diary of things - and hopefully get some advice in the process!

 

My girlfriend had nearly all of her statements dating back over 6 years for 3 seperate accounts, however there were a few pages missing. She sent the initial approach letter, but following the advice of the BBC Money Programme website (we hadn't found this site then) she did 'estimate' some of the charges based on what her other statements said. She heard nothing so sent the Letter before action off and she still hasn't heard back.

 

The next step is to send in the N1 and start proceedings I would guess, but where do you think she stands in terms of the estimated charges? Can she go ahead and put in the estimation saying Barclays have not responded, or does she need to go back to the beginning and request the missing statements to ensure she has the correct figure before going to court?

 

The actual charges she "knows" about are nearly 800, but estimating and interest pushes this up to approx £1400 (split over 3 seperate accounts)

[Trucker]

Welcome

 

Ideally you should have sent a Subject Access Request to exercise your right under the Data Protection Act to obtain copies of all your statements. The fee for this is £10 but Barclays will return it to you as they tend not to charge. I am not too sure about estimating. It may be worth starting again to avoid problems further down the line

 

Trucker

[kimba69]

Thanks for replying Trucker. I hear what you're saying....it's quite frustrating though to have to wait another 40 odd days to get the missing statements when the BBC Money programme said you can just go ahead and estimate

[ronvin]

i know what your saying about waiting for another 40 days but it might be worth the wait if there is more than you've estimated on the other hand you might of over estimated and not be owed as much as you think

 

at least if you start over you'll know exactly how much you are owed

[kimba69]

Was discussing this last night with my girlfriend and we came up with the idea of perhaps going ahead with the charges that we 'know' and sending S.A.R for the missing statements? If we did that and the statements were received before we ended up going to court (if it got that far) could we just add the additional charges to the claim, or can you only claim back what you original state on the N1?

[dar£n]

you can add to your claim with no probs up until you file at court, once you have done this you need to apply to have it done which costs £65 I think.

[Trucker]

Thanks for replying Trucker. I hear what you're saying....it's quite frustrating though to have to wait another 40 odd days to get the missing statements when the BBC Money programme said you can just go ahead and estimate

 

I think the argument there would be that if they fail to supply copies then you estimate. I wouldn't like to say how the court would respond if you had made no effort to get them in the first place.

[kimba69]

ok to be on the safe side we've decided to send off the S.A.R and get the other statements and then submit them all together. My girlfriend has also written a strongly worded complaint about being totally ignored to see if that does anything to knock them into action... still, we shall see. Worst comes to the worst we wait 40 days before re-submitting.

[kimba69]

The 40 day deadline for the S.A.R has come and gone and we haven't heard a thing from Barclays. Absolutely disgusted. We are therefore going to report them to the ICO and submit an N1 form for Data Protection Act non-compliance.

 

Has anyone else had to do this?

[kimba69]

It's amazing what a phone call can do.... I rang them up to complain verbally that they hadn't responded to our letters and let them know I would be reporting them to the ICO, when they duely informed me they had sent an offer letter out and closed the complaint.... the problem? They'd sent it to my old address - genius. Even though the letters had our existing address on and our statements are sent to our existing address, someone had forgotten to update the "correspondence address" and thus the reply letters were being sent there... This was all off the back of our initial request using estimated charges, so it'll be interesting to see what they have offered in terms of the actual amount taken.

[welshcakes]

Hi kimba

 

Well, I wish I could say shock horror however bank incompetance has become the norm if you go by the threads on Barclays alone.

 

Quite a few of us are DPA breach litigating so you wouldn't be alone.

 

Secondly, I'm assuming you realise that their sending of 'private & confidential' correspondence to the wrong address is a huge breach of the DPA. Absolute no excuse that contact details were only partially updated. The ICO would have a field day with it if you could produce even one piece of correspondence inccorectly addressed.

 

In respect of the offer letter, please be careful. Without your statements, how are you going to gauge how close their offer is to a true figure? Others have been offered anything from 50 - 90% of the correct figure.

 

IF you get an offer through, personally I would write back stating that you are reserving decision until the statements are sent. They will say there's a deadline by which you must respond but quite frankly the court would not support limiting negotiation when there is no need, especially if it leads tot the breakdown of a resolution pre-litigation.

[kimba69]

cheers for the reply Welshcakes. You're spot on with what you're saying regarding them being in breach of the DPA by sending out our statements etc to the wrong address.

 

The "offer" they have come back with is £330, when the actual charges we had worked out (on the statements we had) was £445 and another £127 estimated. We've therefore decided to say thanks, we'll take the £330 but NOT as final settlement and we'll still be pursuing the rest. We're not going to do this though until we get all the statements through, which should be soon...

[kimba69]

OK, just read about the OFT test case and wondered how this would affect our claim? i.e. my girlfriend and I have been offered amounts against the 3 accounts. Does anyone think we should just accept the offers to get some money back now, or progress with the claim rejecting their offer running the risk the OFT test case either goes against us, or takes a couple of years to come to a decision?

[welshcakes]

Kim

 

I can only give my personla opinion based on the research I have done and the limited legal knowledge possessed.

 

I will be ploughing ahead with my claims BUT in tandem to them, I will be bringing my cases to the attention of FOS.

 

As I believe the case for refunding to have merit, I think even a long wait is more than worth the 8% APR accruing until settlement

[kimba69]

So in your opinion Welshcakes, you'd reject any offer (unless for the full amount) and sit it out until the OFT deliver the decision on this test case?

[saintly_1]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/barclays-bank/107576-oft-test-case-what.html have a read here