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Hi All, My wife has not been very well at all and I did not progress this as I would have liked too. The alleged debt was passed to Wescott who backed off when I sent them through correspondence I had sent to Abbey advising them that it was in dispute. Now LINK are on our backs saying they have bought the debt and they want full payment. I am trying to find anything that states that Abbey cannot sell the debt as it is in dispute. Cant find anything on OFT site or banking code. Can anyone provide links and/or advice ? The stress this is now causing firstly is making my wife worse and is now making me feel ill.

Id send them the £10 payment baqck with the SAR Template thats on here...thats your official request and they have to adhere to it (mind you I sent mine off in April and they only just sent my statements) !! DONT let them bully you...STICK to your timetable...and get your money back !!

Lo and behold - yesterday we FINALLY received the statements that we had requested back in April. The DCA also rang yesterday and I told them that we had advised in writing and verbally that the account was in dispute. They said that the Abbey had passed the debt onto them and they want payment. So I rang the Abbey and they said that yes they had passed the debt to the DCA and that I should deal with them. I told them that it was in dispute and they said that the debt is dealt with by DCA and dispute is dealt with by them. Is there any law / code that says they cannot pass to a DCA if account is in dispute ? I have looked at Banking Code but cant see anything specific to quote back to Abbey and the DCA. Should I say to DCA I will pay them £5 per week ?

Hi all, Have not been well recently so havent been able to chase this as I would have liked. Story now is that even though our account is in dispute (we have advised them of that fact in writing on more than one occassion) - and the fact that we STILL have received no further statements as per our SAR - and the fact that the ICO wrote back to us saying that they felt Abbey's system IS a Relevant Filing System and that they were going to advise Abbey of that fact... received a phone call today from DM Management (Debt Collection agency for Abbey) asking how we were going to pay back the arrears....the Abbey have passed our account to them...can they do this ??

Hi Karnevil...no Im just at the moment going for the throat on the refund...but they have ****ed us off so much...especially as we got a letter over weekend from Alan Betts threatening Default Notice that I reposnded to say enough is enough I have eneterd complaint with IC and now taking to court.....will then hit them with non compliance and then will hit them with ALL OTHER CHARGES.

Received letter threatening Default Notice on wife's credit card so now sending SAR and advising IN DISPUTE.

Just received an offer to repay £128 of fees "which reduces each fee to £12 as the OFT has suggested". The letter also goes on to say "Our fees are in line blah blah blah.... And, as you know the OFT has suggested default fees of £12 are likely to be fair. We disagree with their analysis and believe that our current fees are both fair and legal. So, we wont refund all the fees we've charged you as you've asked. I'm afraid we won't give you a full breakdown of our costs to reassure you they're fair. We're continuing with the OFT at the moment to resolve their issues". Is their a default polite reponse letter I can send them rejecting their offer ?

Thanks Alan, agree that it would give full picture and provide more weight... may need someone to read it through before I put on N1 form though.

good catch !! I will amend... also as update have recieved following email from Abbey and have crafted a reponse...what do you think ?? Hello Jamloo, Thanks for your e-mail. Your comments have been passed to my colleague who works in the relevant business area. They will reply to you in full as soon as possible. You can find out more about our complaints procedure, by clicking on the following link: http://www.abbey.com/customer_satisfaction.htm Kind regards Jenny Venters Abbey Customer Services To help us improve our services we may record or monitor telephone calls. Jenny, Replying to us in full as soon as possible IS NOT ACCEPTABLE We have given the Abbey 113 days to date to provide us with copy statements on a 40 day deadline as per our DPA request. YOU HAVE FAILED TO DO SO AND ARE THEREFORE IN BREACH OF THE DPA REQUEST. We are therefore writing now to the Information Commissioner to complain about the service that the Abbey provide. If you give us a deadline, you expect us to adhere to that deadline, otherwise you penalise us and therefore we expect the same regard. Therefore as you are 73 days late, we will now be taking this matter through the legal process. By your consistent failure to adhere to deadlines set, we propose to send the following N1 to our local County Court by Friday 28th July 2006: PARTICULARS OF CLAIM 1. The Defendant is a Data Controller within the meaning of the Data Protection Act and is responsible for the processing of data of which the Claimant is a Subject. 2. The Claimant has an account number xxxxxxxxx ("the Account") with the Defendant which was opened in 2003. 3. On the 3rd April 2006, the Claimant sent a Subject Access Request, pursuant to Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to the Defendant. 4. The Defendant has failed to comply in full and has limited their reply to the provision of statements for the period 18th February 2005 to 18th March 2006. 5. By virtue of the Defendant's failure to comply with the Subject Access Request the Claimant has suffered damage. 6. The Claimant seeks an order that the Defendant do comply with the Claimant's Subject Access Request 8. Under the terms of Section 15(2) of the Data Protection Act 1998, where the Defendant contests that information requested under the Claimant's Subject Access Request is not included within the scope of Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Claimant requests that the Court inspects that information, and where it finds that the Defendant's opinion is unfounded, that it orders such information be included within the information supplied to the Claimant under the Subject Access Request. 9. Damages and costs within the discretion of the Court. I believe that the contents of these particulars of claim are true Signed: Date: For your information, we are also now preparing our N1 to file at County Court for the amount of £4,597.00 which you have penalised us due to your unfair penalty charges. The above N1 for DPA Non Compliance as well as the N1 for the amount of £4,597.00 which you have penalised us due to your unfair penalty charges will be filed at our local County Court unless we receive acknowledgment in writing that you will give us full recompense for the amount of £4,597.00 by close of play Friday 28th July 2006. Yours Sincerely Jamloo

CHeers karne...thats the route we were going to follow !! BTW - Email has already been sent to Abbey as per earlier post and letter going out tomorrow after great advice from Alan

Cheers Michael...so I am looking at hitting them with TWO seperate court attendances...one for DPA Non compliance and one for original claim

Karnevil - Looks good....too be honest...in the months we are missing I expect minimal charges... I would be quitew happy for Abbey to hand me cheque for £4.5 K and say thats it....clears our OD and gives us a bit........... The I can hit them with the £1000 charges they have SINCE put on !!!

Karnmevil - Mmm... how would I fill that all in on the N1 ie the part about non compliance to Data Protection Act request which we are completing now ready to go to the court ? The charges I am requesting payment for are KNOWN charges on the statements I have

Can one of the Mods comment on email and letter we are planning on sending Abbey National PLC FAO Lesley Budge Customer Resolution Manager Complaints PO Box 5129 Milton Keynes MK9 2YN Dear Ms Budge, ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXX YOUR REFERENCE: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX We are in receipt of your letter dated 5th July. You state that “Abbey is up front and transparent about all its banking charges as set out in the tariff of charges”. Can you advise, if the Abbey is up front and transparent, why we have still only received a partial response to our Data Protection Disclosure Request dated 3rd April 2006. In our letter dated 30th May 2006, we advised you that : You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges. You have provided us with Account Statements for the period 18th February 2005 to 18th March 2006 only. Our original request dated 3rd April 2006 stated: “Please supply us with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to our bank account since the opening of our Current Account.” You have provided no notes, or documents relating to instances of any form of manual intervention. You state that “I note your request for duplicate statements for your account from 2003, I can confirm these have been requested for you, however these can take up to four weeks to be produced. I hope you have now received these documents”. Can you therefore advise the EXACT date that these were requested as to date – 111 days after we first requested them – we have still only received a partial response as described in Point 1 above. You have therefore failed to comply with our Data Protection Disclosure Request and this fact will be stated when we take this case to Court. You state that “Most banking transactions are automated, but when there are insufficient funds in an account, a specific team must manually process the payment. Processing unauthorised transactions is costly and our charges will reflect the administration involved in handling each transaction. Can you therefore detail for me the exact procedures and processes that Abbey has defined in order to explain at what point the automation flags the fact that there are insufficient funds in an account ; who the specific team are that then manually process the payment and a breakdown of the charges that they would apply for each transaction. This is information that we requested in our letter dated 30th May 2005 where we requested notes or documents relating to instances of any form of manual intervention. We therefore inform you that having gone through a period of dialogue with you where by we have given every opportunity for you to respond and to repay the unfair charges that you have applied to our account, we will be now be taking this matter to the Courts. Yours faithfully, Jamloo

We've been a bit lapse lately and havent progressed this as we should have done according to our timetable. However, reading Seminole's thread (Congratulations !!!!!!) and after receiving the standard "get stuffed" letter from Lesley Budge - Customer Resolution Manager at Milton Keynes, have now decided enough is enough and going to progress this. Ms Budge even has the cheek to state " I note your request for duplicate statements for your account from 2003, I can confirm these have been requested for you, however, these can take up to 4 weeks to be produced. I am sorry if you were not informed of this when you made your request. I hope you have now received these documents."........ Er....No Ms Budge we STILL have not received these documents and by the way, you have added another £1000 in charges. So, going to compile an email and letter to her now....see next post

My Credit Card limit was £200 and yet now they have passed my account over to a debt collection agency, the amount "allegedly" owed is £559.22 !! So, am sending my Repayment Letter for £359.22 for the Penalty Charges. I rang the debt collection agency (NCO) on Thursday of last week after they threatened to send an agent round to my house to collect the full amount. I asked them if the call was being recorded and they advised that all calls were recorded. I advised them that I understood that their clients charges were punitive and I was in dispute with Capital One over their unfair charges. I advised them that I would be dealing with Capital One direct. They advised that their action would be put on hold. On Saturday I received a 72 Hour Notice from NCO asking for full payment immediately (the letter was dated Thursday - the same day as my telecon with them). I rang them and some snotty agent would not progress the call (and in fact hung up) when I refused to give them a contact telephone number (he stated that it was a DPA requirement - dont make me laugh pal !!). So I rang back and gave them my old mobile number and advised them that £359.22 was in dispute and that I would write a letter to Capital One and cc them in (my Request for Repayment Letter). I asked if the call was being recorded and the woman confirmed it was. So....lets go get Capital One and get some money back from them.

Have been kind and given them an additional 5 days before composing LBA ( 5 days that they would not give anyone on here !!)... So am now sending below to their Triton Square address by Recorded Delivery. Letter Before Action Dear Sir/Madam, ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX We are very disappointed that you have failed to respond to our letter of 30/05/2006. We now understand that the regime of 'fees' which you have been applying to our account in relation to direct debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits and so forth are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and recent Consumer regulations. We would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that we opened our account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law. We are frankly shocked that you have operated our account in this way as we had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise as our fiduciary. We calculate that you have taken £4,597.00. As you will note from your own records, we have not claimed any overdraft interest for the sum which you have taken from our account at this stage. However, dependant upon your response to this letter, we will consider adding this to our claim if required. We are enclosing a copy of the schedule of the charges which we are claiming. Additionally, we require confirmation from you within the next 14 days that you have not entered a default notice against our credit record. If you have entered a default notice against our credit record, then we would like to point out to you that this default occurred merely in respect of unlawful charges levied by you or was the result of impecuniosities caused directly by the taking by you of penalty charges which you had applied unlawfully to our account. In addition to full payment of the sum mentioned above we require that if you have entered a default notice against our credit record that you remove the default entry from the register. Please note that mere correction or amendment to the entry will not be acceptable. We require repayment in full of this money and if you have entered a default notice against our credit record removal of the default notice. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then we shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus a claim under ss.7 and 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 plus our costs and without further notice. Furthermore, we shall submit a Consumer Credit Act 1974 complaint to the OFT upon the basis that you have failed to comply with the OFT's direction of 5 April 2006 and are therefore not a 'fit and proper person' to hold a consumer credit licence under the 1974 Act. If you do not understand what this means then seek advice from your legal department. Yours faithfully, Jamloo

HURRAH !!!!!! We are NOT being ignored !!! We got the usual photocopied "Thank you for contacting us.....sorry that you have been so unhappy....felt you must complain...We will write to you in four weeks blah blah blah" letter from Mark Winder - Head of Complaints dated 12th June. Er...sorry Mr Winder OUR timeline runs out...16th June...LBA being prepared as I type !!!! There is an email address...so feeling a little bit minxy I feel an email reminding them of the fact that their egg timer runs out tomorrow will be sent as well.

Seriously Whizzkid....what were the terms for repayment and what action can you take if they still havent paid ?

Look at the Bank Templates Library section here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33 and send them the DPA letter...that starts the ball rolling and gives them 40 days. Remember to send a £10 payment with your letter eg cheque. DEFINATELY look through the FAQs and other threads though as advised earlier !!!!!!!!! Good luck to you...and remember we are all here to help !!

Cheers LIP....They have until 16th June to respond to our Request for Repayment letter and then its the LBA...

Yep...all the same....except some are particularly worse than others. First of all, open a parachute account with another bank...just in case Abbey decide in their wisdom to close your account because they dont like you taking any action against them. Secondly, Read through the FAQ's the Templates Library and other peoples threads especially Whizzkids, Neil P's and Tim Dunlops (you cant miss them !!) Thirdly, get your DPA letter out to the Abbey asap and set them the 40 day timeline. Lastly...remember everyone on here is in the same situation and we can all help where required !! Good luck and all the best !!

Hi Karen, Have a look at the Bank Templates section here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33 which will give you the Templates for letters that you need. The BEST piece of advice I can give you is take a couple of days to read through the threads and make yourself fully comfortable and aware with how this site is arranged.... ALL the answers are there...honest !! Take a look at Whizzkid's and Neil P's threads on here as well when you're feeling down Also for step by step instructions have a look here : http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5 HTH !!!

We are just wondering if we are running under their radar... Cheque was cashed with original DPA and we received some statements but not all and no cover letter. We have had NO other letters from Abbey regarding sorry about your complaint or anything else till this letter.... Currently they say debt is £3,827.65 plus pending charges (another £1,000 !!!!!! over last two months) We are claiming currently £4,500 and will definately go after this other £1,000 once we have got this one through. Concerned though about lack of correspondence from Abbey.