RIP Marty, have fun up there with the Rooster :(

It should be a birthday card!

I actually cringe when I see this thread pop up now.

These (long and protracted) discussions have been ongoing, but IW now accept my position and have agreed settlement of the claim, which is nice - and all I wanted all along.

Happy days...

I have IW's attention, now at least. Aside from blaming me for all of this () the discussions are ongoing. Update soon, as the Court deadline approaches and I don't intend on backing down from my position as I've outlined. Their communications with me will certainly raise an eyebrow from the Judge, when we get there.

Oh, IW have 'locked my account for security reasons', so I can't order from them again. As if! What 'security reasons' are these then? I may ask Customer Services to explain that. This seems very unfair to me.

As for Moorcroft, they have returned the account to IW. I bet they have! They have failed, however, to reply to me about it despite raising a formal complaint about their handling of this. I shall wait for the 6 week date to pass and get on to the FOS about their behaviour, also.

Nothing from any of them. Took me some time, but MCOL now issued:

Issue - 21 November

Service date - 26 November

Defence/Acknowledgement date - 10 December

Defence date, if acknowledged - 24 December

Moorcroft have until 8 December to respond to my complaint, or that will be off to the FOS next

Reply from Moorcroft:

Further to your recent correspondence, we write to advise we will be communicating further with our client in respect of your raised query.

 

During these communications follow up action will be suspended on your account and we will endeavour to provide you with an appropriate response to your query as soon as possible.

 

However if you have any further queries or require any further assistance in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely,

They best be quick about it, time is running out.

Hello, guests. Nice to have you here.

Reply from IW:

Thank you for your recent email dated 27/10/12.

 

We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

 

With regards to your query, we wish to inform you that you could contact the DCA on the following phone no.Phone Number - 01614752848. Kindly use the following reference no.

Client Ref # - XXX for more assistance.

 

Should you have any further questions in relation to your query please respond to this email quoting Ref: XXXX. Alternatively you can contact our Customer Service Department via telephone on 08717 123 456*.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Terry Fernandes

 

Ideal Shopping

Customer Service Department

 

*Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras

Now, that is an interesting response to a threat of legal action, is it not? I hope I hear back from Moorcroft and receive my full refund before Sunday, or it's straight on to MCOL to issue a claim. Unbelievable that they've effectively dismissed my query and are refusing to call off Moorcroft at this stage!

Had this from Ideal World, clearly before my email was sent:

The previous letter sent to your from Ideal World advised that any further declined payments would result in your account being passed to an external debt collection agency. We have attempted to process your overdue payment and unfortunately the card has been declined for a third and final time.

 

We are now in the process of passing over your debt to an external debt collection agency that will be collecting the full amount owed. The total debt at this time is £67.33 which includes the two £10 administration charges plus VAT. The debt collection agency will add their own charges of 14% plus VAT of the total balance. This amount will rise to 29% plus VAT if a doorstep collection is required.

 

You will be contacted shortly by the debt recovery agency. We would advise you to take this matter serious to ensure that legal action is not taken against you.

 

Many thanks

£67.33 owed to IW, but that includes 2 x £10 admin charges, plus VAT. (£24) The ACTUAL 'debt' (I 'quote' debt, as I don't owe them anything!) is £43.33. These admin charges account for 55% of the 'debt'.

Then there's the 'debt collection agency charges'. 14% plus VAT for collecting, (£9.43, plus £1.89 VAT) or 29% plus VAT for doorstep collecting. (£19.53, plus £3.90 VAT) That's, either, 16% in charges for 'collecting', or 34% in charges for 'doorstep collecting'. This is AFTER IW's charges of 55% have been applied to the balance.

:jaw:

Remembering that the 'debt' is only £43.33, these 'charges' - both IW's admin charges and those added by Moorcroft - amount to 82% of the balance if I pay now, or a whopping 109% of the balance if I don't pay and they have to send a doorstep collector.

:jaw:

IW are 'explaining' Moorcroft's fees without ACTUALLY telling me what their own charges are for.

I think I'll file this and have some fun with it later on when they reply. Remember that I gave them 7 days to reply, which is 4th November, or I'll issue a small claims court action without further communication.

Thanks Unky, but the order numbers only identify me to them and I suspect they will know who I am when they read that email anyway. Mind you, it took them about a week to reply to other emails querying orders previously, so I may see something from Moorcroft before I do from Ideal World.

It's a shame my (and your) experiences have been so negative - they sell some good products at decent prices, but they really need to sort their service out if they intend on keeping customers in the longer term. I'll be using QVC more often, instead

Hi Forum, long time no speaky...

This says it all really, so here goes:

Dear Ideal World Customer Services/Moorcroft Debt Collection Limited,

 

I refer to your letters dated 26 September 2012 and 10 October 2012 regarding Order number OW26054812. (and further to Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited’s letter dated 26 October 2012)

 

You both seem to be very confused, so please allow me to try to assist you.

 

Orders placed/returned:

 

Order number OW26015521 was placed on 21 July 2012 and dispatched on 24 July 2012. This was for a “Versus 9 inch 8GB Android 4.0 Tablet” for £129.99, a “Sweex Neoprene Sleeve 10 inch” for £9.99 and a “Collect+ Returns Label” for £1.49, order totalling £141.47. This was to be paid by Flexipay, (£43.80 on 21 August 2012, £43.80 on 21 September 2012 and £43.80 on 21 October 2012) in addition to the £54.85 paid on 21 July 2012 when the order was placed.

 

On arrival, the “Versus 9 inch 8GB Android 4.0 Tablet” was damaged and your customer service team informed. On their instruction, the item was returned, using Collect Plus. They confirm that this item was received by Ideal World at 13:24, Mon, 6 August 2012. (See www.collectplus.co.uk / Track and EYKB4NX as the tracking reference number)

 

As the item was returned, I placed a NEW Order number: OW26054812 on 24 July 2012, which was dispatched 27 July 2012. This was also for a “Versus 9 inch 8GB Android 4.0 Tablet” for £129.99. This was also to be paid by Flexipay, (£43.33 on 26 August 2012, £43.33 on 26 September 2012 and £43.33 on 26 October 2012) in addition to the £49.32 paid on 26 July 2012 when the order was placed. This order arrived a few days after and I have been very happy with the product so far.

 

Payments you have received:

 

According to my Bank records, you have received a total of £235.10 as per the following payments from me:

 

· 23 July 2012 - £54.85

· 27 July 2012 - £49.32

· 22 August 2012 - £43.80

· 28 August 2012 - £43.33

· 24 September 2012 - £43.80

 

This is for items ordered totalling £ 141.47.

 

I therefore conclude that YOU owe ME a total of £93.63.

 

In addition, your letters suggest that I owed you £43.33, plus an ‘administration fee’ of £10, totalling £53.33. On top of that, Moorcroft Debt Recovery Limited are now chasing me for a total of £77.43, which is an increase of £24.10, or a 45% increase. Please explain, firstly, where the £10 administration fee comes from, then where the additional £24.10 increase comes from? It seems strange that you are prepared to add £34.10 to a debt of £43.33. Where is this referred to in your TV programmes, on your advertising and/or website, or in the order confirmation/dispatch notifications that you have sent me? I would argue that, at no point in time, have you told me of these charges, nor have I agreed to them. Indeed, I consider them unfair. You clearly do not. Admittedly, this is a moot point as, for the reasons I’ve stated above, I don’t actually owe you anything. You do, however, owe me £93.63, so I would consider it fair that I increase the amount that YOU owe ME by the same amount that you saw fit to increase the amount that you claimed I owed YOU, so therefore I am adding a £10 administration fee on to that, bringing it to £103.63, then I am adding another 45% to the outstanding amount. I calculate that YOU owe ME £150.26.

 

So, in conclusion of this matter, I would like to hear your proposals for when you can pay me £150.26 within the next 7 days, from the date of your receipt of this email, 27 October 2012. If I don’t hear from you before that date, you may take this letter as my notice of intention to bring a small claims court claim against you on 3 November 2012, without further communication.

 

In addition to the above, I will be sharing this story with as many online forums as I can in order to bring your dubious business practices to the attention of as many of your customers as possible. This is one long standing customer that you have lost as a result, and I suspect many others will follow.

 

Furthermore, I consider any further attempt to contact me by phone regarding this matter as an attempt to harass me and as required by section 1 of the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997, I give notice that your actions are causing me to feel harassed and ask that you persist from doing such acts. If you fail to comply with this, I will report your actions to the Police.

 

NOTE TO MOORCROFT DEBT COLLECTION LIMITED: Please consider this letter a formal complaint under your internal complaints process. I understand that you will reply to me and I would like you to confirm what your business processes are to establish that the debts passed to you, from Ideal Shopping Direct, are legitimate debts and are not in dispute as above. Surely you have checks and balances in place to establish that the debts is ‘owed’ before you send me threats of legal action via the Post? If not, I will be taking this further. You can expect to hear from Trading Standards and the Financial Ombudsman if I am not happy with your response. Furthermore, Moorcroft, I also consider any further attempt to contact me by phone regarding this matter as an attempt to harass me and as required by section 1 of the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997, I give notice that your actions are causing me to feel harassed and ask that you persist from doing such acts. If you fail to comply with this, I will report your actions to the Police.

 

I hope this clears your confusion up and finally puts this matter to bed.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

I don't like Christmas, or surpises, for this very reason!

PS For some reason I can't get a sarcastic smilie - or any smilie to come up here - but for the avoidance of doubt I was being sarcastic and DID NOT MEAN the above!!!!

Spoil my fun, already?!

Largely (but not entirely) the difference in the price you're paying for is for the speed of the journey.

 

If you split your ticket, the trains you travel on must stop at the stations where your tickets change. For instance, find a nice cheap four ticket deal to Edinburgh from London and I can almost guarantee that you won't be travelling on the East Coast direct service and your journey time will rise accordingly. There are a few exceptions to the stopping rule, these mostly apply to season tickets and London Boundary Zone journeys.

 

I'd be interested to know the splitting points for the OPs journey so I can compare journey times with direct tickets.

 

As for simplifying the tickets, there's only one way of doing that, British Rail, not a myriad of competing companies.

The splitting points appear to be Darlington, York, Doncaster, Newark Northgate, Peterborough. Single tickets split between those stations mean I can do there and back at a reasonable time of day for £160

Well, not really, enigmatic, as the OP hasn't had the elusive Final-Final-Final-Final demand, yet. Do keep up, chap! :lol:

But Court proceedings are not "underway" there is a judgment in place so they are essentially over.

Exactly. The claim against the OP has been judged and they shouldn't be using debt collectors to harass him - any enforcement of the Judgment should be via the Court, not by other means that are outside of the Courts' process.

It is poor business practice, having multiple companies collecting on debts and while Court proceedings are underway

To complain to the FOS, you need to write outlining your complaint to the company involved giving them time to respond. If they reply and you aren''t happy with the response, or they take longer than 8 weeks to reply, you can proceed to complain to the FOS

You should complain to them first, as you;ll need a final response fromt hem to get to the FOS

It's unfair trading practice for a debt to be sold or collected while Court proceedings are underway - you should consider complaining about this practice to the Financial Ombudsman as you're now unwilling to go to Court. They have been known to seriously compensate those on the receiving end of such practice, plus you could always use a trade off of withdrawing your FOS complaint should they withdraw from the Court claim and write off the debt. You need to be as creative as they are...

That's the point, an estoppel can't be inferred - it has to be explicit. Promissory estoppel is a promise not to do something in exchange for a benefit and there has been no promise here, only a change in how the debt is recorded with the CRA

I think it's better to let sleeping dogs lie, unless you are specificially interested in and could successfully challenge any incorrect information on your CRA file

There can't be an estoppel here, as no promises to not collect on the debt have been made, and even if they have,

(by virtue of the CRA entry being zero'd and not chased - which is unlikely on balance of probabilities)

then that would only apply to the OC, who is the one recording the data.

It won't apply to debt collectors,

should the OC have assigned the debt elsewhere and washed their hands of it, which is highly likely if you were paying a nominal amount on a much larger balance.

(It's in their interests to write the debt off for tax reasons in such circumstances)

Of course none of this means that you shouldn't pay, as CAG isn't in the ethic of avoiding legally owned debts,

so if you wanted to establish what the situation is,

you could either DPA SAR the OC, (which would have no legal ramifications on their claim against you - they are still a data controller under the DPA)

which should reveal where the debt has gone, you can contact them to query it,

or you can restart your nominal payments.

Either of those 2 latter actions could result in you being chased for the debt, which may not necessarily happen if you don't do anything.

Or you could paste it up for us BD

We had a 'Final demand notice' in August last year - shouldn't this be a 'Final final demand notice', and will there be a 'Final final final demand notice' arriving next? This could go on for some time...

Yes. The requirement is to have sent a Termination Notice to end an overdraft agreement to allow them to default you. You're attempting to find out, from their records, whether a TN was sent. You don't need to know if you received it, but unfortunately the legislation doesn't require you to have received it for them to take that action against you as they have. If you can show no TN was sent, then you will have a case for removing the default, but there would be nothing to stop them sending a new TN, now, and re-adding the default on your CRA file

They returned the £1 payment?

Yes, the debt is statue barred if not acknowledged in the last 6 years, you should also send the harassment letter to stop them chasing you.

Yes, they should, because an overdraft is a CCA regulated debt. The problem with this is getting it removed, as the overdraft has been used and you haven't paid it, therefore the debt is overdue and you are in default of payment. Removal of Defaults isn't an easy thing to do, unless you can demonstrated that any of those things recorded are incorrect and inaccurate under the Data Protection Act, as the CCA isn't entirely clear on your rights and you may end up relying entirely on the DPA.

Did you receive a termination notice? It would be worth sending a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request (templates available in the library) and ask for data relating to your Account to see