Natwest cc

[tifo]

Asked for charges back from Natwest cc.

 

Natwest offered difference between the charges and £12 which i rejected.

 

Passed the matter to the FOS. Asked for a refund of charges, PPI and compensation for maintaining a default for 3 years after account was sold.

 

Natwest have offered all the charges but no interest. I've rejected this and asked for interest at the statement rate.

 

PPI will be looked at after charges refund is accepted.

 

FOS Adjudicator says since they're removed the default now, after i told them it's unlawful, then why am i complaining? I said for the fact that they maintained it for 3 years unlawfully. His reply was that since the debt existed then that is OK. I replied, yes, but the debt was not to Natwest. He said that's OK as well, it was to someone anyway. What is he on? He seemed to have no understanding of the DPA.

[hedgey06]

Hi tifo,

 

Sorry, but I'm confused

 

Nat west CC have now offered to refund all charges and have removed the default?

 

That's what I call a result.

 

Or isn't it?

[tifo]

Nat west CC have now offered to refund all charges and have removed the default?

 

I'll try and explain more clearly ...

 

I had a credit card account with NatWest which was sold to a debt agency 3 years ago. So Natwest should have removed the default they had in their own name or it should have changed to the debt agency's name.

 

The above did not happen. I discovered in January, when i started all this action for charges, that Natwest had continued to maintain a default for the credit card i used to have with them 3 years ago but which was sold. The debt agency also had separate defaults in their own name.

 

I wrote to Natwest and said, hey, this is against Data Protection Act as you don't own the account anymore and this should have been removed 3 years ago. They said, sorry, will do and removed it in April. So i ask for compensation as per s.13 Data Protection Act for the unlawful data processing they had been doing from Aug 2003 - April 2007. They said, go away, no compensation.

 

I passed the complaint to the FOS to claim back charges, PPI and compensation for unlawful default over 3 years. Now i realise i should have done each complaint separately as the FOS get confused easily and one aspect of a complaint holds up another one. But, months ago, they said put any and all complaints per account on one form.

 

Now FOS say, PPI will be looked at when charges complaint is settled, and then they might say default complaint will be looked at when PPI claim is settled. Aren't they and the bank capable of looking at 2/3 complaints at the same time as each is handled by different departments?

 

The guy at the FOS tried to get me to accept the £45 Natwest have offered out of the £200 i asked for, including interest at statement rate of 20.90%. Charges were £60, they can only find £45 on system. He said if i did not then it could take 6 months to get charges back. I asked him why is that since it's taken you 4 months to look at it and you're now on the case why the extra 6 months?

 

He also seemed to think it is OK for Natwest to default me after they no longer owned the account but the debt was with someone, even a debt agency who have their own default on me. So going by his thinking, as long as there is a debt owing to someone, then any bank/agency can default me as they like? The question he asked was 'the debt still exists' to which i replied 'but not with Natwest for 3 years'.

 

Hope this makes it clearer.

[tifo]

NastyWest offered to refund all charges, PPI and some interest but pay the DCA (£205). They will pay £200 compensation for the default to me. I refused and it went to an Ombudsman.

 

i've had a response to my case with NastyWest from Ombudsman today.

 

same decision, refund of charges, PPI and interest goes to DCA, but default compensation comes to me.

 

"NastyWest are being generous" they say. But then contradictions in the reply.

 

"the collection of the debt by DCA is a seperate matter and does not concern NastyWest, you can make a claim against the DCA". So i ask, why are they paying them my money?

 

"The debt remains due even if the DCA is not entitled to any payment and i would still award them the money". So you can take precedence over s.127(3) and the courts on unenforcebility?

 

"NastyWest was left with an unpaid account, the fact they sold it is irrelevant". Err, no, it's very relevant because it means i don't owe them anything now and they're not the owner of the debt.

 

Some more points but these are the main ones.

[steven4064]

tifo

 

I'm with hedgey - ie confused. Would it be possible to post the whole of the letter from the FOS (personal details removed) so we can see the whole thing.

 

I have a further question- it is not clear what s127(3) has to do with anything here. Was this a NatWest loan, credit card or overdraft?

[tifo]

tifo

 

I'm with hedgey - ie confused. Would it be possible to post the whole of the letter from the FOS (personal details removed) so we can see the whole thing.

 

I have a further question- it is not clear what s127(3) has to do with anything here. Was this a NatWest loan, credit card or overdraft?

 

Basically, Natwest (same as other banks in my claims through the FOS) are saying they will send the refund of charges and PPI with interest to the DCA.

 

I made a s.78 request to the DCA last year (Jan 2007) and so far nothing has come back. So the account is unenforceable under s.127(3) in the abdsence of a valid credit agreement.

 

I've had the same in the Cap One thread i have.

 

The advice given here has been that this is the way things are done these days and to accept it. Seems unfair to me and DCA wins without any paperwork. Debt is still unenforceable but they get my refund.

 

I posted the response above because of the Ombudsmans comments.

[steven4064]

I made a s.78 request to the DCA last year (Jan 2007) and so far nothing has come back. So the account is unenforceable under s.127(3) in the abdsence of a valid credit agreement.

I don't think this applies. DCAs never have an agreement with you regulated by the CCA even if the original loan/CC did.

 

In fact, my understanding is that, if a creditor sells a debt to another company or passes it to a DCA, they still have obligations under the CCA and it is the original creditor that you send your s78 request to and who have the obligation to respond. If the original loan was an overdraft, then the CCA doesn't apply completely anyway.

 

IMHO you would not win a case in court based on s127 under these circumstances because the DCA would not be expected to have a valid credit agreement with you.

 

As the FOS has said, the debt still exists and NatWest are within their rights to send your refund to the DCA.

 

The £200 compensation is a different matter and it is quite right that should come to you.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say NatWest are being generous (I don't think they would know how ) but I think you are not going to get much more out of this - I certainly don't think a court would give you more.

[tifo]

I don't think this applies. DCAs never have an agreement with you regulated by the CCA even if the original loan/CC did.

 

In fact, my understanding is that, if a creditor sells a debt to another company or passes it to a DCA, they still have obligations under the CCA and it is the original creditor that you send your s78 request to and who have the obligation to respond. If the original loan was an overdraft, then the CCA doesn't apply completely anyway.

 

IMHO you would not win a case in court based on s127 under these circumstances because the DCA would not be expected to have a valid credit agreement with you.

 

As the FOS has said, the debt still exists and NatWest are within their rights to send your refund to the DCA.

 

This post is a complete surprise.

 

I've read 1000's of posts on here that non-compliance with a s.78 request makes the debt unenforceable under s.127(3) and the DCA cannot demand any payment after that. The advice has been to send the request to whoever asserts to own the debt and is asking you for money.

 

It is under the above that many people have been successful in seeing off DCA court claims.

 

What you are telling me here is the opposite of everything that has been said previously and would make many threads invalid.

 

If the DCA is never expected to have had a credit agreement with myself then what do they have that makes them ask me for payment? I have read that CCA takes precedence over LoP 1925.

 

Of course, why should i CCA the OC as there is no debt with them anymore.

 

It was a credit card with Natwest.

[steven4064]

From Wikipedia:

Acollection agency is a business that pursues payments on debt owed by individuals or businesses. Most collection agencies operate as agents of creditors and collect debts for a fee or percentage of the total amount owed. Some agencies, sometimes referred to as "debt buyers", also purchase debts from creditors for a fraction of the value of the debt and pursue the debtor for the full balance. Creditors typically send debts to a collection agency in order to remove them from their accounts receivable records; the difference between the amount collected and the full value of the debt is then written off as a loss

there are 2 cases:

 

1) DCA is agent. They are only chasing the debt on behalf of the creditor. In this case it is obvious that the original creditor is the right place to address a request under s77 or s78 of the CCA 1974. If you send the request to the DCA they will just pass it on. The original creditor has 12 days to reply or the account is in dispute and collection activities should cease. Often this doesn't happen because of lack of communication between the creditor and DCA. If no executed agreement can be produced, then you tell the creditor you do not acknowledge the debt and they instruct the DCA to go away.

 

2) DCA has bought the debt. They own the debt and the contract but the obligation under the CCA still rests with the original creditor. If you send a request under the CCA to the original creditor then the situation is almost the same as the first case except that the creditor and DCA have some contractual stuff between themselves to sort out (or not!). If you send a request to the DCA they should pass it to the original creditor. The problem is that the DCA is relying on the original creditor to supply information and they have no control over their response (or not).

 

The DCA may have a legitimate claim on you but cannot 'prove' it because the original creditor has not responded. I am not sure how a court would view a claim that no debt is owing because the DCA cannot produce something they never had and would not be expected to have. It is not so sure as a case under 1).

 

That is why, IMHO, any request under the CCA should (normally) be addressed to the original creditor. No doubt someone else will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I said 'normally' because there are cases where this is not possible - for example where they are chasing someone else's debt and you don't know who the original creditor is. There is a case on a thread here where the DCA said that the creditor was MBNA (I seem to remember) but when the alleged debtor contacted them they said they had never had an account. In that case I think it is up to the DCA to prove they are chasing the correct debtor by getting the agreement from the original creditor. Having said that, I don't think this combination of circumstances is very common.

 

Finally, I would say that, as a site, we cannot approve of using s77 and s78 requests as a means of avoiding legitimate debts.