Office Of Fair Trading Test Case

[empowered]

Having just trawled through the whole thread over the last couple of days I have to add my twopennyworth. Before any of us heard of CAG or other such similar consumer groups, I, and I'm sure most others, had absolutely no idea that we could even start to claim our charges back. I have been lucky in that I have managed to get back two old business account claims and was in the process of filing N1 for a personal which I will still do. However, what seems to come across is that people have become too complacent about their assumed success in getting back their money NOW and in some cases seem to have spent it either mentally or physically! This test case (which after all, we as consumers have been pushing for and therefore have almost shot ourselves in the foot!) is necessary for a cleancut way forward - I know it is infuriating for those nearly at the end but a couple of months ago did you really think you had a cat in hell's chance of even taking on the banks at court level? I, for one, am now going to concentrate on credit cards and missold bank loan PP1 - enough to keep me occupied. (I shall wait for the flack to fly back!)

[nevos]

enpowered: I think most people knew it had been possible from TV and media however, CAG made it possible for thousands by it's tireless helpers even, helping those too lazy to read the threads.

 

This may not be popular but, I feel out of all the self help sites on the net such as which, BBC even the famous Mr Lewis the get paid per click expert CAG has done the best job for the consumer so, cats in hell chance is not really fair or appropriate but, this is only my opinion.

[finlander]

quick question folks... Im in court with abbey on the 24th and I'm expecting the notification of a stay any day now after this.

 

My question is that unless I've read this wrong this whole OFT thing is about the service charge arguement. If thats true then in their defence sent to me abbey have admitted I breached the contract and are only argueing about whether the charge reflects their costs. Surely as they have done this if the OFT case is about the 'service ' thing it has no relevence on the abbey defence or any of the other banks who have already lodged the 'breach of contract defence'.

After all that was a sworn statement and surely they can't say ' Oh yes we forgot it is a service'.

Equally if I have got it wrong and its all about 'do the charges amount to unfair penalties for breaches' then LLoyds must have shot them selves in the foot as they claim it's a service charge. So surely we can go after them under Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 only.

 

I have a case with lloyds as well and they are about to get given a court date

 

As I said I may have read the OFT wrong.

 

Any help needed please as I expect to hear from the court soon in the light of the above and want to fight the application for a stay, if it arrives, as hard as I can...

 

geoff

[empowered]

enpowered: I think most people knew it had been possible from TV and media however, CAG made it possible for thousands by it's tireless helpers even, helping those too lazy to read the threads.

 

This may not be popular but, I feel out of all the self help sites on the net such as which, BBC even the famous Mr Lewis the get paid per click expert CAG has done the best job for the consumer so, cats in hell chance is not really fair or appropriate but, this is only my opinion.

 

Nevos, yes I totally agree with your comments but I was speaking from a personal viewpoint. I had read in the press about a year ago but felt that I personally wouldn't have the nerve or the confidence to do much about it - that is, until I hit the CAG website and then spent another 2 months before feeling brave enough to take action, none of which would have been possible without the unselfish help of others here.

[MacBoy]

Mr Lewis the get paid per click expert

 

Hey nevos

What's your issue with Martin Lewis? He clearly indicates where links help MSE, in the same way that CAG does. In my view, he's an empassioned battler for consumer rights. You only had to see him seething on C4 the other day to see that!

 

Have you any idea how much it costs to host a site like his? Or this one for that matter? Once you get to this kind of bandwidth, it really starts to add up.

[nevos]

Hi Macboy: Nothing personal with Martin, it was an off the cuff comment not to be taken too seriously, yes sure bandwidth is expensive. I guess most people don't understand the costs of running a big web site. So keep donating folks!

 

Maybe a mod can move it to the really bad jokes thread lol

[LyncusBee]

Might want to check out the libel laws too before saying this is all part of a gigantic ploy between OFT, FSA and the banks. And look under the bed for any monsters too... and Lord Lucan while you're at it.

 

So if that is trolling then so be it. I prefer to think of it as a call for careful thought, individual responsibility, and common sense.

 

 

You seem easily satisfied and confident that the OFT will win this with their very strong case, I presume therefore you have seen the details of it. My conspiracy to you is your complaicanse to me, I feel it is natural to be cynical about a case that is announced out of the blue, intimating that the details were discussed outside of the public domain, at the peak of consumer action, with no prior discourse with consumer groups, and most importantly biased toward the banks (or defendant if you please). If you or I's businesses were accused of such a scale of unlawful charges we would certainly not be allowed to continue with our actions and generate more consumer complaints would we?

 

You suggest you are happy to wait out a couple of years of proceedings with no suggestion of such having any transparency and simply hope the banks will then voluntarily pay up if judged against and not appeal and drag it out another long amount of time?! To paraphrase Mr Lewis on the Ch4 News, If consumers are to wait years only to then have to ask for their charges back then this is a sham. So is that conspiracy theory also?

 

BTW libel is one of the most difficult laws with which to fulfill the burden of proof within a free society, if you think someone can be colpable for libel based upon their personal opinions posted on an online BBS*....or a video on YouTube..... eh yeah reality check!

 

*The comments posted by the author on this forum are purely a portrayal of his opinions and should not be taken as acuusations or views of any greater scope of the BBS.....OK now?

[MacBoy]

Maybe a mod can move it to the really bad jokes thread lol

I don't think we need to go that far! But wasn't it great to see the look he put on that pompous BBA spokeswoman's face on C4 News the other night? Priceless!

 

[crfx250]

You seem easily satisfied and confident that the OFT will win this with their very strong case, I presume therefore you have seen the details of it. My conspiracy to you is your complaicanse to me, I feel it is natural to be cynical about a case that is announced out of the blue, intimating that the details were discussed outside of the public domain, at the peak of consumer action, with no prior discourse with consumer groups, and most importantly biased toward the banks (or defendant if you please). If you or I's businesses were accused of such a scale of unlawful charges we would certainly not be allowed to continue with our actions and generate more consumer complaints would we?

 

You suggest you are happy to wait out a couple of years of proceedings with no suggestion of such having any transparency and simply hope the banks will then voluntarily pay up if judged against and not appeal and drag it out another long amount of time?! To paraphrase Mr Lewis on the Ch4 News, If consumers are to wait years only to then have to ask for their charges back then this is a sham. So is that conspiracy theory also?

 

BTW libel is one of the most difficult laws with which to fulfill the burden of proof within a free society, if you think someone can be colpable for libel based upon their personal opinions posted on an online BBS*....or a video on YouTube..... eh yeah reality check!

 

*The comments posted by the author on this forum are purely a portrayal of his opinions and should not be taken as acuusations or views of any greater scope of the BBS.....OK now?

 

We just have to be realistic. No one is suggesting the situation is ideal but

given the choice of waiting for a definitive decision for 2 or 3 years and stumbling along indefinately I know what I'd plump for. And I'm confident

that that view is shared by Bankfodder, Stephen Hone, Martin Lewis and Tom Brennan.

[TUTTSI]

My hubby has just asked me to post this, he says until a decision arises from a test case and it becomes law there is absolutley no reason why our current bank claims at court should not be heard as normal in court or settled before the hearing date. He says there must be some provision in the CPR rules to apply to this court on this basis to object to a stay by the defendant bank.

 

Has anyone got any views on this please!!!

DS

[ghia]

dos anyone think a new fighting fund is wat we should be looking at show the big wigs were all not just going to sit moaning at our keyboard if everyone who loged on to this site gave a tenner we could be in with a fighting chance

[TUTTSI]

dos anyone think a new fighting fund is wat we should be looking at show the big wigs were all not just going to sit moaning at our keyboard if everyone who loged on to this site gave a tenner we could be in with a fighting chance

 

I agree, if enough peeps donated and all the consumer groups got together and joined as one, we should be able to get good legal representation to stand up for us the consumers.

DS

[adamc6671]

Hi All, and DS especially

 

I think the following may help in persuading Courts to continue with current claims rather than 'staying' them.

 

I'm doing a Witness Statement for my forthcoming Allocation Hearing, and am thinking of including the following 'extra' paragraph -

 

"The Claimant is aware of the Test Case being initiated by The Office of Fair Trading in order to test the validity of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 to claims of this nature. The Claimant believes that the Test Case does not seek to test the validity of the remaining issues in this claim and therefore believes that the Defendant must still comply in full with Item 3 of the General Form of Judgment or Order issued by the Court on 13th July 2007 which requires the Defendant to file with the Court and serve upon the Claimant draft directions for this case to proceed as a test case."

 

GaryH has already agreed that what I'm saying is right - see here, Post 45

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/85444-jimmyboy-lloyds-tsb-3.html

 

I'm hoping that the statement might just influence the Judge to continue, rather than 'stay', the claim. I also think that the statement could be easily adapted for use in the Witness Statement at any type of hearing.

 

I'd be very grateful for any thoughts or (constructive!) comments.

 

All the best - Adam

[TUTTSI]

Hi All, and DS especially

 

I think the following may help in persuading Courts to continue with current claims rather than 'staying' them.

 

I'm doing a Witness Statement for my forthcoming Allocation Hearing, and am thinking of including the following 'extra' paragraph -

 

"The Claimant is aware of the Test Case being initiated by The Office of Fair Trading in order to test the validity of The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 to claims of this nature. The Claimant believes that the Test Case does not seek to test the validity of the remaining issues in this claim and therefore believes that the Defendant must still comply in full with Item 3 of the General Form of Judgment or Order issued by the Court on 13th July 2007 which requires the Defendant to file with the Court and serve upon the Claimant draft directions for this case to proceed as a test case."

 

GaryH has already agreed that what I'm saying is right - see here, Post 45

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/85444-jimmyboy-lloyds-tsb-3.html

 

I'm hoping that the statement might just influence the Judge to continue, rather than 'stay', the claim. I also think that the statement could be easily adapted for use in the Witness Statement at any type of hearing.

 

I'd be very grateful for any thoughts or (constructive!) comments.

 

All the best - Adam

 

 

Hi Adam.

Can you just clarify what item 3 is that you are relating too!! is this to do with your claim or the OFT claim!!

 

My cases that is already in court & has been given a court date of NOV 16, have only been given standard directions and they have not asked Abbey for full disclosure.

 

The situation is that it appears from what I have read that the banks are going to ask the Master of the Rolls to stay all court cases. Whether this will happen or there is something that as a Consumer Group we can all get together and fight with the help of a legal team and or whether there is any substance to getting cases that are stayed by the courts overturned!! as I along with many others feel it is unfair to stay current claims when the test case has not yet been heard.

DS

[CHRIS 66]

lets hope he is right after all dont suppose the banks will put hold on their charges during the case. would expect some bright spark from the banks will mention 'status quo' not the band!!!!

[adamc6671]

Hi DS

 

Item 3 refers to the Order issued by Ipswich County Court for the Allocation Hearing in my own case, and is worded exactly as I've put in my Post above! The full Order is posted on my 'JimmyBoy' thread.

 

I'm just hoping that my statement will have the effects of a) influencing the Judge not to 'stay' the claim, and b) influencing Lloyds TSB to settle rather than submit their Draft Directions, though that may well be a rather folorn hope now!

 

All the best - Adam

 

p.s. Totally agree with your sentiments re. staying all cases, and many thanks for reputation (assuming it was from you!)

[Boris303]

I think we should be looking at the bigger picture.

 

If they were found to be unfairly charging customers by the court, and the test case proved to be a precedent for all subsequent claims, then the banks would have to stop charging customers immediately.

 

So how would they then make the money lost through not charging customers unauthorised overdraft fees etc?

 

I believe this is a carefully planned tactic by the banks to give them plenty of time to implement new ways of banking, charging customers in other ways to make up the lost revenue in not charging unauthorised overdraft charges etc.

 

So the outcome of this case really does not matter to them, maybe a slightly better outcome if they win, but regardless of that i believe we will ALL be banking under new terms and conditions with these banks in 2 years time.

 

Banks are smartarses, and i don't believe for one second they are not doing this without having a carefully thought about PLAN B.

 

They never put all their eggs in one basket.

 

 

I posted this a while ago, and thought i would repost here again now. The truth is that no one is certain of the outcome of this test case, and do we all really believe the banks are "BANKING" on the outcome of this case going their way?

 

I personally don't think they are.

[CHRIS 66]

boris surely the plan b has already been touched on as a mild threat the point being that banks have indicated that current account may have to have a monthly charge.... this was spoken about some months ago .

[Boris303]

Exactly, that is what i am saying. I am with Barclays and they have been charging me for my account for years now.

 

But we are all talking about this as though the banks haven't even thought about losing. The current general view is that there is more chance of the banks losing this than winning.

 

So why are they deciding to go to court? What can they gain? Well 2 years for an outcome, after the appeals etc. Lots of people deciding not to claim anymore. And more importantly they have 2 years to implement their new ways of banking.

 

They must have the view by now that this thing is just not going to go away by itself, so this is a cunning plan by them to buy them time, stop so many people claiming, and sort this situation out once and for all.

 

Just my simple view on this.

[einyuk]

with the banks still using their own soliciters during the test case i think this action has given them the breathing space they desperatley want to stop new claims been logged and having to comply with the timescales and even if all court cases were to be stayed we would still see court claims continued to be settled as normal.

[thelightbrigade]

Just typical, I have been going through the posts here and am just as fed up as I was about to do N1 on Tuesday. I was looking forward to the money for christmas and had no. 2 claim ready to go.

 

I used to work in financial services and was involved with the pension mis selling and subsequent claims. Based on this, I reckon the banks are employing delay tactics and will seek as many facilities from the FSA as possible. I have no experience of the OFT but I have with the FSA and believe that if pressured they in turn will pressure the banks and may remove/amend the waiver.It will take a lot of people sending a lot of letters to both OFT and FSA highlighting the imbalance and requesting removal of the waiver.

As to the banks now undertaking more work to demonstrate the validity of the £30+ charges, I think this would have to be proven to have been in place historically.

The pension provider I worked for, knew it was going to have to pay big time and was basically Sh*tting themselves regarding what the FSA said and told them what they had to comply with.They wanted more time to deter people and to make interim offers and to buy time to generate the revenue from other lines of business so the impact was not too devastating.

Peoples main concern is the delay in getting a refund, if we all apply continued pressure to the OFT and FSA things should be sped up, it is good that a case is being heard, but I reckon the banks when they lose will seek favourable refund methods and stagger the money just to be awkward.

Not sure on this one but I imagine the FSA have a duty to acknowledge complaints as with any other organisation, imagine the workload if 100000 complaint letters needed replies every week?(all to be signed for)

On a positive note, the banks need to comply with whatever the FSA tell them to do, they may see this as a small victory but it is early days and no doubt they will seek further stalling of procedures.

I agree with Josie8 "What we now all need to do is try and devise a strategy to stop the banks benefiting from the stay and keeping on imposing penalty charges" - we do need t devise a strategy.

We need to carry on with the claims, object to any stays and apply pressure wherever possible. I think we need to act fast and email/post/call OFT and FSA repeatedly until we are heard. 80-90% of banking is with 7 banks in the UK - there is only so much "voting with your feet" we can do - we would just move to another bank in dispute and the musical chair banking begins, they won't lose out then.

We should switch to non UK accounts or start our own bank!!anyone fancy being a fat cat?

[CHRIS 66]

boris , it just appears to me that we have all experienced the delaying tactics the banks and their solicitors use and this looks like the mother of all delays .that said this is surely what we have all been waiting for ,its just unfortunate that we were not privy to the timing of oft decision

[Boris303]

Just typical, I have been going through the posts here and am just as fed up as I was about to do N1 on Tuesday. I was looking forward to the money for christmas and had no. 2 claim ready to go.

 

I used to work in financial services and was involved with the pension mis selling and subsequent claims. Based on this, I reckon the banks are employing delay tactics and will seek as many facilities from the FSA as possible. I have no experience of the OFT but I have with the FSA and believe that if pressured they in turn will pressure the banks and may remove/amend the waiver.It will take a lot of people sending a lot of letters to both OFT and FSA highlighting the imbalance and requesting removal of the waiver.

As to the banks now undertaking more work to demonstrate the validity of the £30+ charges, I think this would have to be proven to have been in place historically.

The pension provider I worked for, knew it was going to have to pay big time and was basically Sh*tting themselves regarding what the FSA said and told them what they had to comply with.They wanted more time to deter people and to make interim offers and to buy time to generate the revenue from other lines of business so the impact was not too devastating.

Peoples main concern is the delay in getting a refund, if we all apply continued pressure to the OFT and FSA things should be sped up, it is good that a case is being heard, but I reckon the banks when they lose will seek favourable refund methods and stagger the money just to be awkward.

Not sure on this one but I imagine the FSA have a duty to acknowledge complaints as with any other organisation, imagine the workload if 100000 complaint letters needed replies every week?(all to be signed for)

On a positive note, the banks need to comply with whatever the FSA tell them to do, they may see this as a small victory but it is early days and no doubt they will seek further stalling of procedures.

I agree with Josie8 "What we now all need to do is try and devise a strategy to stop the banks benefiting from the stay and keeping on imposing penalty charges" - we do need t devise a strategy.

We need to carry on with the claims, object to any stays and apply pressure wherever possible. I think we need to act fast and email/post/call OFT and FSA repeatedly until we are heard. 80-90% of banking is with 7 banks in the UK - there is only so much "voting with your feet" we can do - we would just move to another bank in dispute and the musical chair banking begins, they won't lose out then.

We should switch to non UK accounts or start our own bank!!anyone fancy being a fat cat?

 

 

Exactly, well said.

[Boris303]

boris , it just appears to me that we have all experienced the delaying tactics the banks and their solicitors use and this looks like the mother of all delays .that said this is surely what we have all been waiting for ,its just unfortunate that we were not privy to the timing of oft decision

 

Absolutely, for me this the begining of the end for bank charges. By the time the outcome of this test case is known, bank charges as we know them today will be history.

 

I have a claim due in court on the 19th October in the London Merchantile Court, and i hope it won't be stayed. But I don't think it will.

 

Its all very inconvienient for us individuals, but collectively all very nessecary.

[sansho]

I think it is time for a proper civil demonstration outside the offices of the FSA and OFT regarding this new development. It is a slap in the face of the Caggers and bank penalty charge claimants at large, to have their claims stayed pending the outcome of a test case, whilst the banks are still allowed to levy the charges that is the subject matter in dispute. This is completely underhand and does not represent a fair approach to dispute resolution. Bank penalty charge claimants and their interest have again been put at the bottom of the pile of matters to be considered, even before the test case has begun. This is typical of british establishment behaviour and we have to push back hard, and rebuke these kinds of inconsiderate decisions that appear to give reprieve to the banks. Our civil rights cannot be flounted in this manner....