OK will do. I will link to it here when done.

Thanks for the comment Bankfodder. We got to the point of getting a second Hearing to restore our account before it was automatically restored. We then had a very threatening letter from their Solicitors seeking costs if we pursued them. They wanted us to formally discontinue the case which we refused to do. This did not put us off but the needs of the business took too much time and it drifted off. Having said that we got more time just now!

I would like to add my experience to this thread as it may help out somewhat. In December of 2018 our business account with Barclays was suspended just before Christmas with all our staff wages due on the 20th in time for Christmas. I spent the better part of the day in the branch where they refused to say anything about what was going on. Later on I learned the following: 1. If a bank, or a bank employee even, has a suspicion of money laundering or similar they are obliged to report it to the National Crime Agency. 2. If they do not report it and it was later found that criminal activity was taking place then the Bank can be held liable so this is arse covering by the bank. 3. Once they report to the NCA they cannot tell you , the account holder, that they have done so as they will be found liable for tipping you off that an investigation into you was under way. So the lack of any explanation is arse covering by the bank (again). (Perversely this very lack of notification is the clearest sign this is what has happened and is a great tip off to the potential money launderer that he is under suspicion!). 4. Once the NCA is notified of the suspicious transactions they have a certain amount of time (it is something like ten working days) to notify the bank of whether they are interested in investigating the case. Something like 10% are of interest which means the other 90% are of no interest. The NCA will ignore these and once the initial period is over the bank is allowed to release the account. 5. If the NCA is interested in further investigation they have another period of time (something like a calendar month) to investigate after which if nothing comes of it then the account is once more released. In my case we took court action to try and get the funds released but it was difficult over the holiday period. We got one hearing which the bank failed to show up for and they subsequently released our account in January at the conclusion of the ten working day term. As we had taken court action they deemed the relationship had broken down and gave us 30 days to move our account. I strongly suspect that you are caught in this situation. They, or probably some stupid computer algorithm has identified a transaction in your account as suspicious, they have notified the NCA to cover their arse and refused to tell you they have done so to cover their arse again. Is your account closed or just suspended? In any case you cannot use the Barclays account right now and you almost certainly wont want to use them in the future. You need to open another account so you can function financially. I suggest the quickest way to do this is to use one of the new on-line services such as Starling, Tide, Monesse etc. I strongly recommend Starling as they have a great app, an easy and swift on-boarding process, cash deposits at any post office (so for example I can deposit at ten o'clock at night in my local village coop!). Business accounts also available. You will probably 90% certain have access to your funds again within ten working days of the suspension and almost 100% certain to have them back after a month or so if the NCA takes an interest in you. Once you have these funds back you will need somewhere to put them before you give Barclays a colossal middle finger. I have found out that Barclays are berks, bastards and other B words. I certainly would concur with Bankfodder that being loyal to any bank and/or to expect loyalty from them is akin to a cow being loyal to the farmer, you will get milked until you are no good to them and sent for slaughter if it is convenient for the herdsman. Given the time frames I have outlined above any complaints you make to the Ombudsman or elsewhere will not play out before your funds are made available to you again but it might be worth starting one in case you can get something out of it. I have around six or seven bank accounts on the go so I will never have my balls on the table with any of them again. By the way you are the innocent in this, it is the Dickheads at Bastarlys at fault and don't be scared of them. Hope this helps.

About a year ago I assisted a friend who had a debt management plan by writing to every creditor of which there where ten. Not a single one could produce supporting documents to assert their claim to the money! Needless to say he stopped the plan, and the payments and the creditors have been unable to persue further. Just saying!

Not entirely sure about this. In an overdraft situation if you don't repay it do you get a default notice? If you do then the SB clock starts at some point after the date of the default notice. For example if you get a notice saying that by x date you must have re-payed then the account is not in default until you have failed to pay according to the notice so the SB clock starts then.

By the way never call a debt Collector. In fact my experience is not to have any contact with them at all. just stay dark. No answering their calls, no replying to their texts, no responses to their emails and whilst you should read their letters you should then file them in a foolscap folder without reply. If anything urgent comes up like a letter before action or a solicitor letter or even a County court claim pack, then that is the time to act. In this case it seems your relationship is still with the original creditor so probably worthwhile contacting them to see what their system says about you.

I am not an expert but a SAR should be signed.

Do nothing, sleep well!

OK So right now they allege they own the debt and want you to pay. I would stay dark. Get your mum to open the letters and whattsapp the contents to you. As long is it is the standard chasing letters of one sort or another then it is safe to ignore. They have not got you to the doors of the court yet!! Get your mum to KEEP all the letters and whenever you visit just collect them and file them properly. The object of the exercise is never to give them any feedback. I would never send the letters back as Return to Sender. Right now they don't know anything so the threatomatic machine is just pumping them out, let it continue to do so. If you get the letters sent back as Return to Sender they may not believe it but if they do then you lose control of what they are doing. As long as they are sending correspondence to you it is possible to read what they are saying and see if they are trying anything on. They might just try a backdoor CCJ but if they do not use your mums address they might use some other previous address and you have lost control. This is a long game where they keep hitting balls over the net and you keep not hitting them back, and they don't know if there is anyone on your side of the court! The only time you have to do anything else is when they start to get legal.

I will contribute here if that is all right as I have successfully fought off Lowell with a Vanquis card and have some knowledge of how they work. So first things first, what is the nature of each of these letters? If they are all introductory letters with a Lowell letter head then that is a good sign. They can safely be ignored. However, can we be clear that none of the letters are County Court Claim forms or Letters before Action. A letter before action would say that or something similar on the letter. Make sure none of them are from a solicitor. Presuming these letters are all intro letters I would go dark! That is to say I would not reply. No emails, no snail mail and definitely no phone calls. Let them keep sending their various automated letters for as long as they like. If you receive any phone calls from them (though currently it does not seem likely as how would they get your number) then DO NOT GO THROUGH SECURITY, just hang up without speaking to them. Then create a contact in your phone called DCA Lowell and add the number they called from. They call from various numbers. Here is a list of numbers they have previously called from though in actual fact all the calls come from one automated threatomatic machine in an office somewhere: 07900742239 01133086169 08448150652 0844444716 01133086000 01133086035 07900742242 0333 556 5500 0333 556 5501 0333 556 5835 0333 556 5560 0333 556 5561 0333 556 5520 Of course there will be more! With all due respect to Dx100UK (for whom I do have the highest respect as I have seen and followed his many posts over the years) but I would not send a letter along the lines he suggests. For a start he refers to "my possible historic debt" this to me could be interpreted as taking ownership of the debt. It might be worth writing a letter to them if your current address is stable but if they continue to write to your mother's address then you will receive them. Have her open and photograph them and send you the pictures by whattsapp. If you do write to them I would keep it as simple as possible as follows: Dear Sirs REF: (ACCOUNT NO.) Please be advised that should you wish to write to me then the address for correspondence in this matter is as follows: YOUR ADDRESS. Yours sincerely (Absolutely do not send phone number or email address) Next: Join checkmyfile or similar credit reference service for free and you will get regular updates to your credit report and will see any changes immediately just in case Lowell slip a sneaky CCJ through. Your current position seems to be that they are trying to collect on the debts. They do not know for sure who you are. They have not established that a debt exists. They have not established their right over the debt or ownership of the debt. They have not provided any paperwork to establish the debt. They have not proved they bought the debt and/or declared they are acting for either the original creditor or anyone else that bought the debt. So for now, go dark and stay dark other than possibly directing any correspondence to you instead of poor old mum, unless she is willing to be your gatekeeper. Also, worth trying to find out when these debts were last acknowledged by you. By that I mean when did you last pay or write something saying or implying you owed the money? This is because no legal action can take place after six years (five in Scotland) so it is worth while working out how long they have got to run. When you first defaulted then the original creditor would at some point have recorded the default with a credit reference agency. If Lowell bought the debt then they have (or had) a habit of illegally re-defaulting. In my case they tried to say the debt was still within the six years but I was able to refute that with a copy of the original default notice. In the case of the Vanquis card your clock starts ten days after the date of the Default Notice VANQUIS issued. The default date on your Credit file may be different but it is the DN notice that is the important one. In the case of the utilities then either the last time you paid or if they did issue a default notice then the same as for the Vanquis card. That is enough to be going on with. As ever I welcome other CAG'ers suggestions, comments and criticisms. I might have got some things wrong.

I would like to add to this thread. Unbelievably the Bailiff returned and attempted to take his fees again. At that time I was with my fellow director and we confronted him and told him that under no circumstances were we paying him anything and that he was on a hiding to nothing. At one point he tried to enter into a payment plan with us (for a relatively trivial amount of the fee!!), such was his desperation. He then went away giving us 24 hours!? I wrote to the council again this time as a formal complaint. The bailiff phoned back a few days later to see if we had changed our minds. I told him we had complained to the council about both the claim and the poor Bristow and Sutor Website. He said, "OK as long as you are not ignoring it" . The council responded with an apology and said that once again they had called off B&S. We have heard nothing since. I presume that this is finally it but you never know.

My thread is done Dodgeball so feel free to run with it. What template did you want me to put up, there was no single document but several communications that led to it but happy to provide whatever I can.

As per my Post 19 above the record has now dropped off my Credit Report and my scores are now as follows: Clearscore= 357 (up 28) CreditKarma = 554 (no change but another report coming in about 7 days). About what I expected as my scores will not be great as I am using a high percentage of my available credit but a nice result in the right direction, at least nothing adverse.

Thank you for your response BankFodder. First of all her employer is a care home and she is a Part Time Carer. I do not know what the company is called but would prefer not to publish it here even if I knew. Having read through the link you provided I would tend to agree with your opinion regarding the Estoppel standard of proof especially as she is getting 50% more than she should of been expecting. Having said that she has had this from the very start and knowing her as I do it is possible she thought this was her monthly wages! In her everyday life she goes from hand to mouth so there is no improvement in lifestyle unless you consider her absence from Foodbanks an improvement! I think the solution is for her to repay at the low figure that seems to be in place but to disregard the contract requiring her to pay it back before or on leaving. Should she give notice and work four weeks how can we stop them from witholding her last months wages?

Hello All, A friend of mine started work for a care home around eleven months ago. From the very start they over paid her and it has just come to light. I do not know for sure if she was aware of the over-payment, (she is cunning enough to be aware and dizzy enough to not notice!, with apologies to feminist readers!!). The company has now demanded she repay the over-payment. I am not clear what the sums are but she was contracted for around 20 hours a week and was paid for thirty so I would estimate 40 hours x minimum wage x 11 months so something like £3500. (Please don't comment that this was a huge number that she should have noticed, I already know!). At first they told her she could not leave until she had paid it back, finally an arrangement was made that she will repay at the rate of £50 per month and must settle the balance if she leaves before she has paid it back and they have made her sign a contract to that effect. I take the view that whether or not she has an obligation to pay it back there should not be any contract that in effect ties her to the place. She should be free to give notice and work elsewhere, any repayment should be at a rate she can afford and if she has a better job offer she should be able to take it without having to wait to pay back the overpay. I would be most grateful for any CAG'ers opinions and comments on this matter and what her rights and obligations are.

Update to this thread; SUCCESS Following DX advise post 18 I contacted the ICO by phone. They advised they would accept a complaint but said they would prefer to allow a full month for Lowell to act on my complaint. On 9th October I sent Lowell the following by email: I have since received your standard response letter dated 23rd September 2019 advising me that you are looking into my complaint. I have today spoken to the information commissioner's office who advised me that if you have not responded within a calendar month then it is reasonable for me to pursue a complaint via their agency. They have also advised me to send you a reminder of the timescale that they consider appropriate. Therefore please treat this message as a reminder to you that if you have not acted on my complaint by 15th October 2019 I will revert to the Information Commissioner's office without further reference to you. Yours sincerely I received another standard letter from Lowell advising they were still looking into it. About a week ago I checked Clearscore to find that all of Lowells negative reporting had been removed and only one entry remained for November 2013 showing the account as closed unpaid which should disappear next month. I have just had Clearscore alert email to say this account is about to drop off my report. My Credit Karma report does not show the account at all. I am writing the above in order to thank CAGers for their assistance and to provide information and closure for anybody following the thread or who may read it. I will add one more post to advise what impact if any there is on my credit score when the report next updates. (Clearscore=329, CreditKarma is 554).

190925 PCN Back.pdf 190925 PCN Front.pdf

Hello All, Looks like it is my turn for a Parking speculative invoice, in this case it was McDonalds which allows an hour and overstayed by 14 minutes. Here is my completed questionnaire: 1 Date of the infringement - 18/09/2019 2 Date on the NTK - 25/09/19 3 Date received - 27/09/19 4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? -Yes 5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? - yes entrance and exit photos date time accompanying each one 6 Have you appealed? -no Have you had a response? -No 7 Who is the parking company? - MET parking services 8. Where exactly - McDonalds, Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. - BPA I will start reading other threads and any helpin the meantime gratefully received.

Hello all, I sent the letter as advised by DX100 using his wording. I have had a reply headed "Customer Relations" as follows: Complaint Reference: XXXXXX We are Looking into your complaint The customer relations team will now carry out a thorough investigation into your concerns. we may contact you again with an update, or to request further information. What happens next? when we have completed our investigation we'll write to you again with our resolution. a copy of our internal complaints Procedure is overleaf which provides information on expected timescales to respond to you about your complaint. In the meantime if you have any queries pleae do not hesitate to contact my team by calling the free telephone number 08005420058 which brings you directly through to the customer relations team. yours..... I don't expect anybody on this forum to believe that the above is anything other than a formula letter with no real intention behind it. The time is now well outside the 14 days my original letter gave them to sort the situation out. Can I please solicit some advise on the next move.

Thought I would update this thread as potentially there is useful information here that others can learn from: I drafted a civil case against British Gas asking the Court to issue a ruling that BG not disconnect us on the following grounds: 1. We had entered into a new one year contract in May and they had taken a Direct Debit for the first bill, no other Direct Debits but I paid the remaining bills as they came in and fell due. I argued that under this contract they had no grounds to disconnect as all bills had been paid in full and on time and we were not in default. I argued that although arrears was built up that it was under the old contract which was different in that it was Deemed rates so could be argued to be a different contract. The remedy for this arrears was not disconnection but to either reach agreement or take civil action of some sort. 2. I further argued that I had not been able to expire the Ombudsman's process. The ombudsman advised that they would consider the case but could take eight weeks or more to process the complaint which could be found in my favour. My Ombudsman argument was that we were paying bills on time and addressing arrears and that British Gas were unreasonable in demanding a lump sum we could not afford. As they would refuse to allow us to move to another supplier we could not mitigate the presumed Credit Risk they considered us to be and being in a monopoly position they needed to either allow us to move or accept our reasonable re-payments. I put together all my evidence including a printout from my on-line BG account and submitted it to the Court. The Court accepted the case and scheduled an expedited Hearing for the following day and required me to serve my bundle on BG by 4pm. I found the legal department and managed to speak with someone there and finally got some sense. For whatever reason they preferred not to go to Court the following day and I told them I neither wanted Court Action or to involve the Ombudsman but merely to pay the bills and the arrears. It was agreed that they would withdraw the warrant if I would discontinue the case. I downloaded and completed the Notice Of Discontinuance and forwarded it to the Court and BG and they in turn emailed me to cancel the warrant. It was agreed we would continue to pay our bills and arrears at the present rate and then up the re-payments somewhat next year. From my point of view this was a win for both parties and common sense for them because they will get their money as I will stay in business. I am grateful to the BG Solicitor who sorted this out for us. Anyone in a similar position to me may find the above useful but I don't recommend getting into the situation in the first place if it can be avoided and it is not guaranteed that my arguments are legally sound or would work to prevent your own disconnection but in the absence of anything else they might be worth a try. Whether or not the court would have found in my favour on either of the grounds I will never know. It might well be that BG thought that it was wiser to work with us than thrash it out in the Court. I would be interested to see what the opinion of other CAGers is as to my legal arguments and the BG reaction. Other than that I thank the participants in this thread for their comments and now consider this thread closed.

Hello All In July 2018 my business moved onto a new site. The site supplier of electricity was (and still is) British Gas. I am about to be disconnected due to a high arrears. The following is the sequence of events. 1. June 2018 moved onto site 2. July 2018 Landlords received electricity bill and passed on to us 3. July 2018 We contacted BG and asked them to re-issue bill in our name. 4. July 2018 They refused asking us why we needed to have it in our name! 5. Following above I did nothing as my communication to them had been very specific, identifying our business and confirming we were the consumers of the energy. 6. October 2018 BG finally issues bills in our name under a new account, on deemed rates. 7. October 2018 - June 2019. We did not pay any of them. 8. May 2019 BG field agent visits and advises that disconnection proceedings are underway. The account is being held by BG Warrants departments. 9. May 2019. Contact BG and agree 1 year contract payable by DD which started 16th May. Spoke to warrants department who said they wanted bulk of arrears (around £25K) or disconnection would happen. I stated I could not pay that in one lump sum but offered a repayment plan. They refused to accept anything other than more or less the full arrears. 10. End of June 2019. BG takes DD payment for June bill. It goes through. 11. End of June 2019. In absence of any agreement with BG warrants department we start weekly repayment by standing order of £250 per week, a sum we can manage for the moment. 12. July 2019. Try speaking to warrants department again. I ask them why they have not submitted a disconnection application to magistrates. They say they did to Bodmin Magistrates! (we are in Nottinghamshire!). I said I had not received notification of such and they insisted we had received notification. After protracted argument they concede they did not apply for warrant (BTW our meter is remotely operated and they can disconnect without attending site). They then said we did not have a DD in place. I insisted we did as they had taken a first payment by DD already. Still insisting we did not have DD in place. We could not reach any agreement so they said they would advise notice of disconnection 13. July 2019 . BG attempts to take DD payment for full arrears of £25K. Fails due to lack of funds 14. July 2019. Write letter of Complaint to BG. 15. August 2019. DD is not tried again by BG as they do not take the current month when expected. We pay it manually the following day. 16. September 2019. BG rejects letter, says account is with their Warrants department (that was my complaint and that they were not acting sensibly). 17. We continue to pay our weekly arrears sum of £250 per week by Standing Order and our monthly current bills as they fall due as per their bills and stated date of required payment. 18. Today (September 26th 2019). BG warrants guy shows up. Issues disconnection notice saying we will be disconnected 10th October. I point out we are paying our bills on time and have a three month plus record of paying arrears having now paid over £3K towards arrears. Guy says best thing to do is apply to magistrates for stay of disconnection. I would be grateful for any advice as to my next actions. I have been considering escalating my complaint to the Energy Ombudsman but as things have been stable in the last few months (I was paying regularly and not falling into arrears) it did not seem to be necessary because BG had not taken any further action until now. I was content to be paying my bills and reducing the arrears. The outcome I want is that I continue to pay monthly bills as they fall due and continue my arrears payments as they are until Spring next year then possibly increasing the sums. BG are implacable, inept and probably some other “i” words if I could think of any. The BG guy said we should apply to the magistrates. He pointed out that people who did not have the same metre type as us had a ninety day disconnection process and BG were being aggressive in their approach due to being able to instantly switch off and this could be an argument to advance along with our recent payment history being good. How do I approach the Magistrates Court? I would think this may be a County Court Matter. In order to get an injunction to stop the disconnection I would have to start a case against them. What would be my case? Any comments welcome and appreciated.

Thank you for your post. In post 2 Brassnecked suggested I write to the Council which I did. I had a reply from them only very recently where they said they had recalled the account from the Bailiff. The Bailiff having visited was, prior to this intervention, seeking £75 not the higher figure. At the present time it seems the Council has intervened and my problem is over. Thanks to all.

thanks DX, I will action that word for word.

Hope this is waffle free: Further to your last letter I enclose a copy of the Default notice issued by Vanquis. You will note that it is dated 25th June 2013, thus the account is Statutory barred. The only date that matters for purposes of calculating the Statutory barred date is the Date of the Default Notice, not any default report made to Credit Reference Agencies. At the time you acquired the account you incorrectly and maliciously reported a default to the Credit Reference Agencies displacing the original report made by Vanquis. I now require you to remove this account from the Credit Reference Agencies and I give you 14 days to do so. If you do not I will immediately open a serious complaint against your firm with the Information Commissioners Office and seek financial compensation from you for the damage you have done to my Credit Worthiness

"Dear Sirs You recently instructed Bristow and Sutor to pursue us for unpaid business rates. Please advise me of the date this instruction was passed to them. Many thanks" emailed this just now.