Good luck with that, Sticky. it's well worth the effort.

I have now sent a suitable response to Rockwell, (thanks for all the advise and suggestions everyone) and have sent my complaint to the OFT under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUT) Here's the link again to the draft letter, as supplied by Bankfodder and suggested by Rory and that's exactly what I've sent. I'll keep the thread updated when I get responses. All the best, Patma

That's a great letter Rory. Thanks for giving me a brilliant response to fire back at them. I will also complain to the OFT. Patma

I will make a complaint to the OFT, thanks for the suggestion Rory. Thanks to everyone for all your input so far. All the best, Patma

Here's the response to my CCA request. They also sent a copy of the current terms and conditions and some other old ones which are barely legible and look as though they've been copied from the back of the application form probably. I can upload those too if necessary.

P.S just tried the links you sent and they don't seem to be working

Thanks very much for that 2Grumpy. I'll get the application form scanned in . All the Best, Patma

Hi, Today I have received a nasty threatogram from Rockwell after months of silence. I sent a CCA request last year and received only a fairly ilegible copy of an application form back. I wrote to Rockwell when they started hassling me for payment and pointed out that the account was in dispute due to not having received a vaild credit agreement in repsonse to my request, and for months they've been silent until today. Planning my response, I'd be really grateful to hear if this threatogram is compliant with the OFT guidelines etc. It came by second class post, without even an envelope, just having the sides stuck down.

Just to clarify. When I made an arrangement to make smaller payments on my credit cards (Barclays and others), I wrote to each company, provided a breakdown of my finances and offering a small monthly payment to each lender. I offered the small payments ON CONDITION that interest charges were suspended. Without exception, every company accepted the deal. JCV you need to start your own thread now. The you can get all the help you need. DM I have found in the years that I have been dealing with Barclaycard and others that if they think you can be leaned on, they will, so maybe if you send them a tough letter, telling them that you have offered them a F&F settlement out of the goodness of your heart, but as they have decided to behave unreasonably and unlawfully, your offer is withdrawn and you will make no further payments. All the Best, Patma

If I hadn't sent Barclaycard an SAR, I would never have known they'd already written off one of my avccounts. Also when they didn't comply in full with my SAR, they committed yet another offence, which I duly pointed out to them. Since then they've gone very quiet. If they've been charging you interest, and possibly unfair charges, you will be able to add them up and claim something back, if you wanted to. When I got into difficulties, I wrote to Barclaycard and all my other creditors, explaining the situation and every one of them accepted interest-free payments,which I maintained for the next 10 years so charging you interest the way they have, sounds very unfair to me. Good luck whatever you decide, Patma

Any news anyone? Have you had a reply to your complaint yet Tecno?

Well done! It just shows how persistence pays off. I have had problems with Barclaycard too and the current state of play is that my local Consumer Direct have forwarded my complaint to Northampton. Incidentally Citizen B , I notice that you were advised to contact the police if you were being hassled and I was also given the same advise from my local Consumer Direct. As a result I can actually recommend doing just that, as it got Calders (another trading name for Mercers) right off my back and sent them away with their tail between their legs. All the Best, Patma

Hi Tecno, No I've heard nothing further from TS or Royal Mail.I'm surprised they haven't responded to your complaint, that's just not good enough.On the good side, BLS/Lloyds TSB have stopped hassling me too at the moment. If anyone has received any letters from BLS Collections in the past month, it must mean that Royal mail are still allowing their own regulations to be broken, and/or they haven't bothered to actually investigate despite assuring me it would be dealt with. So if anyone has heard from BLS Collections recently,please check the address and post it here so we can see if they've changed it to comply. It looks like time to email our TS friend again too methinks. All the best, Patma

Good Luck, PM! All fingers and toes crossed for you tomorrow. Patma

Don't deal with them over the phone and refuse to answer their security questions.They are breaking the OFT guidelines on debt collection and so you would be well within your rights to complain to the OFT. It might be worth a call to your local Trading Standards too, because my local one was helpful in getting a DCA off my back. RMA are based in Preston, so if your own TS aren't helpful, try Preston. I believe they are building up quite a file on RMA. I've had the pleasure of RMA's delightful calls too and believe it or not, they do give up eventually if you won't play ball with them over the phone and you make life difficult for them. Above all don't let them get to you, because they're just bullies with no real power at all. Once you've talked to a few of us CAGers you'll soon be running rings around DCAs and enjoyng the sport. Goodl luck General, and keep your spirits up. Patma

Hi DM, Have you SAR'd Barclaycard, because if not I would really recommend it? I discovered from the results of my SAR to them, that they've written off one of my accounts, because they couldn't come up with an agreement. It's all there in black and white on the computer printouts I got, but they didn't bother to tell me. As far as the other two accounts are concerned, they were either written off or sold, last April and showed a nil balance ever since, despite all the payments I continued to make till December. Barclaycard haven't complied in full with my SAR so I have leverage with them for that as well as for their lack of compliance with my CCA requests. If you're not being hassled at present and can get yourself in a strong position, then you should be in a good bargaining position. Who knows you may even find out they've done some writing off, as I did.I don't think I'd be inclined to offer a full and final just yet, but you know best how much you want to be rid of the whole thing.

Congratulations on getting your cheque, reallymadwoman. I'm now following this thread with great interest as I can see there's a lot to learn from it. I'm just getting started down the FOS road and I'm dealing with Apex too. Time for a small celebration tonight maybe;) ? All the best, Patma

Thanks very much for this ammo, 42man. I'm very sorry to hear about your enforced bankruptcy and am rooting for you as you turn the tables. When we all co-operate together we can and do come out on top. All the best, Patma

Thanks everyone for your comments. Tecnobaz is the one who initiated the complaint and his persisitence is what has got us this far. So great work Tecno! We're getting there!

I have replied btw and explained that bls Collections claim, on their correspondence, to be a trading name of Lloyds TSB and not merely a company they contract with. Just a couple of weeks ago, I rang Lloyds TSB Complaints department and they claimed never to have heard of BLS Collections and asked me to take copies of their correspondence in to any branch for them to examine it. LOL. I might just do that now;)

RESPONSE TO MY COMPLAINT RECIVED TODAY! As stated in my e-mail of 17th March, I have reviewed our handling of your complaint concerning BLS Collections. To do this I have reviewed our records and the e-mails you forwarded to me, as well as discussing the matter with Jim Hall. In summary, BLS Collections are a debt collection company using a PO Box address in Oxford. The postcode for this PO Box address does not exist according to the Royal Mail and the PO Box also does not exist. We received a further complaint about this company in January 2008 and had concerns that there was an attempted fraud in progress. As such, we spoke with Lloyds TSB, for whom BLS were apparently collecting outstanding debts. Lloyds TSB confirmed that BLS Collections is an organisation that they contract with and they also confirmed that the address used by BLS Collections in communications with consumers was the same as the address they have recorded for the company. We have also contacted Royal Mail and were told that the postcode used by BLS Collections did in fact exist, and that a redirection was in place from this postcode. As you are aware, the Royal Mail would not normally allow this to happen and they are investigating why it has happened on this occasion. We have also spoken with BLS Collections and they state that the address they use is valid and mail does reach them if sent to this address. We remain concerned that the address may not be effective and have written to them at their published address to test whether mail does in fact reach them. From your experiences, this is likely to prove negative. Our investigations have not been concluded. We remain concerned about 2 issues- 1) Is the address being used by BLS Collections legally sufficient? There are statutes that apply to the activities of BLS Collections, such as the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and Business Names Act 1985, which specify when and how the name and address of the business should be communicated. We would also take into account OFT guidelines within these considerations. 2) Why requests for copies of consumer credit agreements are not being responded to. We will continue to look into the activities of BLS Collections in this respect and will advise you of our findings. If the business is found to be breaching legal requirements we will take appropriate action to rectify the situation. Such action could include advice to the business or formal legal action. At present, we are waiting to see if our letter to BLS Collections does in fact reach them. This is an important step and will inform our future actions. In respect of your complaint about our handling of this matter I believe that our initial response to you did not address your concerns and apologise to you for this. We did initially seek to ensure that you could access the information you requested, and did not look to address the other issues you identified. In his e-mail of 12th March 2008, Jim Hall did state that he has written to the company asking for a response in order to test whether the address is working. As stated above, we need to do this since BLS Collections state that mail to their published address does reach them and we need to be able to challenge this assertion. We could have made it clearer to you at this time that we are still pursuing the issues that you raised. Please be assured that we are doing so and have not concluded our investigation. From a practical point of view I believe that we have given you all the advice that we can at this time. We will contact you in due course and advise you of the outcome in this matter. In the meantime, if you are unhappy with my response to your complaint you may request that the Head of Trading Standards, Nigel Strick investigates the matter further. Full details of our complaints procedure are on the County Council's website and are linked below. Complaints - Oxfordshire County Council Yours sincerely Richard Webb Richard Webb Group Manager; Community Safety Direct Line: 01865 815791 Trading Standards Service Community Safety Tel: 0845 051 0845 Fax: 01865 783106 County Hall, New Road, Oxford, OX1 1ND If anyone else has any complaint about BLS then now would be a good time to let Oxford ts know about it.

Hi Helmetfire, I've had the same problem with BLS and currently have a complaint to Royal Mail ongoing because the PO Box address given by BLS isn't a genuine PO Box number and the postcode doesn't exist. Despite that, there is or was a redirection in place which forwards mail on to LTSB. Royal Mail have assured me that they will sort this problem out and that their fraud team are investigating how a redirection could be happening from a false address (APPARENTLY THIS IS VERY MUCH AGAINST THEIR RULES). Obviously they still haven't stopped this from going on so I think it's time to get onto them again. I should give Royal Mail complaints department a ring. the more people complain the sooner they'll get on with doing their job properly hopefully.Good luck. Patma

Have you tried ringing the court to ask for advise in case there's been an error and you shouldn't have received this demand? I feel sure a mod or someone who really knows about this subject will be along soon to offer some useful suggestions. Best of luck.

It's written in the small print at the bottom. Hope you can see it ok.

I'll post up a copy of a letter I've had from them which has the info on the bottom. Give me a few minutes.