Hi all I've been on and off with my 3 Lloyds claims (1 personal, 1 VISA & 1 S/E Business) for some time now, sent out SAR in May 2006, followed up with pre-lim and LBA in early October 2006. I was met with the usual letters. After moving house twice, getting married and having a further 2 children, I now feel that I should get my finger out and claim back the £5k+ that is owing in charges, furthermore I now have 2 defaults registered against me. In short I would like some assistance please: Do I need to start again from scratch? (I do have details of charges) Are there any new template letters I could use? How long, on average are Lloyds taking to settle? Kindest regards enigmaworld

Just a bit of advise if poss. Had the bailiffs round on Monday this week re: business rates. The original bill was for £74.00 then court costs of £80.00 takes it up to £154.00, this bailiff knocks on the door by time I get to the door he's shoving a "Notice of Removal" through the letterbox, so I open the door and ask him whats its about, he did not show me any ID and went on to say that unless I paid him £329.00 he would be back in 7 days to remove my property to that value. My reply was that I would contact the council and find out what the situation was as I had wrote to them on the 2nd Feb asking for a payment schedule for this and for another £998.00 of council tax. The council said it had been passed to the bailiffs and nothing they could do. So I then called Jacobs only to be told that I had to call the bailiff on his mobile and talk to him, I then called the bailiff on his mobile and asked what the break-down of £175.00 I'd been charged, his reply was £25.00 attendance fee and £150.00 for a van, when I asked him why he needed a van to make a first visit for £154.00 his reply was they charged everyone £150.00 if it was a business rates bill. So I asked if he was going round all his jobs today and charging them all £150 each, this is when the call broke down, he became quite agressive and when I asked to make an arrangement to pay he said he would be back in 7 days and if I didn't pay in full (£329.00 plus another £25.00 at least) he would come into the house and remove all my property. My partner is currently in slow labour and has been all week and I had to sign on 1st Feb for the first time in 20years, so as you can imagine we're re-inventing the word skint (still waiting for Lloyds/TSB to payout £4k+ in charged etc...)

Great news Sue, giving us all a little more hope that good things come to those who wait:)

Hi I'm in a similar position to you, I'm self employed and have been some 17 years, was mis-sold PPI 3 1/2 yrs ago, I only found out that it was invalid when I tried to claim last Feb. I have since canceled it on a number of occasions and have even been promised my money back in full, this was in Jan this year, but still no cash yet!!! I have sent letters and their time is now up and the N1 is on my desk.... Good luck James

Congratulations on your victory Ian:D Lets hope they settle a good few more this side of Xmas, maybe they'll be able to sleep at night then!!!

Hi David Re your first question, stick to your deadlines, any response from the bank will only be a standard one trying to put you off taking action. Don't worry to much about getting your bundle together just yet, plenty of time to print off your statments, unfortunitely the courts are snowed under with work and are taking months, but don't be to disappointed nobody has lost a case when claiming back unlawful charges. Regards James

Hi Emma Don't worry, it's not required that you send them a copy, just good practice. You can obtain a copy from your court and send it to them if you wish but it's up to you. Regards James

That makes a bit more sense. Will have to go through all my charges and split them back up between the 2 cases then. I did speak to Lloyds on Jan 25th this year Re: PPI payments, explained the whole thing yet again, I was told that they whould pay me the last 3years worth of payments back, the woman I spoke to gave me a number to ring, this was the claims dept for making insurance claims, so I called back and spoke with somebody else, expained everything once more, was given yet another number, called them they said in no uncertain terms "not a chance", so I called back again, explained to another call centre bod (can you see where this is going) the whole story again, this time a manager will be ringing me back, within 48 hours, after hearing nothing for a month I called back.... and so on and so forth... I stopped making payments on the card in July and told Lloyds no more payments until its sorted!!! THEY DEFAULTED ME IN SEPTEMBER. Anyway I have kept details of all these calls and others like them, including time I called, duration of call, who I spoke to and a rough outline of what was said. Sorry I'm ranting again... Thanks for the sympathetic ear. James

PS. Yes, you can claim all the charges back, they are still deemed unlawful, regardless of your company status.

Hi Ted As for Limited Companies this rule does not apply, although I'm sure that if you are anything like me then all your companies bank statements should be filed away... Somewhere Good Luck James

Thanks Gary Just got off the phone to York CC, they are currently taking just 2 days to serve papers, so I will use them. Just a thought I am doing 3 claims, one of which is for my credit card, on the CC I am also claiming my PPI payments back as I should never have been advised to take out employment protection when it does not cover self-employment, me being self-employed of which they were aware. Does this require a seperate claim? If so I may have made a mess of my LBA for the CC, as I made reference to this PPI thing in it. Regards James

Thanks Shaz Quick question, does it matter which county court you apply too? What I mean is do some courts take longer than others? I know thats 2 questions. PS. If 1 court gets more of these cases than another surely they should deal with them faster, especially if they are all being settled in the same manner!!!

Thanks to Shaz n Gary for your support and words of wisdom. Problem is that I've been going through a rough time this last year and to top it all off my other fall back account (Halifax) have been playing up and almost all my DD's were returned last month due to UNCLEARED effects, giving me a total of 9 x £39 plus 1 x £28 this month with another for next month, the total for my DD's was only about £200-£250 and they have charged me £418 plus another £28 for next month and I still have to pay the DD's, I only banked £600 to start with, so I was a bit distressed with the Monday morning post. (Sorry to rant on) There have been a number of other issues with Lloyds over the last few years so I thought going to see the Business manager might be a good idea to sort of come to an agreement on everything, but the more I think about it I can see me just wasting an afternoon in the company of people I don't much care for. If anyone has got experience of resolving their case through face to face dialog then please contact me through here or PM. Suppose I best get on and start filling in the court papers anyway. Thanks again James

Hi Ian Good luck with Wednesday, although I feel that you will not be needing it!!! What I should be saying is good luck with tomorrows post, which is where you should find your full settlement!!! Keep us all posted Kind regards James

Hi all Just a quick update, LBA's were all served on 20th October (signed for on 23rd), so their 14 days are now up... I have had the usual replies, this is our final word on the matter blah, blah, blah and so on.... So its time to fill in the court papers, everyone seems to use the online service and are getting the same results nothing for weeks then Lloyds file a defence, then the no one is available for the month of whatever....then a 30 day stay...then 3 more months wait for a court date. Unfortunitely I have already had a default on my credit card and another one on my personal account so waiting til March next year is not good news. I have been thinking about making an appointment to speak with somebody from my local Lloyds business centre to discuss a possible solution to this as I am not able to trade properly as they have now (September) removed my business overdraft and demanded repayment so any money banked is swallowed up, not sure if this is a good move, can anyone advise further on this please? Kind regards