Lisa F v Capital one

[lisaf]

Hi all,

just looking for some more advice really (again)! I am claiming on a capital one credit card for my sister - charges are about £900+. They've only offered about £200 as they said that the OFT have given £12 as a guideline and they will only pay the difference.

Even if that were the case, £200 is not the difference anyway.

What I'm wondering is do I still forge ahead with the claim as I'm at the LBA stage (they've also said they'll just deposit this money straight to her account)?

Or is it treated the same as the bank charges and being stalled for the time being? Can they really impose this £12 rule?

Many thanks for all your advice

Lisa

[Curlyben]

Keep going.

The OFT's £12 ISN'T a hard limit and not even agreed to be a fair amount.

Cap1 are fairly straight forward, but you will have to file in court for the full amount to be paid.

[alex_the_lad]

Hi Lisa - totally agree with the advice from Curlyben. I'd carry on with your LBA letter - sticking to your own time scale. Also, if Cap1 have said that they are going to put the money into your sister's account then you could send a rejection letter - you can find some rejection letter templates by following this link: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/25716-rejecting-offers.html. If it's been 14 days or more since you sent the Preliminary letter, then you could combine both the rejection and LBA letters.

 

Also, I added the following paragraph to my LBA to address the point CAP1 make about the OFT-£12 issue:

 

Additionally, it has now been confirmed that your particularly high level of penalties are considered to be unfair per se by the OFT who reported on the 5th April 2006 and are therefore presumed to be unlawful in the absence of specific proof to the contrary. With regard to the OFT report of 5th April 2006 I would draw your attention to the following paragraph taken from the statement that the OFT made on this matter:

 

‘We expect card issuers to recalculate their default charges in line with the principles in our statement to achieve consistency with unfair contract terms legislation. We have decided that, as a provisional step, it is appropriate to give priority to addressing default charges which exceed a simple monetary threshold of £12, in line with our duty to use our resources to tackle contract terms that have the potential to cause the most serious harm to consumers. We are not suggesting that default fees should be set at £12, and a court will certainly not consider that a default fee is fair just because it is below the threshold.’

[lisaf]

Thanks Guys! Much appreciated

Lisa x