He's defending mine too - and our case is going to Penzance court way way down in sunny Cornwall. :D

Have decided. By accepting the money now i will be agreeing to thier terms. Even though the possibility of them 'snatching' back the money is remote i do NEED this money now. Please see all of the thread and draw your own conclusions. Consider me gagged:) See me again under MBNA:lol: :lol: Thanks all on this case.

Mods can you change the title of this thread to ' Natwest I love you really!' Had a letter today offering full settlement - no liability implied and only if i keep private and confidential. Oh what to do??

They seem to always acknowledge the claim and there are now a number of threads running where they have actually filed a defense on the 28th day. At this point they may well make an offer (did in my case). I, and others, are at this point and have returned allocation questionaires waiting for thier next step. read around some of the longer running natwest threads and just hold your nerve till they make the next move.

I suppose the trick would be, once they have paid up and youve been gagged, to end your thread with something like. 'Must go now - see previous comments and draw your own conclusions' Perhaps with see my new thread under another claim. Anyone who loses (dare i even mention that word on this site:evil:) will have lots to say on the subject but anyone who agrees on a gagging will want to disclose the win in a sly manner.

I would say Nastywest are toughest so far. Barclays not far behind unless they are getting gagging restrictions as the barclays threads seem to go quiet towards the end of claim deadlines. I have both running and am seeing just how long they will hold their nerve.

I have just returned the allocation questionaire. They have tried phoning a few times but they have been told to only correspond in writing.

When i made my initial claim on behalf of my partner she was OD by £500 unauthorised. They had been allowing this for some months accruing charges. The day after my initial letter the OD was moved to the debt side of the bank and has been frozen ever since. So they do have a tendency to play hardball a bit. Very imnportant to have other bank accounts that you can use. Once in dispute though they cant add charges or demand full payment until resolved. I beleive that this is the case but am sure will be corrected if not.

Copy of letter May 2, 2006 Claim XXXXXXX Kay Standidge Group Litigation RBS 1 Princes Street London EC2R 8PB Dear Kay Standidge, Thank you for your letter dated 27th April regarding your thoughts on my claim and your offer of £1000. I must, however, refuse your offer as I strongly believe that my claim will be successful in court especially in light of the recent OFT statement regarding default charges in relation to credit cards and OTHER financial institutions. Regarding you’re, ‘transparency of the information we give to our customers’, I have yet to be shown a detailed breakdown of how the charges are arrived at. For example how does it cost the bank £35 to NOT PAY a direct debit. The system is automated, any letter sent out is printed from a template and mailed by machine at a cost of ?? 50 pence if I’m generous. The remaining £34.50 must therefore be a punitive charge. If you are able to show me a detailed breakdown of these charges for both unpaid direct debits AND paid referrals showing how these costs are arrived at PROVING that there is NO PUNITIVE element then I will withdraw my claim. Otherwise my claim continues until / unless you send me payment in full. Please note that I have now returned my court allocation questionnaire with a further fee of £100. I cannot agree to not disclose any of this to third parties regarding this claim. This is an open offer. In the event that you decline I will draw this letter to the court’s attention. Sincerely, XXXXXXXXX Lets see what happens next Merged threads, please keep to the same one.

OK - Firstly have sent an initial response to their part 18 request ie, dont need to. Secondly have responded to their offer. They state that their fees are transparent so i have offered to drop my claim COMPLETELY, IF they can produce a detailed breakdown of their charges showing that they are NOT punative in any means especially in the case of refusing to pay a DD. I have also stated that this is an open letter and will be shown to the judge in court as it is even more reasonable than their own offer. So either way i will either get my full refund or a detailed breakdown of the charges and how it costs the bank £38 to refuse to pay a DD:razz:

My partner tried to move her business account from barclays to LLoydsTSB. Toldf the business manager at LLoyds that just not happy with teh service at Barclays. Did not at any time mention the fact that she was disputing her account and filed a claim. Did say that she had some bad credit. The account was refused partly on the griounds of the bad debt but also the business manager talked about her issues with the barclays account in dispute. How did he find out out that?? Are the banks relaying information about claims??

Recieved an off of just about half my claim this morning from Kay Standidge. She believes that my challenge to the charges would fail in court and that they are reasonable and transparent. As agesture of goodwill they will offer a payment in fuill and final settlement if i agree not to disclose to any third party details of the payment and if i write and withdraw the claim. She goes on to say tht this is an open offer and that should i decline, will draw it to the courts attention as she beleives it is a fair offer. I have till the 4th to decide. Decisions Decisions. Stick or Twist??

Thanks all. Have been folowwing the mentioned threads and been in contact with BF. Will update again later. Thanks

This is an example of a modular automatic envelope stuffer. http://www.promail.co.uk/env-enc-rotary.htm Basically the letters are printed on continuous forms, cut, trimmed and stuffed into envelopes sealed and sent. It operates at upto 12000 cycles per hour or upto 200 envelopes per minute or 3 a second. It is computer operated and can be operated by 1 person. This is just one of many available and the banks will have the best. So the cost of sending the letters is practically zero!!! Does anyone know anyone who has written or supported the banks software?? If we had an expert software / program developer then there is no defense.

I agree - there aer more and more defenses being filed now and im sure the services of BF and others are going to be stretched as time goes on. Nastywest's defense seems to be a standard copy and response so maybe a standard response here would be useful?? I am slightly concerned though that the legal teams must surely now have found this site and be taking notes. If i was in the bank legal dept i would be checking the litigation section and noting claim numbers for my bank and tracking through the posts. tht way i would get a feel for the commitment of the claimant (though here it is pretty high even those of us facing the court steps at least.)

There are several companies out there who can ensure that your debt is cleared for about 25% of teh total - most charge a fee though. If you have a windfall (say get your charges refunded by the original card / loan etc) then you could negotiate yourself and should get somewhere close to 25% if you can front it out. Some will go even lower if they have held the debt for a long time and youve been paying something.

Have received allocation questionaire to complete by 14th May. Wonder if they will actually travel to the allocated court - Penzance!

Have now received teh Allocation questionaire - proceedings have been moved to Penzance court. Have also recieved allocation questionaire for Barclays also moved to Penzance. Have until the 14th to complete and return. here we go here we go here we go....

They are defending. Moneyclaim has been updated on teh last day. Am now awaiting a copy of their defence and details from Moneyclaim. Will update when i know more. I now have Barclays AND Natwest defending so could be pretty busy for the next few weeks!!

Hi - Was the defence filed by Kay Standidge at RBS group litigation?? Had mine through today with practically a photocopy of your defence response - see Stage one complete thread. Again looks like a standard letter response.

Recieved NW defense today - last day of their 28. They are defending as follows. 1. They admit i have the account 2. The account is governed by a written contract 3. They admit that they have applied various charges 4. The charges were applied in accordance with teh terms of the contract 5. It is denied that any terms of the contract are a disproportionate penalty. The defendant reserves the right to plead further on this issue following receipt of the claimants response to the defenses request for further information. 6. It is denied thta the chgrges applied pursuant to the contract were "unfair" or otherwise unenforceable 7. It is denied that the claimant is entitled to the relief claimed or to any other relief. 8. Save as is expressly admitted above, each allegation contained in the particulars of the claim is denied. They request further information as follows: Of: 'The banks charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as tehy are contrary to common law" 1. Please identify with precision the contractual terms that the claimant alleges to be a disproportional penalty'. 2. Please specify all of the facts relied on by the claimant in support of this contention. I have till the 8th of May to respond. OK guys i need some expert help here please. On point 1 i presume i will need a copy of the contract or a copy of a NW contract?? point 2 should be listings of all relvant cases, copys of all charges, OFT etc. The claim is currently in the Northampton County court - how and when can i get this changed to my local court - Camborne or Truro i suppose. I did see a similar thread with almost exactly the same response any ideas how that one is going. Guy

So the process would be to firstly request the 6 yr history for each card / debt in question and calculate the total. Calculate the interest on this. Then request that this amount is repaid by the current debt owner. As i understand it from earlier, you may have a debt of £1000 which the current owner has paid say £100. He is entitled to £1000 but you want £300 in charges repaid. If you get the 300 he will most likely reduce your balance and still demand teh £700. Which is in fact quite reasonable as you do actually owe the £700. having said all that surely as teh original charges were applied by MBNA or whoever surely it is thier problem? Surely they should re pay the charges and if they want to recover the rest of the debt buy it back and pursue for the remainder?. I think this one has more potential hoops and drawbacks than the banks. However i will watch this thread and other similar actions with great interest. I will also do some more reading regarding sold on debts.

This thread has started some very interesting trains of thought for me and i have a a question to ask if anyone has any ideas. 1. From earlier in the thread if charges were accrued by the original debt owner, eg MBNA do you go after MBNA or the current debt owner? If you go after MBNA and they pay up then potentially you will recieve enough money back to pay a full and final settlement to the current owner (based on the 10% they pay for the debt). ((If you look around the debt buster sites you can clear your debts in 60 months and they usually do this by agreeing a full settlement along the lines of 15 to 20%. If you have the telephone manner you can do this yourself plead poverty, leaving the country or whatever and they will settle.)) If you go after the current owner they could end up paying more out than you owe. Either way the potential for the bottom to drop out of the debt business is tremendous and i would therefore think that when the penny drops they will circle the wagons and defend to the penny!! I have always been one to pay my debts (when possible) and one half of me thinks that it is wrong to try to 'lose' a high proportion of debt which they were so kind to give me, lol, On the other hand the potential to take back the charges and use them to clear the current final total is just too good an opportunity to resist. So back to the question - who do you go for??

Im in a very similar position except that MBNA have sold my debt on to a collection agency and now this is being managed by a debt company. I am awaiting the outcome from two claims against Natwest and Barclays (5 days left to file a defence). if (sorry WHEN) they have settled i am going to look at all of my cards and get my money back from them. Most of my eventual debt with MBNA was cahrges and interest.

NEVER INVITE A BAILIFF IN. Always conduct any business at the door. They are only allowed in if accompanied by a police officer and a warrent or court order. (at least some official documents) If you invite one through the door they will note everything in sight and use this against you at some later point. You have to remember that the law does actually work on your side as well and you can make things difficult by insisting that ALL and EVERY procedure is adhered to. If you want you can make them stand at the door banging all day cos they cant come in unless you let them.