Many thanks. I will send SAR to HFC Bank head office. I presume this would be HSBC, p o box 5207 in Coventry? That is precisely the office which sent me a reply saying they have nowt records on me going back to 1980's. If they do have my records but say they don't, then in response to my SAR they will have to repeat their first-time lie, but second time with legal penalties for giving a misleading SAR response. Is there any precedent reported in CAG where HFC was brought to book like in my case? Many thanks for your time.

HSBC now owns HFC Bank in Brighton. I wrote to HSBC Coventry PPI claims office giving my name, DOB and precise former address, last week, but they replied to say: no records of my account can be found after 32 years, and that they are not legally obliged to retain documents beyond the statutory period if an account was closed. I also opened a Loan Account in Bournemouth and fully repaid around 1983. -- same answer from HSBC: no records. I myself have retained no records whatsoever, but I am absolutely certain I had those accounts, and 70% sure there was PPI as was standard custom in those days. Is this a dead end? Should I invest in £10 requesting a SAR, if so SAR sent to HSBC Coventry or to HFC Bank in Brighton? Later to complain to FOS if we suspect HSBC does have records? Thanks to all for sharing experience.

I was debited with penalty charges between July 2015 and March 2016, by New Day, owners of Aqua Card. In April New Day wrote to say they do not agree penalty charges were unlawful. County Court claim will cost me fee and time -- a nuisance. Haven't they learnt by now they will not get away with penalty charges designed purely for profiteering?

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview "You can apply to a county court to claim money you’re owed by a person or business. This is known as making a court claim. It used to be known as taking someone to a ‘small claims court’." Aqua Card will not sanction any spend over card limit. What happens is that at the end of each month Aqua piles on interest charges which takes any balance over credit limit, if the balance was there just below the limit. Aqua then piles on the Over Limit Charge. Hard to justify £12 compensation for going say £2 over limit, month after month. I am thinking of requesting Aqua Card balance sheet, Profit and Loss returns etc to justify £12 charge. If Aqua wants to take me on, if my reclaim is upheld by court it will be a precdent. If Aqua is forced to refund penalty charges en masse a la PPI mis-selling refunds, I shall raise a glass of wine to toast Aqua Card.

I believe Halifax Bank Aqua Card are stonewallers who will not refund penalty charges. I shall therefore take my reclaim for 8 x £12 penalty charges to County Court now that Small Claims Court has shut. Any shareable past experience from going this route, thanks?

Have you declared to Egg and cohorts that you regard the account described "terminated" by Egg letter as legally unenforceable? If you claim the lawful part of the account balance as null and void, do you then claim the unlawful part (penalty charges) of the balance to be NOT null and void? Is Egg supposed to refund you cash for unlawful penalty charges on an account the liability for which you now repudiate? If Small Claims Court were to rule in favour of penalty charges refund, SCC would be effectively levying a punitive fine on Egg on principle, but SCC is not empowered to levy fines. At most Egg would reverse the penalty charges plus interest on your account. If the credit refund is exceeded by the debit balance outstanding the outcome would be academic, if you repudiate the debit balance of any size. If you do NOT repudiate the debit balance then it is a different story. The balance becomes payable, and Egg will be required to refund penalty charges. As for reclaim of penalty charges imposed before 2007 six years ago, someone else could advise.

Proof of address usually involves a utility bill, or credit card/ bank statement within the last 3 months? If you write to Egg and claim to be "John Smith" and your address differs from Egg's records. If John Smith is proven by the electoral register to live in the town and street where you claim to be, that does not exclude the contingency that John Smith did live there, but in the 10 months since the Electoral Roll was refreshed has moved away, and Mr Arfur Daley has come to live in selfsame house and is now masquerading as John Smith to gain some advantage. Not casting aspersions on your good self, heaven forbid, but that is the line of reasoning why Egg does not send out SAR without recent proof of address.

There were merely 83 pages of postings on this subject before the thread was closed to further postings in 2011. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?136848-Termination-of-Egg-credit-card-agreement/page83 The final posting on page 83 sums up what was actually happening in 2011. If you wish to know what has transpired since then, best to PM the posters in the latter stages to find out if anything new happened. Ps. You might like to click User CP at the top, then select options for posting -- switch from WYSIWYG to Standard Formatting then save. That way your posting will retain paragraph breaks as typed in.

You are entitled by strict law to obtain back statements from Egg itemising all debits and credits. This will come from Egg in a pile of papers one inch thick for a cost of £10. This will take a long time, possibly 6 weeks. Egg will also provide the option of back statements only for £5, coming much faster. Until you have itemised statements it is not easy to find out what went wrong, and what can be challenged, what unlawful penalty charges are available for reclaim, including unlawful interest based on unlawful charges.

That's only when they have time left after pocketing "performance" bonuses.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/banks-are-hounding-borrowers-to-suicide-2644478.html http://www.independent.ie/national-news/banks-are-hounding-borrowers-to-suicide-2644478.html Thursday May 12 2011The shared surname is the first giveaway. Then there’s a familiarity to the voices, a shared tone, a distinctive cadence. But the most important characteristic Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan and his brother Edmund, Master of the High Court, share is a moral authority and a clear awareness of right and wrong.Last November when the nation was convulsed by the threat of an EU/IMF intervention in our sovereignty crisis, Patrick Honohan was the first voice to tell the people of Ireland the true situation. After a week of prevarication and some downright lies from government, Mr Honohan went on Morning Ireland and told it like it was – we needed a bailout and we were going to get one for many billions of Euro. Yesterday, his senior counsel brother Edmund also spoke up for the little people when he hit out at banks and other creditors who are hounding some borrowers to suicide because they cannot pay their debts. In an strongly worded intervention he told how he saw widows in his court after “meaningless accountancy exercises” that drove their husbands to take their own lives. Today he went even further when he identified the problem as being that the Department of Finance doesn’t know the law and the Department of Justice doesn’t know economics. so we don’t have a humanitarian scheme of debt forgiveness. This clear and direct missile is all the more extraordinary for the fact that Mr Honohan (59) is not a judge, but a civil servant who mainly deals in procedural matters, but has a front row seat on the growing debt crisis in organising the High Court judge's list. His intervention, like the interventions of his older brother Patrick (61) is a rare and honest insight into a bureaucratic world that intimidates and terrifies most people. He has previously drawn attention to the ludicrously high fees paid to barristers and senior counsel in the courts. Pat Farrell of the Irish Bankers’ Federation has hit back describing the language used by Mr Honohan as ‘inflammatory’ and ‘too emotive’. For people struggling with increased taxes, negative equity, large mortgages and unemployment thanks to the reckless lending of the banks Mr Farrell represents, this is all a bit rich. Somehow their bids for private profit turned into public debt and the nation will pay for it for generations to come. In an era when trust has been lost in practically all institutions of state, it’s extremely important that voices like those of the Honohan brothers are listened to. And we are lucky they are in positions where they can do something about the wrongs they illuminate. Noirin Hegarty is Editor of independent.ie

The CCA unenforceability arguments among other things centred on the text of "Approved Limit" instead of "Credit Limit". Judge Chambers decided to interpret "Approved Limit" as "Approved (credit) limit" and that was the end of that argument. Egg sent out a pitifully ambiguous letter in 2008, and once again the case will turn on a judge will adujicate what the law will make of text in black and white. It is up to the judge to make a binding ruling on what he makes of the letter and spirit of the law. It is not up to Egg (no I never worked for Egg, I have been campaigning for refund of unlawful charges for 4 years). It is not up to claimants. It is not about what debtor or creditor thinks OUGHT to happen. It is not about self-delusion from any side. The law is what the judge says it is, but you can always try an appeal. Until the judge pronounces, the outcome remains open, as the "Approved Limit" argument did for 2 years until 6th August 2010. One abusive poster is getting tiresome, so after 2.5 years I have today clicked open this thread for the final time, with relief. It is up to the judge - with finality, after the recent ruling a showdown looks like sooner rather than later.

A credit limit of £0 will immediately push nearly all cardholders overlimit and open to penalty charges as per the signed legal agreement. Unless "a limit of zero" means whatever a certain person wishes it to mean.

I shall say this once only. The only judgment which counts is the one from the judge, which now looks like coming sooner rather than later. Egg and cardholder signed an agreement, in 2 parts: (1) PAST - Debts borrowed in the past shall be repaid at minimum 5% per month. Unless the cardholder defaults on monthly payments, unless a DN is issued because of default, then IMMEDIATE TOTAL repayment of the debt shall not be enforced by the court. (2) FUTURE - Borrowings in the future shall be voluntary, subject to willingness from both parties. The cardholder is not legally obliged to borrow, Egg is not legally obliged to lend. Egg's agreement to lend is quantified as "credit limit", or "Approved (credit) limit" ruled accepted by High Court Judge Chambers exercising his power of textual interpretation to the surprise of DIY law book readers. In January 2008 Egg sent out a letter composed in English which ought to fail GCSE, causing all this trouble. Egg did NOT demand IMMEDIATE TOTAL repayment in full, and therefore did not go back on Part 1 of the signed agreement, relating to PAST debt. Regarding FUTURE conduct, Egg is generally conceded to be lawfully able to revise their credit limit at any time upwards or downwards. To ensure that 161,000 cardholders could no longer borrow another penny which Egg no longer wished to lend, Egg said in GCSE-failing gobbledygook that effectively, whatever an account's balance was on any day, that sum shall be Egg's new credit limit. To physically every day amend credit limits for 161,000 accounts would be ruinously expensive as it would need to be preceded by 161,000 secure mails advising the change of credit limit. It is up to the reader to assess, whether someone like Judge Chambers will or will not accept a one-off revision of credit liimit, in wholesale rather than retail style. Such action whether wholesale or retail would be based on the principle underpinning revision of credit limit -- that cardholders are not obliged to go on borrowing for ever and Egg is not obliged to go on lending for ever. Apart from credit cards, banks also close accounts for their own economic reasons. In the past the Alliance & Leicester has closed accounts out of spite when customers initiated legal action to seek refund of their bank charges. The regulator slapped A&L wrists and imposed a £125 fine -- because it was victimisation, not because banks were not allowed to close an account. Egg's letter in January was empowered to discontinue FUTURE lending -- Egg did this. It appears one month notice was given. Not sure if anybody was able to use the card during the final 30 days. Egg was not empowered to unilaterally repudiate a PAST agreement to repay minimum 5% monthly -- Egg did not. Egg was not, is not, and shall not be empowered to unilaterally wipe out a PAST balance, be it a debit balance repayable to Egg or a credit balance repayable to a cardholder. I take no sides in this, I closed my Egg card years ago. Resolution in court will come soon enough, the judge has the last word.

If you ring it is doubtful you would get past the lowest rung of Egg's food chain. The credibility and impact of your proposal relies on the physical appearance of your signed cheque. Without it there is only talk, and Egg may take the view that you gave a verbal asssurance before..... A cheque in the post will get Egg's attention, they will not lose it. If they are not impressed by the cheque you can still ring and discuss if you wish. The cheque option does not preclude subsequent discussion. The cheque will get the attention of an Egg maker and shaker, whereas one phone call out of thousands probably will not. Good luck.

To placate clerks who are also under orders to rake in payments so as to keep Egg solvent, ready to escalate at the drop of a hat, how about: sending a letter enclosing a cheque for the appropriate amount, but postdated 23OCT2010? The date should be written in bold red felt-tip pen, or even written as "NOT BEFORE 23OCT2010" to preclude a clerical error of premature pay-in. A cheque in black and red would be more convincing than a verbal undertaking. This demonstrates you are serious. Not sure if Egg has the clerical means to override the IT rule about levying a Late Payment and Overlimit penalty charge. But better that than Egg triggering a DN which they have been known to do, even after just one month payment missed . Penalty charges can be reclaimed from Egg when your position is stronger enabling you to play hardball.

Many - with eventual success, but Egg have taken their brinksmanship to the eve of court hearing in the past. They want you to think there will be hassle, but not if they know you know they know you know the score. See: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?53376-V-E-Day-Victory-over-Egg

Several particular rulings here illustrate a general point. Many DIY law book readers believed the "prescribed terms" needed to be present as the letter of the law, the phrase of the law. I.E. if you made a WORD search but did not find "credit limit" then the agreement was invalidated, that parliament the legislative branch permitted interpretation neither by the executive branch nor the judiciary branch. Judge Chambers made clear this was not so, the law is what judges say it is. You could of course try appealing to a higher court and ultimately to the Supreme Court, but there it ends. Those who trust law book DIY readers and posters beware. It is not what they think, it is what the judge thinks.

Egg makes no difficulty about complying with SAR. I know because I received same, as did armies of claimants who from 2006 onwards requested SAR in order to compile an accurate dated list of unlawful penalty charges to reclaim. However this one-inch-thick bundle comprising many manual screen prints would probably take one employee half a day to compile -- multiplied by thousands of SAR requests. Egg therefore offered an alternative IT-generated list of charges items with dates for a discounted price of £5. Many selected this option, which Egg did produce and send out faster. I would not suggest Egg refuses SAR pointblank as policy, such an attitude has not been reported in the forum. Slowness, yes. In your particular case I suspect, guessing only, they had problems compiling your bundle because your account is very old and inactive for a long time, and paperwork may have been misfiled, and IT records archived and hard to restore in full. I suspect that in their impasse they cashed your £10 cheque as their first step in a standard drill, then further down the office chain some clerk or manager found himself in a predicament with no standard way out. Instead of coming clean with the customer he chose to go silent hoping you lose appetite for persisting. They should have known better when you repeated your requests. High-handed and underhand tactics to browbeat individual customers as a matter of policy is not on. If you coordinate efforts with the other known sufferers and present evidence naming chapter and verse in black and white to the OFT and the Information Commissioner, Egg will not get away with it. Egg have the fear of God when their licensor becomes their adversary. The keyword in all this is intentional defiance of the regulator, not accidental defiance. One individual standing up to a faceless nameless monolith is not to be underestimated. But bear in mind it cost one lady 2.5 years of wrestling before Egg finally capitulated in exhaustion. Good luck! http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/egg/27135-egg-default.html

SARS non-compliance for 12 months is inexcusable. It could be that Egg after 6 years of account inactivity removed your paper file to archive storage. If a case was compiled to show a sustained pattern of non-compliance and defiance this would certainly get the attention of the OFT (I should send it attn. CEO John Fingleton) who have the legal authority to withdraw Egg's licence to operate their card. Your proof of consequential demonstrable personal loss will strengthen your case. The difficulty lies in proving malicious intent instead of bureaucratic muddle. If pushed up against the wall Egg could simply say they did send the one-inch-thick SARS bundle, without registered post which is not their legal obligation. Egg would send out electronic update files to different CRAs, not necessarily on the same day, and not necessarily updated on CRA databases on the same day. Unless the second mis-publication of unjustified DN was demonstrably instigated after Egg's withdrawal of the first (e.g. different default date and balance), then hard to prove it was not part of the same bungle -- that Egg rescinded each wrongly published DN as it was pointed out, but did not proactively audit their hundreds of thousands of fresh DN's already notified to various CRAs. During the long long period when some consumers held back repayments pending unenforceability test cases, Egg had no other recourse except for issuing DNs, more to blacken credit history as a deterrent against non-payment than as a precursor of legal action. But wilfully and repeatedly issuing unjustified DNs to circumvent the six-year dropoff will not be tolerated by the Information Commissioner, nor by the OFT as licensing authority. As for nominating compensatory damages to the injured person, I have not heard of the regulators having such powers. The FOS is known to take ages, however upon taking on your case at all they will charge Egg £400 win lose or draw. FOS will not take on a case until both parties have tried to negotiate but have ended in deadlock lasting a minimum period of time, I believe many weeks, details from the FOS. Egg will not like in the least losing face if your case is publicised, so the threat of articulate publication should concentrate their minds to do what they need to -- but only if this threat reaches a high-up manager.

I believe the legal response period to SAR request is 40 days. Not that any regulator will be that bothered if the limit is exceeded to a limited extent. I have heard of a SAR arriving after 90 days. Very little chance even this will trigger a fine. You could hurry Egg up, but only if your complaint reached someone higher up in the pecking order who can make things happen. It looks as if your SAR request woke up the sleeping dog, who then fell in with established IT and office bureaucratic procedures laid down and followed without question by low level staff. If the freshly inserted DN record unjustifiable after 6 years has now been removed by Egg, hard to see the thrust of your proposed complaint to the regulators. Unless you say that during the short period this entry appeared on the CRA file you lost a job or mortgage application because of it, and that you are after compensation for injury. If so the regulator is more likely to invite you to mount your own lawsuit in county court where an impartial judge is empowered to weigh the damage versus the reparation sought. I suspect the most that regulators would do is rap Egg's knuckles with a stiff letter -- naughty, don't do it again or else. As Egg retreated and removed the entry when challenged, this would be a case of maladministration (cockup) rather than malfeasance (law-breaking with intent). As for Egg admin and clerical staff being in a muddle, what else is new? The regulators would yawn.

Minor employees speaking with the power of their employer often exceed their remit, adopting an inappropriate tone. Unfortunate. However FOS by now have clearly-defined criteria on ruling which PPI were mis-sold and which were not. These would be very rigid and objective rules and unless additional material information is provided it is very unlikely the FOS will reverse their adjudication, or that a Small Claims Court judge will overrule the FOS. It is far from the case that the FOS takes Egg's side in every PPI dispute, as evidenced by the list of claimant wins below. The regulators, can't remember if it was OFT or FOS, imposed a hefty exemplary fine on Egg for PPI mis-selling, putting the fear of God in Egg to such a degree that Egg capitulated with full refund in many instances immediately upon receiving a PPI claim. It all depends on whether the circumstances of enrolment fitted the established criteria of mis-selling. The finer details are discussed in the following 17 winning claims -- and 2 lost. 17 PPI battles won, 2 lost: 34 weeks - 25 APR 2007 - won PPI before court - Annalh v Egg/DLA/Eversheds ** Judgement given by court ** 16 weeks - 19 JUN 2007 - won PPI in court - Empire strikes back v Egg Card Repayment Insurance. 08 weeks - 01 AUG 2007 - won PPI before court - Wednesday 1867 poss vs Egg ( 12) 49 weeks - 22 AUG 2007 - JULI99 - lost PPI in court - Scrambled Egg ( 12) 35 weeks - 07 JAN 2008 - phatram - won PPI, case stayed, stay lifted, Egg settled in full before court (was self-employed and never eligible) - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/payment-protection-insurance-ppi/87077-egg-credit-card-ppi-3.html#post1314773 72 weeks - 07 FEB 2009 - oggy1 – PPI refunded by Egg before court because CCA shows no evidence of cardholder consent - ppi against egg --wont repay!! 01 weeks - 01 AUG 2009 - PPI refunded with interest - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/212600-shedsounds-egg-quick-win.html ?? weeks - 06 AUG 2009 - alsindebt - PPI refunded - Thanks to CAG 08 weeks - 02 SEP 2009 - fireyjack - PPI refunded - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/32603-successful-claims.html#post2403402 113 weeks - 13 NOV 2009 - e_inspired - PPI satisfactory settlement with DN rolled back http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/113999-egg-dlc-final-straits-4.html#post2573214 01 week - 19 NOV 2009 - Militant Consumer's Friend v Egg Loans 00 week - 07 DEC 2009 - BSC - PPI refunded immediately on request - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/236975-egg-1-cc-1-a.html#post2629798 02 weeks - 19 DEC 2009 - baileyb00 - PPI refunded in full after one letter - Egg Charges - Can I claim PPI? ***WON*** (PPI) 01 weeks - 11 JAN 2010 - Declaraion - PPI refunded in full after one phone call - Egg Ppi 03 weeks - 21 JAN 2010 - rkm123 - PPI reclaim rejected by fos - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/240971-egg-ppi-have-filed.html#post2716510 52 weeks - 23 JAN 2010 - full £1,100 refund of premiums for unrequested (unticked) PPI - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk/forum/egg/164090-bathgatebuyer-egg-2.html ?? weeks - 20FEB2010 - Billy goat gruff - EGG PPI Refund +8% . 03MAR2010 - refunded into bank account. 78 weeks - 11MAY2010 - DEC22 - PPI refund after fos intervention - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk...ml#post2922803 ?? weeks - 19JUN2010 - £1900 PPI refund after 1 letter - Me Vs Egg Loan 01 weeks - 08JUL2010 - PPI full refund + 8% p.a. interest within 10 days - http://www.consumeractiongroup.c o.uk...tar12-egg.html

This was a letter from the DCC not from Barclaycard. The highlighted text suggests a colloquial way of saying they confirm you have no liability towards the DCC. The DN is likely to have been issued by Barclaycard (were you sent the DN by post, by whom?). If true then the DCC had not actually bought the bad debt from Barclaycard outright, being merely the current DCC trying to collect on behalf of Barclaycard. If true then the DCC was not really entitled to speak for Barclaycard for all time. In the McGuffick High Court test case 6 months ago the judge ruled that DN issuance need not be preceded by the production of an enforceable agreement. He considered card statements as sufficient proof that a debt existed unrepaid. However the court was not obliged to rule the debt enforceable by law, if the agreement was not produced, or was irredeemably defective in text compliance. In the McGuffick case the claimant was actually motivated to remove the DN from his credit file, but this endeavour backfired, and the adverse ruling did no favours for consumers at large. If you could prove the DN was not justified in that demonstrably no amount was owing to Barclaycard, that would be a different kettle of fish. Overturning a numerically justified DN involves usually a marathon struggle through the county court, see the link below. If the amount were small and Barclaycard were desperate for £ like Egg is, then they might consider a bargain tit for tat -- you pay them something even though they clearly have no basis for legal enforcement, then they return the favour by rescinding the DN. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?133906-quot-Egg-DNs-successfully-rolled-back-quot

Some threads within the past 8 weeks have mentioned F&F agreed at a fraction favourable to the debtor. If you browse backwards in time and pinpoint these threads then quietly PM the posters you would have the best chance of sussing out the lie of the land. Egg is likely to assess its chances on a case-by-case basis based on what they know or guess about your particular financial prospects. Following their total win on 8th August they would have digested their strengthened position, so may stiffen their stance. However an enforceability win in court still cannot extract blood from the stone. If they believe there is no possibility whatsoever of a big repayment they would likely resign themselves to accepting a small payment before even this is paid to other creditors.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?276509-Alexandra-Slater-v-Egg-The-Full-Judgement "approved limit", "interest terms", "compulsory D/D being unfair" unenforceability claims -- all dismissed in Mold High Court on 9th August 2010.