QUICK HELP needed defending DUBIOUS Particulars OF Claim THANKS

[Vulture_Bank]

Please help on these dubious Particulars of Claim

 

we are the defendants being sued by the claimant a credit card company

 

the particulars of claim say --

 

 

 

" the claim is for the sum of £x,xxx.xx being the amount outstanding on account number xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx full details of which have been previously supplied.

 

The account is regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and a Default Notice has been served in accordance with Section 87 of the Act and has not been complied with.

 

CONTACT XXXXXX ON XXXX XXX XXXX"

 

 

for a start there is no date of the date the agreement stated

& no details of who the owner is apart from very top left corner OF THE LIGHT BLUE CLAIM FORM where it says the claimants details

 

can i have a few comments please thanks in advance

[tomterm8]

normal advice:

 

Basic Introduction to litigation…

You walk into the court room. The entire room hushes, as the eleven men of the jury all look at you. GUILTY! They think! Judge John Deed scowls…

Ech, not quite. People have a very warped sense of what a civil trial is. For a start, unless you’re dealing with very very large amounts of money, no jury. Second, no court room. You’ll go into a nice office room, with a judge whose job it is to take into account the fact that you are a litigant in person, i.e. a normal bloke or lady who doesn’t have much experience of Law. The “trial” will be informal, involve lots of looking at law textbooks by the judge and solicitors, and at worst you’ll end up with a county court judgement for essentially the same amount of money as the claim (give or take a hundred quid).

Since almost all claims include collection / penalty charges, IT IS VERY RARE THAT THEY WILL GET THE FULL AMOUNT OF ANY CLAIM.

And, I’ll give you some further hints… a heck of a lot of people who go to court actually winJ And even if you lose, the Judge WILL NOT order you to pay more than you can affordJ And HE/SHE WILL NOT order you to go to jail, or punish you in any way…

Just look on it as a nice day out in your local town… it aint as scary as DCA’s would have you believe, and the Judge is really a nice person who generally doesn’t like the Claimant very much

Now for the Initial Steps

First, I would like you to take a deep breath… litigation is a lengthy process. It’s important not to get ahead of yourself, trying to write a defence before you have any information… you need to gather information at the first stages, it is also important to realise that it’s quite often a waiting game… there will be weeks where you are not doing anything in relation to the claim. That’s normal. Don’t expect to be working on it every minute. Don’t get ahead of the game.

Second, we need to know roughly how much money the account is, and whether the account was sold to a debt collection agency.

 

Thirdly, you should call the court, and get the date that (a) acknowledgement of service is due and (b) the defence is due.

 

Fourth, if you sent a credit agreement request, you should check that the credit agreement request was received and signed for... recorded delivery is not always signed for. If it was signed for, or the check / po cashed, then no worries... otherwise, send a new one special delivery.

 

Fifth, you need to get information, so you will send the letter I post under this thread by special delivery. Hint here, all letters you should type but not hand sign.

 

Sixth can you scan the letters you've recieved so far, removing personal data and so on. Can you tell me:

(1) was a default notice received (and scan the notice),

2. Was a notice / letter before action received (and scan it)

3. Was the account assigned to a DCA?

[tomterm8]

In the XXXX County Court

Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME)

Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER)

 

 

Dear XXX

 

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

 

I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. 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.

 

The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought.

 

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

b. Where there has beenany 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 Barclaycard.

c. 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.

d.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).

e. 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.

f. 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.

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

h. 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.

i. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.

 

3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court.

 

 

I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

XXXX (type, don't sign).

[tomterm8]

so, to conclude the advice, your immediate actions (in order) should be

1. call the court, and find out the date acknowledgement of service and defence are due

2. Make sure you acknowledge service... you can do at the MCOL site (Money claim online). I would suggest selecting that you will defend all of the claim, and not submitting a defence / counter claim yet.

3. Check that the credit request letter was received and signed for; if not send it special delivery.

4. Send the letter in the last post, special delivery.

From now on, the rule is that you TYPE and don’t write any signature and that you send all letters special delivery (unless otherwise stated).

Hope this helps.

[vinegarvera]

Wow Tomterm,

I was just browsing through the site and stumbled on this post.

What brilliant advice you have given!! Especially the first reply, should calm vulture down a lot!!!

Well worth a tip of the scales!!!

[tomterm8]

Wow Tomterm,

I was just browsing through the site and stumbled on this post.

What brilliant advice you have given!! Especially the first reply, should calm vulture down a lot!!!

Well worth a tip of the scales!!!

 

Thanks. I must admit, almost everyone has the same questions and emotions at the start of legal actions, so I've taken to having a standard response template with a little editing to make it all relevant. the steps in the first week are always the same anyway. You need to get information, and you need to acknowledge service.

[Robdblynd]

Tomterm .... you are absolutely brilliant. The advice in this thread is worth it's weight in gold.

 

Vulture Bank ... listen to every word Tomterm tells you and follow his advice to the letter ... the man's a genius.