This topic was closed on 03/07/19. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

Am I the only person who is quite pleased by this ruling? This now opens up a route to the court of appeal - a precedent setting court. And, as an appeal against an existing judgement, the bank can't just settle on the steps of the court without admitting it accepts the original court judgement was wrong. While I feel sorry for the claimant in this case (I would hate it if I were in his shoes); I feel the judge here has done us all a favour - we are a step closer to the "dreaded day of judgment and reckoning" With this judgement, if appealed, the end of banks getting away with this is nigh. (plus - the Court of Appeal can order full disclosure of costs incurred by banks and they won't be able to get away with not doing so like they do in the County Courts)

Hi, I can't find the draft letter for sending to a DCA and/or asignee in relation to a letter received out of the blue. After an initial phone call I made to DCA (Buchanan Clark + Wells) it appears to relate to an old Barclays debt now assigned to Aktiv Kapital (if these guys can't spell how do they expect to operate a calculator?). I suspect the debt is statute barred - but first want to pursue the obtaining of statements etc - there will be a very large amount of penalty charges making up the £1K+ If it is what I think it is then the total penalty charges will be much higher than this because we didn't know then what we know now and a lot of them were paid off. Now - if the bank is saying this account isn't statute barred And if the bank's defence is that the account is statute barred then I like playing with banks' balls! Do I send a DCA letter or a CCA letter or a combination of both and how much money do I need to send - I've looked through the letter templates and can't find a draft DCA or CCA letter there in relation to bailiffs/asignees and would be glad for some advice.

Just to clarify - your defence is not a counter claim. If you want to do a counterclaim you do a counter claim AND a defence. You must do both as without a defence you could end up with another judgement by default.

Be wary of paying a parking ticket for parking on private ground. There is no regulation of parking tickets as there is for wheel clampers. So when you say "private ground" you may have found yourself having been ticketed by a cowboy. These firms stick tickets on cars rather than wheel clamp them and then chase for payment. Lots of people will pay and they are quids in. Some people don't pay and they will threaten bailifs and legal action and increase the parking fine for every letter, phone call, or week that passes./ But they can't do anything without taking you to the County Court. And a County Court judge won't just roll over and say, ah, Mr X, because you parked on this private land you now have to pay £xxxx.xx. The private landowner will have to show either a loss or a breach of contract. And he can only show breach of contract if he shows that the charges for parking on his land were clear and visible. That way, by parking on his land having been aware of the charges in advance a contract can be deemed. The details in your post aren't clear whether or not this applies - but it is worth checking out first. It's your use of the words "private land" which rings alarm bells.

CPR means the Civil Procedure Rules - the regulations which cover court cases. Click the link to read and search them online. There is no such section as 15.6 (2). 15.6 states that a copy of the defence must be served on all parties and is clearly not relevant to this case. What they are saying is that if you show Next that you were not at the address they will tell the court they accept that judgement should be set aside - but they don't want costs awarded against them. This is fair and will negate the need for a hearing to decide the issue. As for reserve (there should be a hyphen after "re") - they are saying that although they will accept the original judgement being set aside they want to be able to start the process again (normally once a judgement is set aside, that's the end of it. In these circumstances they are saying okay, we'll set judgement aside, but we won't let the matter drop and will start the process again at the correct address).

American Express are changing the way they charge interest - and are incorporating penalty charges into the interest rate IN ADDITION TO CHARGING PENALTY CHARGES! They will now review all accounts four times a year to decide which level of interest to charge. All accounts start at the "starting rate" Unless: If in the past 12 months you have made two late payments; or had one payment dishonoured - you will then be charged the starting rate PLUS four per cent (the middle rate). Or, if in the past 12 months you have missed one payment which remains unpaid for three consequtive months; or three late payments; or two dishonoured payments - you will be charged the "top rate" - 25.9 per cent. The starting rate is 12.9 per cent. So, under American Express' new interest policy, if you have made three late payments in a year you will be charged 3 late payment fees of £25 each and an additional 13 per cent in interest. That means that if your balance is £5,000 you will be charged an addition £650 in interest in addition to the £75.00 late payment fees. £725 just for being late three times in 12 months - if that's not excessive I don't know what is.

You can get proof of posting free from any post office. I used to send lots of stuff by recorded delivery and special delivery. I always send the Notice of Intention by Special Delivery so I know the clock has started ticking. However, I now obtain a proof of posting for EVERYTHING that I send to ANYBODY. All I do is type on a top of a sheet of A4 the words: "The following X items were posted at XX Post Office, XX, XX, on Day and Date." Then I list the items being posted (numbered list showing name and address and amount of postage paid) followed by the words ENDS so that the post office clerk is satisfied that nothing else can be added. Then I take them to the post office with my letters and the clerk signs and stamps the form. This is a far more reliable method than recorded delivery. Why? Because the Post Men and Women don't always remember to get a signature. And so when you do a track and trace it shows as not being delivered. And companies will use this to their advantage. I have no end of replies from companies who have received letters which, according to the Royal Mail, have not been delivered. I'm in the middle of legal action against the Royal Mail now to recover the cost of two Special Delivery items which were not delivered under their guarantee. And they are fighting it! I did this before - around 10 years ago - and won what the judge said was a record amount for him.... ...3 pence! Plus my costs - which the Royal ail were not happy with. But after that my mail improved. I had a visit (arranged) from the customer services director and after that my delivery times for receiving mail improved from 4:00pm in the afternoon to 11:00am in the morning. The Royal Mail think they can fob you off - after all where else can you go (apart from phone, fax and email); but if you show them you're a fighter they will take you seriously.

I have been thinking about whether the banks' actions constitute theft - and this thread (the early part) is interesting as I share many of the views expressed. Except for this bit - we don't have to find a smoking gun, the lawyers advice, etc. We know that the lawyers have advised the banks - we've all had letters from the banks lawyers. But we don't even need that. The reason we don't need that is because we do not need to do the investigation and prosecution for a criminal charge of theft. To recover our money in a civil action then yes, we are responsible for doing all the leg work. But for a criminal charge, all we have to do is complain to the police. I wonder if a template letter could be drawn up to the Commissioner of the City of London Police copied to the Serious Fraud Office complaining about theft by the banks. It would need to contain the name of the bank and the account number; the amount of charges taken and the amount repaid when the banks were threatened with legal action. The police wouldn't take action after just one complaint; but if they received several - or a hundred or more - then they would be duty bound to investigate. And I can promise you this - the banks would be far more scared of a police investigation into their business practices than they would an "investigation" by the Banking Ombudsman, Financial Services Authority, Information Commissioner or the Office of Fair Trading.

Gotcha! Is there any news on this?

Sorry, I wasn't intending to contradict (or other) the advice on here. But reading through the various posts people are making it seems that the Banks are failing to comply - particularly with the reference to manual intervention. I was merely offering some thoughts on the process. I have gone three different ways with different institutions. With one I offered them the opportunity merely to list all charges together with dates; with most I asked for copy statements; and with two I asked for ALL information. The later produced some very interesting results showing operator screens, details of comments typed on the account by call centre staff and so on. Now, if in that latter one got to court and the bank said: "it did cost us X amount because of the work we had to do reviewing the account, etc, etc, etc", I can turn around and ask them why there is no record of my account having been accessed on that occasion in their Subject Access Request response. Gotcha. My comments were intended more for the moderators/campaign leaders/fighters than people new to the game. I agree entirely with what mjanet says about advice - my post wasn't intended as advice to the uninitiated; but a discussion starter for the experienced. Sorry if this wasn't clear.

It won't make a difference to free banking as charges are only recovering losses. Now, if it was a profit they were loosing then they might need to look at making up that profit elsewhere and look at free banking - but as it isn't a profit then there's no need for them to do this!

That happens now. Everytime I make a payment into a LTSB Bank the cashier follows these steps: 1. She scans my paying in slip which has machine readable numbers at the bottom identifying the paper as a credit slip and identifying my account. 2. Then she scans the cheque - reading the machine readable cheque number, sort code and account number. 3. Then she types in the amount to be paid. She repeats steps 2 and 3 for every cheque being paid in during the transaction. Once complete the computer (I assume) confirms the total amount being paid in and she signs and stamps my receipt. There is no reason whatsoever why at this stage the LTSB computer couldn't contact the drawer's bank (or through APACS) as they have the sort code, account number, cheque number and amount. If the drawer's bank confirms that the cheque number hasn't been stopped (or already issued) and the account has sufficient funds then the transfer should be instant. Cheques I send, if paid into a LTSB account, clear the moment it is paid in - whatever time of the day that is (so long as it is paid in over the counter) The scanners could easily be amended to scan the signature area - the paying bank branch could could check a sample batch throughout the day by computer - an operator could watch a computer screen which shows the payment details, the signature used on the account and the signatures registered on the account. It is all very possible and all very simple from a technological point of view. But it works in our favour not the banks' favour so don't expect them to adopt this anytime soon. e

This is my advice - it contradicts the general advice on here, but reading threads it appears that banks' changing tactics could make this worthwhile. When you make your DPA request don't ask for copy statements or make any mention of charges. Ask for FULL DISCLOSURE of all information they hold about you and enclose your £10 payment. The 40 days under the DPA begins the day they receive it. If you ask for Copy Statements or charges and enclose the £10.00 it appears that some banks are returning the fee claiming that this is a free service. It's not a free service when they advertise copy-statements at £10.00 per sheet, so why are they doing this? Out of the goodness of their heart? No. They are doing it to do away with your rights. Firstly, FULL DISCLOSURE is very costly to the banks - it costs them far more than the £10.00 fee. But under the DPA if you make a full request and enclose the £10.00 fee the banks have to disclose everything (including any reference to manual intervention). By returning your £10.00 fee and offering a free service the request is no longer a formal DPA request and your rights under the DPA are gone. The request for information about manual intervention is so that you have information before court - should your case go to court - which you can use to demonstrate to the judge that the charges are too much because there HASN'T been manual intervention - but if you have full disclosure under the DPA it's the same thing. The banks won't be able to claim manual intervention to justify tehir charges unless it is recorded in full disclosure. So, my advice is this: When you send for information under the DPA don't ask for details of charges or statements but FULL DISCLOSURE - this will include statements and be far more illuminating.

Nobody has a view on this one then?