Hi all My OH has just had the 'agreement' back for his old B of S card, now with Blair Oliver and Scott. I'm pretty sure from the countless hours spent on here that it's not enforceable, but I'd really appreciate someone with proper knowledge having a looksee. My thoughts on the single sided sheet of paper sent to him are... 1 - it's illegible. Even the headings make you strain to read them (OH says he thinks it looks like it could be from Microfiche). It's copied onto an A4 sheet, but the 'agreement' only takes up about 2/3 of the width, so even without the really really dodgy clarity it would be tricky to see. 2 - I can't see anything about a limit, we will decide a limit or anything resembling this type of statement. That said, I can't see most of the document so it possibly could be there, but none of the headings seem to relate to anything like that either. 3 - This is a biggy I think - No terms apart from whatever is in the signature box on the bottom right. 4 - It was sent with a note saying 'copy application as requested' 5 - It's headed 'Application form' and mentions 'application' within the form (the bits I can read anyway!) If I'm right, could someone point me in the right direction for how to proceed? Should I just leave them to go past the 30 days (which is the 12th August by my reckoning), or do I write and ask for a legible copy of my agreement? I don't want hubby to be seen as obstructive or anything, so I would lean towards the latter, but I know a hell of a lot of you are far more knowledgeable about these so I would rather bow to your advice than steam in and do the wrong thing:-D Thanks in advance:) 9805appform.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Thanks Bigmac I know the payments will need to be made at some point, but until they decide to ask for them again I'm not about to offer it up as we just can't afford it now. I think there would have had to be a fairly major issue going on with the boiler for it to jump up like that, especially when the previous winter in the same house was much much lower. I also had a look through our old gas bills for the 4 bed 2 reception room house we were in previously, and our bills over winter were £65. The unit cost then was approx half the cost now, so even that doesn't come close, and that was for more rooms, and larger ones at that! I think I'll wait until we're a bit more flush so I can pay if need be, then have another go with them and see if I can't find out what happened.

oops, thought I'd logged out inbetween writing post 3 and clicking submit, so I wrote it again. Ho hum.:o

Excellent - thanks very much:) Now I just have to go and find out how to do it all - I seem to be spending most of my waking hours on here at the moment:rolleyes:

Thanks very much, I was hoping that was the case:D

Hello! I've just been leafing through my old statements (as you do:rolleyes:), and I found details of an RBS Advanta credit card that I had completely forgotten I even had. It was paid off in full and closed in May '03, but having looked at the 6 months worth of statements I found, there's a quite a few charges at £20 a pop. Can I still send them an S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) even though the account has been closed for a few years? If so, how do I go about it? Would I just follow the standard instructions I've seen in various threads, or would I need to do something else? Thanks anyone for any information you can offer, it's always gratefully received:-D

Hi Right then, just to add to the rubbish that BG seem to be inflicting on tons of people here, I'll add my little story. When we were in our old house (2 bed bungalow), we were very careful (and still are) about the amount of gas/leccy we used. We had a couple of normal gas bills, then in March last year (so obviously the cold period Dec-Mar when we were expecting an increased bill), we had a bill for £450. Now we thought there's obviously been a mistake, so phoned to query it. Unsurprisingly, they were singularly unhelpful and refused to admit even the possibility of an error. It didn't matter that the house wasn't that big, the cooker was electric and the heating was only on in 3 rooms for a couple of hours a day. It was also not noticed that our bill for the previous winter was massively smaller. We then phoned another couple of times and got the same answer, and finally admitted defeat. We told them we couldn't possibly pay that in one go, so had to pay in instalments. So far we've given them about half the full amount. The thing is, we checked the meter, and the numbers correspond to what they said. There is however no way we used that amount of gas in a 3 month period so my thinking was either we'd been charged the wrong way (either cubic feet or cubic meters, whichever works out to support this theory), or that there was an issue with the meter itself. Or of course they were just talking out of their bottoms, but obviously I wouldn't be suggesting that could happen:rolleyes: We have since moved from there, and are now in a 3 bed house rather than a 2 bed bungalow. We changed suppliers as, oddly, we were not feeling terribly loyal to BG now, and had pretty much the same tariff - although in the last six months it has risen by about 1p per unit. Our bill for the entire year, July-July, was £246!!! Does anyone think it's worth writing to one of their head honchos to get this looked into again, now that we can show the massive discrepancy? The only thing stopping me so far has been that according to their files, we still "owe" them some money. We haven't paid anything towards this for some months now, and I don't know whether this would be like poking a sleeping bear, so to speak. If anyone has any thoughts I'd be very interested to hear them. Thanks all:-D

Hi all I'm just trying to find out whether I have been mis-sold the PPI on a couple of cards. At the time I was sold it, I was a director of an IT contract company. The only "employees" were the 2 directors (myself and my business partner), and we worked as contractors, so were contracted for IT work by other companies. This is where I'm a bit confused - I was employed, but only technically and only by my own company. The card companies in question were told on applications either that I was a Director, or IT contracter. I would assume both of these would be classed as a self-employed type job, but I'd really appreciate someone who knows giving their opinion please:) I also don't know if it is relevant, but when I had to leave my contracted job, I phoned to activate the PPI and was told I couldn't due to my employment (or should that be self-employment??) status. I have since cancelled both PPI's and it has been a year or two since then. Any information gratefully recieved!

Hope you don't mind me butting in on your thread, but it's not just MBNA/Virgin doing this... In October '06 I had a lovely letter from Lloyds, informing me that "We are changing the monthly interest rate on your purchases from 1.094 to 2.210% (26.520% Simple Annual Rate) and on your cash advances from 1.496 to 2.210% (26.520% Simple Annual Rate). These changes are made under condition 17.1 of your Advance Credit Card Conditions." I had had the accounts for about 7 years for one, and about 5 for the other. In that time I had run the accounts very well, albeit only making minimum payments (DOH DOH DOH). Unfortunately, a little while before they did this I became pretty ill and my OH had to leave work as he was taking too much time off to look after me, so our income had vanished. This was the icing on the cake. My minimums now didn't cover the interest (how the hell do they get away with that:confused:), and as these were large balance cards this was catastrophic. The upshot was I obviously couldn't pay and had to go on a payment plan with them. Having had a cracking bit of advice from banker_rhymes_with in my thread, I will now be checking to see exactly what I've paid over the years, and then seeing about CCA'ing them. I didn't get anywhere when I queried it though. The man was very nice and extremely sympathetic, but according to him it was an 'across the board' (bollards - my dad's card had no such increase) rise and was in 'no way personal'. Had I known about CAG then I may have had the bones to challenge them more, but sadly I didn't. If anyone has any luck proving these are penalties and can be claimed back as such, I for one would be very interested!

Okie dokie - amended letter and CCA sent off yesterday. The CCA has been signed for but the letter hasn't reached them yet. Also, despite me telling 'Mr McGrath' twice already that I was having to reduce my payments even though they haven't replied to say yes, OH had a letter today from him informing him that his last payment wasn't received which 'maybe an oversight'. Doh!!! I know these are completely generic letters, but you'd think they'd at least change who it's from so it vaguely looks like they're taking some notice of what you say! Hubbie is going to look at his statements at the weekend, but I have a niggly feeling I may have to do SAR's for my Lloyds ones as I don't think I have them going back to the beginning of the account. That's it for now though. It's just wait and see on both the letter and the CCA. Cross fingers for me:D

Thanks again for all the advice, it's giving me a he** of a lot more confidence in dealing with them than I ever would have otherwise. I'll get the letter changed and sent off tomorrow along with the CCA, then I guess it's just a case of wait and see (oh, and obviously field annoying phone calls:rolleyes:) BRW - that's a very interesting point. I've not thought about it like that before. I'll be getting hubby to do that for this one seeing as it's his, and he can do some work towards it! I'll also do it for my 2 Lloyds cards (the worst of my lot size wise, and then they went and doubled my interest rate when I hadn't had any problems with the accounts!) I'd be very interested to see what I've actually paid them over the last 6/7 years, especially seeing as in the last few months the minimum payment was less than the interest charged. They did however agree to my payment offers quickly, so I can't fault them there. Anyway, I'm off to get my statements now. Well actually I'm off to ask my OH to go and get them as I don't fancy rooting around in the loft:D

Thanks Hopeful1, I'll get that out at the same time as the CCA then. It's actually the 3rd time I'll have requested the payment plan, and I have to be honest - I did tell hubbie to cancel the d/d he had going and set up a standing order for the pro-rata amount we worked out and offered. It was either that or not pay others who had agreed to the plan (which I felt was not right to do), and I was just hoping that would be the best way to go about it. Since finding CAG, I kind of got to the point where I figured we don't have the money, so they can stamp all they like as they can't take what we don't have - even if it went to court! Having said that though I am a bit 'all mouth and no trousers' - I'll say this today, then something will happen tomorrow and I'll be stressing out big time again thinking they can come and take the cat or something. I had written in the letter about the bloke not asking any security details (and asked for his name which I figured they must have on the notes?) - but it looks like you think I should leave that out and just ask for the complaints procedure with no reason given. Do you think that would have a better effect? About the charges - my OH did the whole S.A.R thing on them about 18 months ago so I doubt there's much there now (apart obviously from the stuff they'll no doubt lump on for the last 3 weeks or so). I'd have to check statements to make sure, but I think it's been kept up to date pretty well. Seeing as it's not been used for quite a while there's not really any reason for anything to have been done...I hope!

Thank you everyone! You are all complete stars! I've just done the CCA for my OH ready to go in the post on Monday (with a digital signature which is what I've been putting on his letters since starting to ask banks for things, as suggested by lots of people on here - told you I'd been lurking:D). Everything I send goes Recorded. I did sit and type out another letter regarding the payment plan, again stating no phone calls. I also asked for their formal complaints procedure as a result of the bloke from MBNA talking about his account without going through security. I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do though - would you suggest sending that as well as the CCA? I kind of wanted to as I thought if they start playing silly bu**ers it at least shows my OH has tried his best to sort something out amicably, but if anyone thinks it's best to just CCA them please shout! I am keeping a phone log, and I just can't believe my OH didn't get his name. Honestly, he always used to drill that into me as we had a nightmare with salesmen calling and needed to know names for complaints, and this is the first time ever that I've known him not ask who it was! Typical. I will ask him to sort out something for recording phone calls though in case he picks up to them again by mistake (I wish we'd had recording stuff on for him telling us he didn't need to go through security, but never mind). Thank you for your support as well... like most of the people on here it seems, our problems were thrust on us rather than caused by us, and to just have people say they've been through it and not make you feel sub-human is great. I was very down about our debt, but since reading on here I've become much more brave and a little more upbeat (although to date I've only sent out 1 CCA out of about 10 just to test the water:rolleyes:). That's why I'm doing all this rather than my OH - I'm the one who's read hundreds of pages of advice/cases etc on here (it's amazing how quickly a school day goes when you're into a thread!), while he's working like mad to get a bit of money up to get us out of the pit we're in. I'll wait to see if anyone has any comments about sending the payment plan/request for complaint procedure letter, but I'll definitely get the CCA out on Monday and keep my fingers crossed!

Hi again Thanks everyone for your answers - I thought it was a bit iffy so I'm very glad it's not just me being paranoid! The last post is pretty much how I feel, although bogoff is rather less than I'd like to say to them:p I'll have a look at the harassment letter tomorrow and probably slip in a little something about discussing the account without going through any security measures too. Hopeful1 - the card is pretty old; probably 7 years+. Does that make any difference? Thanks for the link Steven, I'll check that out tomorrow too when I'm a bit more compus:)

Hi I've been a lurker for a while, but I'm taking the plunge for the first time, so please be gentle with me:) I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of advice/legal knowledge here... Basically, I've just started trying to negotiate a payment plan for my OH with MBNA for his c/c. I've done this with all of my creditors without hassle, all of whom are happy to only write rather than phone (well, 'happy' may be a bit of an overstatement, but they're doing it:rolleyes:) Anyway, I sent off a letter at the end of last month along with his income/expenditure, a pro-rata offer of payment and a very clear statement that I would not discuss this over the phone. On the 10th of this month I had a letter saying they'd had a review of his account, that it was now restricted, and to send back his card (which hasn't actually been used for months anyway) and to phone them to 'discuss' his account. I wrote back on the same day in his name, explaining that I wanted to keep everything in writing so it was all in black and white etc, but have been getting phone calls today. Two were just recorded messages saying to phone them, but the third one my OH picked up because the number was withheld. Without going through any security questions, the bloke from MBNA (who annoyingly we didn't get the name of) started out with 'I know you said in your letter you only want to write, but if you want us to help you and set up a repayment plan you'll have to talk to us on the phone'. My OH told him he wanted everything in writing, but just kept getting told if he wanted help they needed to discuss the payment plan, his financial details and the offered level of payments. At this point my OH told him he really shouldn't be saying this as he didn't know who he was, hadn't gone through any security questions and could well be talking to anyone - precisely the reason he wanted things in writing only. He was just told that he was only talking about things raised in the letter. My questions are... Did he breach Data Protection by not going through security but still discussing the account, and do we really have to organise this over the phone rather than in writing (something I've always been really loathe to do as they always try and bully you into more than you can afford)? Also, how many phonecalls in a day constitutes harrasment? I'd really appreciate any thoughts anyone has on this so that my OH knows exactly what to say next time they phone. We really do need to get this plan set up, but really don't want to phone them to do it! Thanks in advance Lexis200