I am having problems with Co-Op Energy returning an account credit to me. At the beginning of February I switched from them to Sainsburys Energy. The account was in credit, but Co-Op Energy claimed that they hadn't received the final electric meter reading from Sainsburys which would trigger repayment of the credit amount. Sainsburys claimed it had been provided. Co-op said they would look into it, but I then didn't hear back from them. When I contacted them in March Co-op said that because they were going through their billing system upgrade I would have to wait until this was complete then re-register my account on their website, and that it may then take another 14 days for the information to be updated. I did so, which took us to the beginning of April. I checked the online account and there was no information on it. I contacted their customer service team and they said they would re-generate the bill and resend it. This was around 1st/2nd April (so maybe they were being April Fools - or maybe I was!!). Two weeks have gone by and no new bill was received, so I contacted them at the end of last week. The girl I spoke to said that it had definitely been sent but she would generate another bill, and it may then take another 14 days to work out the credit. At this point I lost the plot and asked to speak to her manager, which she refused to allow. She went to talk to them and on her return offered me a £15 good will gesture, and said she would regenerate the letter and make the payment of the credit amount via BACS that day. Needless to say she didn't, and no letter has been received with the final reading. I have tweeted my dissatisfaction which obviously got a fairly quick response from their Twitter team (who knock off at 4pm). They have said they are looking into it but another two days have gone by with no response, no letter and no refund. I have submitted a subject access request to the Co-op to get evidence of all the communications between me and them, and have written to the CIO to complain about the Co-op's treatment of me and their withholding of my money. I think my next step is to contact the energy ombudsman - is this correct? Does anyone have any suggestions about how to proceed with this? I am losing the capacity for rational thought where the Co-op is concerned.

Update on this claim: I contacted the Financial Ombudsman about GE Money's response, and was advised that my claim should go to Ocean Finance since they sold me the loan, and my complaint was about mis-selling. So I contacted Ocean Finance, and they sent me a letter that said: With reference to the purchase of payment protection insurance by you in September 2003. Given the timing of this transaction, Ocean Finance and Mortgages Limited ("OFML") could not have played any role in the sale of the policy. OFML was not incorporated until September 2003 and did not actively operate as a business entity until 14th January 2005. From the information you have provided in your letter, it appears that Ocean Finance, not OFML, may have played a role in the sale of the policy. For your convenience, we are pleased to outline briefly the history of the operation of the "Ocean Finance" business: The "Ocean Finance" business was originally established in May 1991 as a partnership. From January 1997, Paul Newey carried on the business as a sole trader, continuing to use the trading name "Ocean Finance". On 14th January 2005, OFML acquired the "Ocean Finance" business from Mr Newey, including certain customer records and the right to use certain "Ocean Finance" trademarks. A copy of the sale and purchase agreement dated 14 January 2005 is available at Companies House (the "SPA"). The SPA deals with the private arrangements as between Mr Newey and OFML, however, and does not confer any rights upon any third parties, such as lenders or borrowers introduced to each other by Ocean Finance. Indeed, any third party rights are expressly excluded. For OFML to have acquired any direct liability or responsibility to any customer in connection with an arrangement made prior to 14 January 2005 there would have to have been: a specific agreement as between Mr Newey, trading as Ocean Finance, and that customer; Mr Newey and the customer would have had to expressly agree that any obligations owed by him under that agreement would be transferred to OFML with effect from 14 January 2005. This is know in legal language as a 'novation'. OFML has no record of any novation involving you. In the absence of a novation, there is no basis for any claim against OFML. As a matter of courtesy, and without prejudice to any points made above, we have sent a copy of your letter to Mr Newey, PO Box 15718, Sutton Coldfield, B73 9TA. If you with to take further steps on this matter we suggest you contact Mr Newey directly via the aforementioned address. So, what now.. Do I pursue through Ocean Finance & Mortgages Ltd, or Mr Paul Newey? The date of my loan agreement was 19 September 2003, which was after OFML was incorporated but before they started operating as a business. Or do I go straight to the FSA?

I'm not sure the Financial Ombudsman is being of any help to you, or to me for that matter. Ocean Finance sold me a loan which was financed by iGroup (now GE Money), so I went to GE Money and they said that because the loan wasn't sold by them they weren't liable. So I contacted the FO and they said I should claim against Ocean Finance since they sold me the loan, which is probably reasonable. I have had the same reply from them as you have - to contact this Paul Newey who is apparently a solicitor, because Ocean Finance and Mortgages Ltd wasn't the name of the company when I took my loan out so they don't feel they are responsible. Is it worth pursuing them? Or just go through the small claims court?

PPI success for me against HFC bank - they made an offer of £2300, which was what I'd requested (PPI payments plus statutory interest) so I accepted immediately. They said it would be in my account within 28 days so I'm expecting them to hang onto it until day 27 - but good result, nevertheless! Now to tackle Ocean Finance...

Hello, I need a bit of a sanity check and some advice, as I have received two lots of advice for a problem I'm having, both of which are valid. The background: I bought a musical instrument in May, and within 2 weeks it stopped working properly. I took it back to the shop and they repaired it. The same fault occurred to a lesser extent several more times, but after leaving the instrument for a while (20-30 minutes usually) it would start working again. The quality of the tone was noticeably reducing, however. In September I was playing the instrument in a performance and it stopped working halfway through, with the same problem as before - this was extremely embarrassing, as you can imagine. I took the instrument back to the shop where I bought it and asked for a refund. The shop said they didn't know what caused the problem so couldn't give me a refund, and would send it off to the manufacturers to have it investigated. I was a bit upset and just wanted my money back - I paid nearly £1000 for it (a brand new instrument), and had lost faith in it completely. Eventually I agreed to the shop sending it back to the manufacturer for investigation. I spoke to Consumer Direct when I got home, and they advised me to write a letter referring to the Sale of Goods Act and saying I rejected the instrument because it was faulty, and had already been repaired by them once. That letter was sent last week. I received a phone call from the shop last Friday to say they had received my letter, and their engineer had had a look at the instrument and wanted to meet me in person. I agreed to this, and visited the shop yesterday afternoon. The engineer explained the cause of the problem - there were two factors, one of which could be resolved by a simple workaround and the other he couldn't identify the cause of, although the result of the problem was clear. He watched me put the instrument together and I played it a bit, and he said that, based on my handling and playing of it there, he could pretty much rule out my handling of the instrument as a cause of either problem (which was gratifying to hear - I know I don't manhandle it, but it's nice that someone else saw that and agreed). The engineer, who turned out to be the shop owner, proposed that he do the quick fix to solve one of the problems there and then, and for me to take the instrument away and play it as normal and try to recreate the second problem. I would then take it back into them as soon as it occurred, or even before it occurred if I didn't feel happy with how the instrument was performing, and they would spend as much time as was needed investigating it and fixing it until the cause of the problem was found. He said I could take it in as many times as I liked until either the problem was fixed permanently, or a conclusion was reached that the instrument was faulty and they would replace it. I spoke to Consumer Direct while I was in the shop to get some more advice, and they suggested how to deal with it. I returned to the shop owner and said that I'd like to go away and think about it. He said that was fine, but if I decided not to work with him then it would result in a court case to get my money back. He said this a couple of times, and talked about the value of the instrument seeing as it is effectively now second-hand. I phoned his shop this morning and asked him to send me a letter with a description of the cause of the problem and the work they had done, and his proposal about fixing the instrument, as I forgot to ask yesterday. The advice: I spoke to Consumer Direct again this morning and explained how things had been left. Their advice was to write back to him and say that if the fix provided was a long-term one then I would accept it, but if it wasn't a long-term fix then I would require a replacement or refund. My mum has a slightly different take on it: that he has already acknowledged that the fix probably won't be long term by saying he'd be willing to spend as much time on it as necessary and that I could take it back as many times as was needed. Her opinion is that I request the refund again and take the company to court if they refuse. My dilemma On one hand I don't want to be going back to the shop once every 2-3 weeks (which was the approximate frequency of the instrument going wrong between the end of May and the beginning of September) for the next year or more. On the other hand, it is a lovely instrument when it works properly and as Consumer Direct said it's all about being reasonable - it's reasonable for them to try and fix the problem. I am asking myself a few questions: - over what time-period is it reasonable for them to expect me to keep going back to the shop so that they can try and fix the instrument? Could I specify this time period if I write back to them accepting their proposal? - if it then goes wrong after this time period, could they force me to have a replacement? - if I decide not to accept their proposal, is it worth pursuing through the court? The shop owner kept mentioning the figure £500 as the value of the second-hand instrument, but as I haven't had the full use of it and have had it for less than 6 months is this likely to be all I would get? I guess the million-dollar question is how do you work out the value of it 6 months after it was purchased brand new? - I don't know if I will get my faith in the instrument back, so would the easy option be to accept their offer and just sell it as a second-hand instrument, if that's the value I would get if I pursued it through the court? What would Woody do? (I haven't named the shop or the instrument because I'd rather it didn't show up in searches for the moment)

I had a loan arranged by Ocean Finance in 2004 and was sold PPI as part of that. The loan was with iGroup, who were subsequently taken over by GE Money. I complained to Ocean Finance using the ombudsman's PPI complaint form, but they responded and said the loan was with GE Money and that Ocean Finance was only a broker. I complained to GE Money, but they have today responded and said: Because your complaint is specifically about the advice you were given, and because GE Money neither sold this PPI to you, nor were they present at the point of sale, I do not feel we can investigate your complaint fully or fairly. The company that sold this policy to you was Alabaster Ltd. It has come to our attention that Alabaster (C.I.) Limited ("Alabaster"), a company incorporated in Jersey, was permitted to use the name "Ocean Finance" in advertisements for the purpose of soliciting applications from the public for the granting of personal loans. Alabaster ceased trading on 31 December 2004, after which date all of the assets of Alabaster were distributed. This process is now complete and the company has formally been dissolved. However, in none of my loan documentation is the name Alabaster mentioned - it all has Ocean Finance and Mortgages Ltd or iGroup on it. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do next, if anything? Any help would be gratefully received.

Hiya - well, it didn't go as badly as it could have but also not as well as I'd have wanted! The judge had made his mind up about what was going to happen before the hearing even started - ours was the third in Leeds court relating to banks' applications for stays, so we had those two precedences to overcome which was practically impossible. The judge has ordered a stay pending first instance (i.e. as soon as the first result of the OFT test case is known the stay is lifted and banks will have to re-apply if they want them continued), with the condition that the banks cannot enforce or recover any debts from customers that are related to bank charges being claimed. They can continue normal operation of accounts with the exception of the first condition, though. It was quite good though - he let everyone who wanted to have their say, and for some unknown reason I stood up and said something about the Overriding Objective and asked for an adjournment to a fixed date rather than a stay. The judge said something but I can't remember entirely what he said, I was so nervous I was focussed on stopping my legs shaking! I'm glad I had prepared thoroughly, though, as I understood all that the (very young and shiny) lawyer speaking on behalf of the banks said. And it was good meeting other forum people there - Mike969 and a lady on the Barclays thread, although I'm sure others there must have been on the forum as there were probably around 65-70 people in the court room (out of 133 - most of whom didn't show up because they either didn't oppose the stay or had settled). Thank you to everyone who has helped with advice, now I guess we just need to sit back and wait until January to see what happens next...

That's brilliant - thank you!! I was just giving up wading through all the success stories and was about to go to bed, I'm glad I didn't now!

If it helps, here is what I have just written and am trying to learn (without wanting to sound like it's too rehearsed tomorrow): I do not agree with the defendant’s request for a stay since the Overriding Objective requires that my case is dealt with in a way that is proportionate to the amount of money involved, the importance of the case, the complexity of the case and the financial position of each party. It also requires that my case is dealt with expeditiously and fairly. To grant a stay would prevent me from recovering my money, but would not prevent the defendant from levying its charges or interest on debt comprised of those charges. The order of the court would therefore have the effect of favouring a powerful and well-resourced institution over an individual claimant. I propose the direction that my case is re-allocated to the Small Claims track. The sum of money involved – £2272.11 plus costs – is trivial to the defendant but is a significant amount to myself. I am also concerned that should this case be prolonged for any period in the Multi-Track the cost to myself will increase considerably and disproportionately to both the cost to the defendant and the complexity of the case. There is no complicated issue of law with this case, since the common law relating to contractual penalties is settled law since the late 19th century and has been reinforced as recently as the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The Small Claims track is the most just and fair way of handling this case based on the principles of the Overriding Objective. The details of my claim are based not only on the fairness or otherwise of the charges applied by the defendant to my account, but also on the lack of uniformity and logic with which these charges have been applied. I submit that the value of these charges has been decided arbitrarily and without consideration to the actual effort required by the defendant, or to the defendant’s own terms and conditions. I also have a sample list of 142 cases brought against the defendant complete with County Court reference numbers of which I am aware and which have been started since February 2006. All of these cases have been settled by the defendant before hearing. It is submitted that the pattern of cases settled so far suggests very strongly that the banks are merely using the judicial system as a publicly funded means of intimidating their customers and dissuading them from pursuing their legal right. It is submitted that this is abusive of the judicial system and the public resource. I also propose a direction that the hearing for this case is scheduled for the earliest date possible after 1 March 2008. The outcome of the OFT test case, for which the hearing is scheduled for 14 January 2008, will be known by this time.

Mike - the 142 HSBC cases can be found in the litigation section - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=82 On the page, change the 'Show results for' drop-down box to HSBC, then click 'View Now'. You'll get a page showing an image of the list of settled cases - there are 50 cases per page, so all I did was print the page, click Next to go to the next one, print it, etc etc until all of them were printed. Ignore the number 223, I have just been reading the application for removal of stay and I think it relates to Lloyds TSB as that's who the person who wrote it was suing.

I am writing my pitch now and have just been thinking of that issue. I am going to say that the fact that the cost of the charge is related to the value of the unpaid item or informal overdraft request demonstrates that it is an arbitrary figure that is not proportionate to the amount of effort required by the bank to deal with such items, therefore is detrimental to the consumer under section 5(1) of the UTCCR (1999). I am also going to say that - in my case - the bank has used delaying tactics which have resulted in a delay in dealing with my case, which contravenes the Overriding Objective and article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that "In determination of his civil rights...everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time". The other bit that I am going to refer to (nicked from the 'application for removal of a stay' thread) is about the Overriding Objective: "It is submitted that the Overriding Objective requires that my case is allowed to proceed speedily so that a just settlement may be obtained by the parties to this case. There is no complicated issue of law. The common law relating to contractual penalties is settled law since the late 1800s and has been reinforced as recently as the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 which itself is the result of a European directive. "Attached to this application is a list of 142 cases complete with county court reference numbers of which the claimant is aware and which have been started since February 2006. All of them have been settled before hearing. It is submitted that the pattern of cases settled so far suggests very strongly that the banks are merely using the judicial system as a publicly funded meeans of intimidating their customers and dissuading them from pursuing their legitimate Right. It is submitted that this is abusive of the judicial system and of the public resource. "The sum claimed is insignificant to the bank but it is a significant sum to me. Furthermore, although a stay prevents me from recovering my money, the defendant bank is not prevented from levying its charges or interest on debt comprised of those charges so the order of the court has the effect of favouring a powerful and well-resourced institution, which contravenes section 1.1(2)(a) of the Overriding Objective (ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing)." When I returned my CMI sheet I proposed a direction that my hearing is scheduled for March, since the OFT test case is scheduled for hearing on 14 January 2008 and the results of it will be known by 1 March. This is just a practical thing though, and not a distinguishing feature really. Other than that, I have to admit I am also struggling to distinguish my case from the OFT test case - sorry.

Thanks Freaky - I had been looking for that link when I was typing my reply earlier, but was on a train and got to Leeds sooner than I expected so I had to abandon it. That is the other thing I have, except for the Witness statements: the thing tomorrow is only a case management conference and not a stay hearing, so I am hoping that using the arguments already detailed for over-turning a stay can be used in advance of the stay being granted (since Judge Grenfell has refused to automatically grant stays). The only thing that I am concerned about is that the argument for overturning a stay refers to 223 settled cases in an attached Annex (which isn't in the thread). Were these specific to the particular bank the individual was claiming against? I have downloaded the list for HSBC (142) and am concerned that there are no figures - or no cases were settled - after 27 July, whent the OFT brought their test case. I am concerned that if I use this in court tomorrow the HSBC solicitor will ask how many were settled since the test case, and I don't know what my response would be other than 'none'. Right, I'd better get writing and reading...!

Hi Mike, I may be going into overkill mode, but I am taking: - all the documents I have been sent so far from the bank and their solicitors - my original claim and all the letters I sent and a summary of the charges I am reclaiming - a copy of the application to over-turn a stay, which is here --> http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/17065-application-removal-stay-updated.html#post1046820 - I am taking this and trying to memorise it (or at least the principles of it) tonight, so that we can prevent a stay being granted and won't need to apply to overturn it. - a copy of the Overriding Objective text, since I want my claim to be re-allocated to the Small Claims track (it is now in multi-track, I believe, where I would have to pay costs if I lose), and my solicitor has said that the banks are notorious for taking a heavy-handed approach to litigation when the cases are really quite simple and should be dealt with as simply as possible, particularly where the claimants are only individuals and it isn't big commercial stuff (in layman's terms - I don't know what the legalese is!) I am also going to write my speech / pitch when I get home (currently working) so that I have it firmly in my head - if I finish it in good time I'll post it here so that you can see it and comment, as I am sure I won't have got it quite right. Do you think that all sounds ok - am I taking too little or too much information? Thanks Sharon

Sorry for the confusion I seem to have caused, hopefully the posts above will explain my situation (twice!). Castlebest - I have a personal account with HSBC. Since I have been reading everything in preparation for Wednesday I have gone through HSBC's T&Cs several times, and can't find any reference in them to charges they apply for unpaid DDs, unauthorised overdrafts, unpaid cheques etc. Am I looking in the wrong place, or is this information really not included in the T&Cs?

Hi, I put this in the court hearings section first but a kind person has suggested I put it in the HSBC bit as well. I am claiming against HSBC and initially wrote to them in February this year. They to'd and fro'd with letters then offered me a little over half of what I was claiming, so I decided to go through MCOL. HSBC then left it until the last possible day to first acknowledge the claim and then again to submit the defence, by which time the OFT test case had been started. Because of this and HSBC defending the entire amount my claim has been referred to Leeds Mercantile Court and has been allocated to the multi-track. I have a case management conference next Wednesday so I spoke to my solicitor last week for some guidance. HSBC has asked for a stay based on the OFT case, so she suggested I fight it, but to do so I have to distinguish my case from the test case. I am going to use the argument of the illogical and non-uniform way in which charges were applied to my count, and I have just found the thread about stays which has some really useful information. However much I read, though, I am still worried about next week (even though it isn't a hearing, just a case mgmt conf). My solicitor suggested seeing if anyone else here is due in Leeds next Wednesday, 12 December, so that we can do some preparation and present a united front. Is there anyone here who is at the same conference as me? I would also appreciate guidance from anyone who has already gone through this - I don't have a very legal brain so lots of the documents on here just aren't sinking in yet (although that may be related to the fact it's 11.20pm!). Any advice or support would be appreciated. Thanks Sharon