hsbc cca

[lolly371]

hello there. i have a quick question. i cca'd hsbc for my credit card, but i have received a letter from payment services bereau saying 'you will have recently recieved a letter from card services, hsbc bank, which stated that following their internal reorganisation, the day to day management or your account would be handled by us.'

i am a little confused as i never received a letter saying anything of the sort would be happening, and i am wondering if this is still hsbc or a dca. my question is, do i now need to sent another cca request. i have heard nothing about the original one and the 12+2 days are up, but they have yet to cash the cheque i enclosed. can anybody tell me what i need to do?

[Castlebest]

Just write back saying they are now in default due to non compliance with your CCA s78 request and the outstanding amount is now unrecoverable by them, also that if they dont reply within a further calendar month they will be committing a stautory criminal offence.

 

pete

[lolly371]

do i write back to this new company or hsbc? also, since going through all of my paperwork, i have discovered that they have issued a default. can i request that they remove it in the same letter, or as it was issued before i sent the cca, does this mean i have to just accept it?

[Castlebest]

No write back to HSBC card services and state they are in default of your s78 request as above plus you also note they are trying to transfer the debt to a 3rd party which is also not allowed under the CCA. Copy the letter to whoever you receved your reply off.

 

pete

[lolly371]

this is really strange. i have just checked with credit expert and there is no sign of a default, only a couple of late payment entries. i dont get it....

[lolly371]

will this do?

Dear Sir/Madam

Account Reference:

Please be aware that THIS ACCOUNT IS IN DISPUTE.

In response to your letter dated 4 August 2007, I would like to inform you that HSBC are in default due to non-compliance with my CCA s78 request, which means that the outstanding balance is unrecoverable. You cannot transfer the debt to a third party, or enter any defaults on to a credit register without a signed credit agreement. Additionally if I have not received the CCA by 28th Sept you will be committing a statutory criminal offence.

As you are aware, A credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued.Furthermore, please ensure that any contact by yourselves is made in writing only to the above address. Telephone calls and personal visits will not be accepted and viewed as harassment.Please note:

OFT response to failing to provide agreement:

For your information, the general effects of sections 77-79 requires the creditor/owner(in the case of a hire agreement) under an agreement for (fixed-sum credit, running account credit and hire agreement) to provide the debtor/hirer with a copy of the executed agreement and a statement of account on request.If a creditor/owner fails to comply with a valid request within a period of 12 days(not including the date of receipt of the request) he may not enforce the agreement at all.This prevents enforcement with or without a court order. If a default lasts for a month(for example a calendar month) it constitutes an offence.A ‘true copy’ of an agreement principally consists of the terms and conditions of the agreement and the statutory content of the agreement. The name, address and signature of the debtor do not have to be provided. Additionally, the creditor must supply the total sum paid under the agreement by the debtor; the total sum which has become payable under the agreement but remains unpaid; and the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor (the latter two must include the various amounts comprised in that total sum and the date when each is/was due). However, the copy must be a copy. It need not be exact on immaterial points, but it cannot be a conjectured reconstruction. If the trader has no original copy, the trader will have difficulty showing that he has complied with the regulation by supplying a ‘true copy’, since nobody would know what was in the original. When the trader comes to enforce the debt in court, he needs to have a signed copy of the agreement in order to enforce. As the law stands currently he cannot otherwise.In summary, I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS DEBT AND THEREFORE REQUIRE YOU TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS BY PROVIDING THE REQUESTED DOCUNENTATION BEFORE I CORRESPOND FURTHER.

i have noticed that at the bottom of their letter it says 'Payment Services Bereau is a trading style of Metropolitan Collection Services Limited'. does this mean it still belongs to hsbc. im sure i have heard somewhere that they are just their own collections department.

[Castlebest]

will this do?

Dear Sir/Madam

Account Reference:

Please be aware that THIS ACCOUNT IS IN DISPUTE.

 

In response to your letter dated 4 August 2007, I would like to inform you that HSBC card services are in default due to non-compliance with my CCA s78 request, which means that the outstanding balance is currently unrecoverable, this also means you cannot transfer the debt to a third party, or enter any defaults on to a credit register without a signed credit agreement. Additionally if I have not received the CCA by 28th Sept you will be committing a statutory criminal offence.

 

As you are aware, A credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a completely indefenceable to any court claim that is issued.Furthermore, please ensure that any contact by yourselves is made in writing only to the above address. Telephone calls and personal visits will not be accepted and viewed as harassment.

 

I would leave all of the pink bit out, they can look it up for themselves if they need to

Please note:

OFT response to failing to provide agreement:

For your information, the general effects of sections 77-79 requires the creditor/owner(in the case of a hire agreement) under an agreement for (fixed-sum credit, running account credit and hire agreement) to provide the debtor/hirer with a copy of the executed agreement and a statement of account on request.If a creditor/owner fails to comply with a valid request within a period of 12 days(not including the date of receipt of the request) he may not enforce the agreement at all.This prevents enforcement with or without a court order. If a default lasts for a month(for example a calendar month) it constitutes an offence.A ‘true copy’ of an agreement principally consists of the terms and conditions of the agreement and the statutory content of the agreement. The name, address and signature of the debtor do not have to be provided. Additionally, the creditor must supply the total sum paid under the agreement by the debtor; the total sum which has become payable under the agreement but remains unpaid; and the total sum which is to become payable under the agreement by the debtor (the latter two must include the various amounts comprised in that total sum and the date when each is/was due). However, the copy must be a copy. It need not be exact on immaterial points, but it cannot be a conjectured reconstruction. If the trader has no original copy, the trader will have difficulty showing that he has complied with the regulation by supplying a ‘true copy’, since nobody would know what was in the original. When the trader comes to enforce the debt in court, he needs to have a signed copy of the agreement in order to enforce. As the law stands currently he cannot otherwise.In summary,

I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS DEBT AND THEREFORE REQUIRE YOU TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS BY PROVIDING THE REQUESTED DOCUNENTATION BEFORE I CORRESPOND FURTHER.

 

 

i have noticed that at the bottom of their letter it says 'Payment Services Bereau is a trading style of Metropolitan Collection Services Limited'. does this mean it still belongs to hsbc. im sure i have heard somewhere that they are just their own collections department.

 

Metropolitan are HSBC's debt collection arm, you have been passed to them because you wrote a CCA request and card services are dumping you unfortunatly they cant do that

 

pete

[lolly371]

okay i have amended that and will post a letter to each, recorded delivery today. lets see what happens next! got a thick letter from them yesterday, thought it might be the credit agreement, but it turned out to be all my statements.(i hadn't even asked for them) i looked through and had £36 in late payment charges in total. i cant have been that bad as a customer, then(for my credit card, at least!) it makes me so mad. i have been with them for 25ish years- first sign of trouble, they don't want to know. i'll show em!!!!!

[lolly371]

i have received a reply from metropolitan, saying;

thank you for your recent letter.......

in respect of your request for a copy of the original signed agreement...we confirm that it has not been possible to locate these agreements. RESULT! however there is more than sufficient evidence of your entry into an account with the bank and the variation to the terms and conditions of that agreement over the years. your continued use of that card is evidence of acceptance of those terms and conditions BUT YOU DONT HAVE AN AGREEMENT SO IT DOESNT MEAN SQUAT!

[lolly371]

sorry i pressed send too early!

it continues to say;

we would also point out to you that you have been informed that the account is closed. the debt was passed on to metropolitan collection services who are the banks debt recovery agents on 1st august 2007. you therefore oew the bank a debt of **** in respect of the account including interest as of date of closure. although there is a debt owed by you there is however no longer a live agreement in place under which the bank can be seen as a creditor and therefore sections 77 and 78 of the consumer credit act 1974 do not apply.

we look forward to receiving your continued repayments. failure to continue making these payments shall leave us with no alternative than to continue recovery action against yourself.

what do i do now?

[freakyleaky]

Not sure on this but for starters did you send the cca s78 request before the debt was passed on to metropolitan? If so then the request was made while the account was still under the banks terms and therefore it could be construed as retaliatory action in anticipation of action by yourself against the bank.

Hope this makes sense. I am sure pete will be on later to help further with this and confirm your next move which I think would be non compliance under the dpa as all sections of the act would have applied at the time of your request.

[lolly371]

thanks for your reply, freaky. i heard you were poorly. shouldn't you be taking it easy? in answer to your question, though, i contacted the cccs, but hsbc would't accept any of my proposals and passed me on to metropolitan as a result, which is what prompted me to go down the cca path in the first place, so if anything, i was the one who took retaliatory action. does this mean i dont stand a chance? the way i saw it, if they have no cca, then they cant pass it on, anyway.

[freakyleaky]

Yes you could be right. If there was never any agreement then technically you could operate the account the way you wanted and they would have no rights to default you as no terms and conditions were signed.

This is really not something I am offay with at all but just picking out the logical bits from deep within the grey matter!

Hopefully pete will shed some more light on things later. He is usually on around lunch time.

I should be taking it easy and am having to sneak on here when the dragon lady isn't watching!

[Castlebest]

You owe HSBC/Metropolitan money, therefore this is a loan and is covered by the Consumer Credit Act... OR... you dont its up to them

 

Techinicaly I think you could tell Metro to stuff off "no agreement no debt" but I think you would be on very thin ice when it did come to court.

 

I think you just write them a letter saying as no termas and conditions governing this loan exist this is how much you can afford to pay per week/month and set it up. you tell them the terms

 

pete

[lolly371]

thanks very much for that. so i shall just carry on paying cccs as i have been and let them whistle for the rest. thats a better feeling. they have been pushing for me to take out a managed loan, this is why i've been getting all the trouble. cccs told me,absolutely no way, never, should i agree to it, so i didnt, and hsbc are being really awkward. they dont like it when you dont play their way, do they?

[lolly371]

do you think it might be a good idea to involve the FOS? the reason i ask is because i have an ongoing complaint which is still with the bank at the moment over their treatment of my account since i have been struggling. (not interested, telling me to borrow from family in order to meet repayments, taking bizarre payments out of my account without permission etc)i am getting nowhere following their internal complaints procedure, and have been considering it as my next step, anyway. the complaint indirectly involves my credit card, so could i say that they are being obstructive by not having an agreement, therefore continuing to block me from getting in control of my finances, even while my complaint is under investigation?

i have just thought...they passed my debt to metropolitan after i started the complaint.......could THAT be seen as retaliation?

[Castlebest]

I dont think involving the ombudsman would do any harm at all. I dont like the way banks pass on debt to their collection agents without notice and once they have they think they are in the clear.

 

I have exactly the same situation on my Citi Card they passed the debt to a collection agent and have actualy writen to me saying we no longer have a contractual link therefore they dont need to send me any response to my CCA request.

 

Wrong, the limitations act means I can look at anything I want up to 6 yers old.

 

pete

[lolly371]

i have phoned the ombudsman and they are taking over my complaint, but have told me to contact the information comissioner to be sure of the finer points of the argument, ie if the debt is now unenforcable. my only concern is that i have heard somebody say that involving them made matters worse as the information comisioner then contacted the creditor and informed then it was not unenforcable. i have a decision to make, now. to gamble, or not to gamble....

[Castlebest]

I think you need to know the factual base you have, if the commissioner decides the debt is inforceable then at least you can start talking to them about sensible ways to pay it off.

 

pete

[lolly371]

i have phoned the information comissioner, who informed me that they dont deal with this type of situation and that i need to speak with the office of fair trading, who told me that there is no such thing as a credit agreement for a credit card and that all hsbc need to provide is the terms and conditions for use on my credit card account. so all in all, im back to square one!

[lolly371]

well isnt that funny. i replied to hsbc saying no credit agreement = unenforcable debt and informing them i had involved the ombudsman, and suddenly a credit agreement has turned up! looks genuine, too.

[jowalshy]

It is amazing what a few strong words can produce.

[lolly371]

isnt it just!!

[lolly371]

i have received another letter from hsbc today regarding my personal loan, which i cca'd at the same time as my credit card. their response is this:

 

Thank you for your request with regard to information about transactions and charges/fees on your account.

We note that the account you are requesting information for, as mentioned above, is a Loan Account. As this will not have incurred charges in the same manner as a current account, we have not provided this information to you.

If you require more information, please let us know.

 

 

uurrrrrr, yes please, the credit agreement i asked for in the first place would be nice!! do these people even know the difference between a cca and an sar?

[Castlebest]

Lolly no they dont, they employ clerks to look at all the incomming mail who havent got a clue what they are doing. You asked for something it must be an SAR

 

pete