Just to let everyone know that the Court hearing was actually about Cohen's application to change the POC. I couldn't have known this as the Court didn't send me a copy of the application. I attended but Cohens didn't and I persuaded the Judge to dismiss their application. We'll now see if they'll try another claim and if they do, I'll be ready!

My debt with Egg was sold onto CL Finance after Egg couldn't produce a copy of the cca. I then got a court claim from Cohens describing the debt as from Barclaycard. I defended immediately and only got a letter from Cohens changing the particulars of claim a week later, they'd tried to backdate it. Cohens provided their usual reply to my defence asking for a copy of the CCA etc but despite several letters to the court and confirmation from them that Cohens have not asked officially for the particulars of claim to be changed, a hearing is listed for Wednesday 27th. Cohens told me that they would be notifying the Court about the change to the particulars but I've heard nothing from them so assume Cohens haven't actually bothered. I don't see how the Judge could make any decision given that I don't have a copy of any agreement and the particulars of claim are in question, but as this situation is a bit complicated, I'd really appreciate some advice from one of you legal experts out there please.

Hi everyone, Well, thanks to the fantastic help & support from this forum I stuck to my guns and eventually the case was struck out by the court! I think the key is to communicate with the court and copy in Cohens and emphasise that you are co-operating but that Cohen's disregard for CPR makes it impossible. As far as mediation went I just wrote to the mediators (copying in the court and Cohens) saying that unless Cohens could substantiate their claim there was no matter to be mediated. I never heard from them again. I'm now going through the process again for my husband who receieved a claim from Cohens for an Egg debt that they described as Barclaycard in the particulars. Anyway, as it's one/nil to me I'll fight on. Thanks again everyone

I received a court claim from HC regarding a Barclaycard debt and asked them to produce the CCA. HC said that they didn't need to comply with the CPR, I explained their response to the court and HC were ordered to produce the CCA which they were unable to do. The case has recently been struck out. I would never have been able to do all this without the help of CAGers so a big 'thank you'. However, I'm now wondering if it's too late to claim costs as the whole business took a lot of my time to sort out. Also. Barclaycard have registered a default against me and I wondered if now that the claim has failed I can ask for it to be removed. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks BRW but mediation has been ordered by the Court so I don't think I can challenge it now. I'd just appreciate what line to take when I get to the meeting.

Thought I'd bring you all up to date on what's happening. Howard Cohen said that they did not have to comply with Civil procedure rules so I asked the Court for help. No reply from them but I duly returned the allocation questionnaire drawing the Court's attention to this problem. Today I recieved an order from the Court saying that having considered the AQs the Judge considered this case to be suitable for mediation now! I think this is a completely bizarre decision as there is simply no scope for negotiation in this matter - the claimant cannot produce the documents on which they will rely in Court. I have to contact the mediator within the next 7 days, so any clues on how to handle this please?

I put in my initial claim with Abbey last May and of course it's been stayed even though I applied to have it lifted. Abbey withdrew cheques, cards and overdraft even though the overdraft comprised entirely of unlawful charges. Charges are continuing to add up, increasing the overdraft. Can I start another claim, if so what end date do I put? I'd really appreciate some advice.

Thank you both so much for your help. I haven't called the Court but the issue date of the claim was 20th May so the date of service was 25th. That means that the defence has to be in on Monday. The POC are; The claimants claim is for the sum of £2133.01 being monies due from the defendant to the claimant under a regulated credit agreement between the defendant and Barclays Bank plc T/A Barclaycard and under reference (card number) and assigned to the claimant on 25 April 2008. The defendant has failed to make payment in accordance with the terms of the agreement and a default notice has been served upon the defendant pursuant to section 87(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. The claimant claims the sum of 2133.01. I'd be really grateful for your thoughts on a defence.

Hi Slick and thanks for your reply. I've tried to upload the agreement from photo bucket but not sure if this has worked. I sent the letter but have not had an acknowledgement or reply from Cohens. I need to get my defence in by the end of this week so am really desperate for some help. There are charges of about £150 and the amount they're claiming is £2288 which includes a court fee and solicitors costs. The POC are woeful and just quote a card number with no dates or agreement number.

On 23 April 2007 I sent a CCA request to Barclaycard. On 7 December they supplied me with a general copy of terms and conditions and a largely illegible copy of an application form. The form has my signature on it but all the other information is typed (which I could not have done) and undated.b Despite the fact that I have pointed out that this is unacceptable to Mercers, power2contact and now CL Finance, I've received a claim form from Howard Cohen. CL finance say that the debt was assigned to them on 29 April. I've acknowledged the claim and said that I intend to defend the entire claim.Having looked at other threads this seems to be the best response. Could someone have a look at this please and see if it's ok? REQUEST FOR INFORMATION UNDER THE CIVIL PROCEDURE RULES. I have received the Court claim filed by your Company. To enable me to file a defence and counter-claim, I require specific information regarding the account to be provided forthwith. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below. The information must be furnished by 9 June 2008 which gives you ten days to provide what has been requested. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought. 1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement (not an application form) and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened. 2. All records you hold concerning me relevant to this case, including but not limited to: a. A transcript of all transactions, including charges, fees, interest, repayments and payments and both the original amount of the loan and any repayments made to it the account. b. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations c. Where there has been any event in the account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to the account formerly held with Barclaycard. d. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold. e. Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable). f. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers. g. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied. h. A genuine copy of any deed of assignment, or proof that you have a legal right to this money. i. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998 j. A list of third party agencies to which you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed. 3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court. 4. A copy of your complaints procedure, as required by the Consumer Credit Act 2006. 5. Clarification of the date you acquired the debt, what organisation you acquired it from, their registered office, their company number (if any) and what legal title they had to this debt, and what credit license number they had at the time that the debt was purchased or entered into. I will require this information within the next ten days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim. I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter and await your prompt response.

I can't believe that davethorp's petition to stop the pointless credit checks by employers only got 13 signatures. Wake up CAGers, this is a big issue, people are being denied jobs and losing them because of often inaccurate information held by CRAs who as we all know are owned by DCAs and have their own agenda. The CRAs are unregulated and their decision to keep information for 6 years has no legal basis. These so called 'records' should only be accessed by those seeking to grant credit not by any company who chooses to do so. The concept that anyone who has a poor credit history is dishonest is atrocious and discriminatory. People who have committed crimes are allowed to be rehabilitated and the crimes are not held against them, but miss a credit card payment and you're stuffed! WE're sleepwalking into letting CRAs rule our lives. Lets get together and change this as we've changed the banking world. I suggest that we get the Human Rights angle on this and the support of some MPs.

I'm just about to start reclaiming about £1100 of charges back from Kensington now that we've redeemed the mortgage. I'm probably thick but I can't find a spreadsheet on the site that will calculate the contractual (compound) interest that they've charged as the penalties were added to the capital. Any clues please?

We owe £37k to HMRC because of a failed company. They wound up the company and now the liquidator is threatening bankruptcy. We also have about £70k worth of debts that are not being pursued because they're being written off or in dispute because of unlawful charges or failure to produce a CCA. We don't have much equity in our house but have an investment property that we could sell to cover the debt to HMRC. We are being advised to take out an IVA by an IP but I really don't think it's the right thing to do. My husband is a contractor and although he earns good money it's unpredictable and I don't want to be involved in a failed IVA. The IP says that the liqidator would be afraid of taking the profit from the property in case he had to pay it back under the Insolvency laws because all the creditors should have had a share. We're also both in really sensitive jobs that would be at risk if we had an IVA. Please help anyone, I'm losing sleep and really need some unbiased guidance.

First of all welcome to the site, you've come to the right place for help and don't worry we're all here to help you. Secondly, never talk to these people, they will bully and intimidate you into paying more than you can afford and then never leave you alone. You have to find out if they have the legal right to collect this debt so you need to write and ask them for a copy of the properly executed credit agreement. I'll try and find a link to a sample letter for you. Send the letter by recorded delivery. By doing this you officially put the debt into dispute and Link cannot pursue payment. They have 12 working days to respond and after a further month they have technically committed an offence under the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Even if they come up with the right documents, and you must check this out on the site, they cannot force you into paying more than you can afford, they have no legal powers whatsoever. You'll soon learn to treat these organisations with the contempt they deserve.

Just had a closer look and this agreement is not regulated by the CCA 1974. That's probably because it's made in my business name. Have I any rights or can this company do what they like?

I have a hire purchase agreement that I've been paying for 15 months (it's a 36 month agreement). I'm 3 weeks late with a payment because my agency was late paying me. I've told them that I'll catch up next month with two payments. They've now said that they are terminating the agreement because my payment history has been unsatisfactory and want to collect the car. I'm really worried, can anyone out there advise me please?

Can anyone help please, I'm so worried. Our company was liqidated last year by VAT who had refused all repayment plans. Our daughter was very ill and we just got behind with things. The liquidator is now asking us to repay our overdrawn directors loan account of £35,000. My husband says there were expenses that he never bothered to claim for in the accounts and wants them adjusted. The liquidator is pushing us constantly for repayment and threatening bankruptcy all the time.They are refusing to give us time to sort all this out. Can anyone help please, I'm desperate.

Thanks pt and scarlet for making sense of the law and for the draft letter. I'll get that off to them this weekend.

Sorry this is a long one but I'm at my wits' end with Next. I asked them for a CCA in April, they haven't produced anything but have passed the debt on to a series of DCAs. It's now back with them and in response to my Section 10 notice they have enclosed a reconstructed, unsigned copy of an agreement and replied as follows; 'Further to your request, please find a true copy of the credit agreement. We are satisfied that this meets with our obligations under sec 78 of the CCA 1974. The correct interpretation as to 'copy' requires reference to sec 189(for the definition of copy) and secondly to section 180 relating to the Consumer Credit(Cancellation Notices and Copies of Documents) Regulations 1983. Looking at sec 3(1) of the Regulations it is clear that '..every copy of an executed agreement...shall be a true copy thereof..'. Section 3(2) confirms that a 'true copy' need not include the items listed at sub-sections (a) to (d), as applicable. Of particular relevance are subsections (a) and (b). These two sections confirm that (i) non-statutory information included for the creditor's own benefit and (ii) signature boxes need not be included in the true copy. Based on this analysis, it is accepted as a matter of good law that a 'copy' for the purposes of sec 78 need not be an exact copy or a photocopy, as long as the true copy provided contains every material provision of the agreement signed.' In the light of this .... Next will continue to seek payment. A default entry will therefore be made on the credit reference file which may effect your ability to obtain credit in the future' I'm fairly sure that this is all spherical objects but I really don't know where to start with a reply. Incidentally, no part of the alleged 'agreement' contains permission to process my data! I'd really appreciate some help from some legal eagles out there.

Black Horse got a CCJ against me when I was distracted with family problems. It was for £50 a month and as I got into arrears they issued a warrant of execution. I paid BH all the arrears and they faxed the court to tell them that the warrant had been satisfied. The court ignored the fax and a court bailiff called when only my (grown up) daughter was at home. He told her that he wanted to speak to me about a matter involving Black Horse. My daughter was obviously upset and worried by this. There was obviously a mistake in that they shouldn't have called anyway but surely they made it worse by breaching confidentiality. I've complained to the bailiff manager and asked for a copy of their code of conduct on complaints. Has anyone got any further thoughts on this?

As a mother I recognise Donkey's comments as toddler-like attention seeking behaviour. Just shouting 'It's not fair' is not reasoned debate. Ignore him and he'll grow up. Might even get a proper job one day.

I paid 3 CCJs in full recently. They were default judgements and I'm wondering if, with the creditors' consent I can ask the court to set them aside. There could be quite a lot of unlawful charges involved but I haven't SAR'd them yet. The cunning plan was to get them to consent to the removal of the CCJs without pi***ng them off and then reclaim charges. If I could apply for set aside, what legitimate reason could I give the court?

I asked IF for a true copy of the default notice that they issued and it looks as if they've just printed off another one and changed the dates to look like it was issued in 2006. Can I challenge this?

You are calculating your repayments on the debt with the original creditor; don't forget that these DCAs buy them for peanuts, around 10% at most. That's where they make their money!

Moorcroft have sent me the T & Cs of my agreement but they are completely illegible. I know I can write back and say that they have not complied with the CCA request but I know I've seen somewhere that there's some official wording about legibility. Can anyone help please?