As you say, it's a win. I have to be happy with it as the alternative was to go before the judge to argue limitation and their side held a few aces. I considered the options carefully before accepting the revised offer. Love the phrase 'sticking with it' after I mentioned treacle

Thanks Andy Bear in mind this thread has been used for two cases. Bank charges were reclaimed in 2006 - I have a feeling they were going to throw that in the pot, to show that I was aware back then I'll never know now. This was a credit card, and I was quite surprised when I looked at the SAR to see charges. I don't think I was aware at the time as I was in a financial nightmare after losing my job. Their rep did point out a couple of late payment fees prior to that time though - who knows. I had a feeling I was walking in treacle though.

And.... The hearing was this morning. Been to court and spent a good couple of hours in and out of the judge's chambers, talking to the legal rep that turned up for their side. Not quite sure of her status, paralegal, solicitor, trainee - wasn't mentioned. In a nutshell, had a chat before, didn't come to an agreement, went in to see judge, warned of dangers of losing, asked to try talking again. Back out, their rep called the main office, their offer was increased and having considered my options I took it. I'm claiming it as a WIN - £538.78, to be paid within 14 days. Case settled by consent. In more detail. They sent their bundle, I got it last Saturday. Spent most of my weekend going over it, sorting mine out, printing it off, getting it to court Sunday night. Sent defendant a copy first class signed for on Monday, they got it yesterday and their rep had a copy with her. They were contesting the limitation, saying it was more than 6 years. They were using copy statements to show that I had been made aware at the time and that I had contested them previously in a dispute with the credit card office. Based on percentage of getting a win I decided not to go down that route as I would probably have lost, I think the judge was more than fair in tipping me a wink in that respect. But, they had made an offer of goodwill to refund the difference between £25 and £12 for charges made before the OFT guidance of April 2006. Nothing else on the table apart from that, their offer was £253.78, to include 8% interest. I spoke to their rep and more or less said no, I would go in and make my case to the judge and hope for the full amount being awarded (which was a little over £2,000). She called Lloyds and they came back with a revised offer, the £253.78 plus my court costs of £285.00. hence the figure of £538.78. Bearing in mind all that had been said I don't think I would have done better than that. I have to be reasonably happy with the outcome. I did make the point that I had written back in February to try and set the ball rolling on mediation but they never replied or contacted the mediation service. CAG donation to come when they pay up ;-)

Court Day...

Update: The mediation service tell me that they are no longer able to consider this case as the court date is May 13th and the defendants don't seem to have contacted them, despite a judge directing that they do so three months ago ! I got the letter on Saturday, at the same time as a bundle from the defendants solicitors. Strange that they've delayed responding to anything - until now. Looks like I get my day in court. My own bundle is just printing off, after spending most of the weekend putting it together and double checking everything. I can pop down to the court and drop it in their letterbox tonight, so they will get it at the same time as the defendants. I'll have to post their copy first class/signed for on Monday. They should get it before Wednesday. They already say that the solicitor who prepared the bundle will not be attending. They do not indicate if a local bod will be asked. I like it better when a local bod turns up and tells the judge they are not familiar with the case as they only had sight that morning In short: They obviously object to my claim, suggesting it is time barred. I've quoted Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln City Council (1998) of course. They say that they are not penalty charges and quote the OFT guide in a way that implies that £12 is the agreed charge rate. I've set that straight with a few quotes of my own from that guide. They say, as a gesture of goodwill, that they would offer the balance of the charges less £12 plus 8%, I've quoted Sempra Metals v Inland Revenue Commissioners (2007) in reply to that. If the judge agrees with them and rules in their favour then I've lost. If he accepts their gesture of goodwill as they state it then I just about cover my court fees. On a brighter note, he may allow the court costs on top of that. If he/she agrees with me and says the entire amount is payable I'll be very happy. I've also calculated the amount of the fees above £12 and interest, or the difference between £12 and the fees charged plus interest, in case he/she makes a lower award. Obviously at the rate of interest charged on the card, not 8%, as I've already used the Sempra Metals case in that respect. I've refrained from mentioning other cases we've already taken through the courts, and won. ;-) Roll on Wednesday

There was no judgment made, so no legal fees were discussed. Certainly not by a judge. It was when we dropped the case and their solicitor suggested he would pass his fees on to be added to our account. No figure has been mentioned, we've not been told if they did or not... Yeah, it sounds dodgy to me too That was a year and a half ago now, we've not had any info out of them in that time.

Sick of complaining about these idiots. They never seem to resolve anything. Doing a SAR will show what the current state of account is and if they have added anything. Then we start escalating it further. My main concern is if they did add anything in relation to legal fees for the court case. They've had no agreement from us to do so, or to charge interest etc on that. If they've not added anything then OK, we will find out where we stand on the account now, and have some hope it will be paid off soon. As for statements, quite happy to make a formal complaint as long as I know what ground I'm standing on. At present I've no idea if they have a legal obligation to provide them, or not ? AH - will this do ? http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/glos/con1item.cgi?file=*adv0011-1011.txt

We did a SAR about 3 years ago when we first had problems paying, looking then at the CCA and how it applied the the loan as we thought the agreement was invalid. Still do, but can't afford to go through court on that score. We have a couple of copies of the agreement somewhere. An original and a copy they sent once. We've never had a statement other than ones we've asked for. I thought they had to provide one each year as well, but they don't.

Logical thinking, agreed. Unsure if they are supposed to give a statement of account automatically though as we've never had one on this account. We should not have to be shelling out for a SAR to find out where we stand, especially with the amount of cash they take off us each month ! Will send a SAR this week, it's a pension day on Friday

Over a year has gone by since my last post about this naff company and the way they do business. I've not heard anything back from the FOS in the last year either. We've had another run-in with them late last year when my pension was not paid into the bank in time to meet the payment due to Paragon so I called them an arranged to pay the bulk of the payment straight away and the remaining £50 the week after. They agreed and sent me a letter to confirm this. I also got a letter a few days later to show that we had agreed to pay our regular amount as of the month after. I objected to this was we had rounded the figure up ourselves to the next £10 above and they had taken this as being the actual amount - wrong. No sooner had I got that sorted than I got nasty calls from their litigation lot, claiming that I had broken the agreement and they were instigating repossession !!! They were not interested in the letters I had that agreed with the proposal I had made, so I wrote to the company as a complaint. I also pointed out that I had previously told them not to telephone, I wanted everything in writing and that their litigation department had broken this agreement. Happily they upheld my complaint and things have died down. We've kept to the payments, despite our own concerns about needing the central heating on due to my illness. It seems that their repossession order is a trump card and there is no point going back to the court to say we cannot afford the payments as that's the very reason we were taken to court anyway. A court would have no option but to uphold the repossession if we are unable to meet the repayments. Now on to my current concerns. This seems quite serious and I need some input please. Since the court case was started in early 2014 we've not had any statement of account for this loan unless we've demanded a full summary, like we needed for the court case. We are paying over £6,000 a year. Yes, it's under threat of a possession order but that is no reason for them to be so ignorant of us. I was given to understand that all companies should issue at least an annual statement? We have never had one of those from them since the loan started in 2006. We have no idea if the solicitors fees were added to the account following the court case. We have had no communication from anyone about that. We have not agreed that they can do it anyway, it is an addition to the loan that must require some sort of signed agreement ? Additional borrowing or whatever. They can't just slap on an undefined about, and charge interest on it. As I say, we've not had any sort of statement from them to know what our current situation is. I have waited and waited to see what they would do about this and consider that they have had ample time in which to advise us of any amount being added to the account, even without our signed agreement. In a way I've let them have enough rope... Should I ask for a full statement, and perhaps query why they don't send an annual one? If we then see that they've added anything on, can we challenge that ? I was quite happy to pay off what we owed, and could have been debt free in the next year or two if it came down as anticipated. I was aware there could be some extra interest due to a couple of times we missed payments in the past. We missed a few more but borrowed money to pay it up to date to get it out of court the first time they tried repossession in 2013. Back then we had a PPI claim going through, already detailed in this thread, from which we paid the money back to the family member we had borrowed from. That isn't the cause of my concern. It's 1) why we never get a statement of account and 2) what to do if they have slapped extra on the account. Comments welcome

Have PPL ever taken anyone to court I wonder ? I'm looking at this from a different angle. I used to be a community radio station manager and was miffed with the amount of money we had to pay PRS and PPL when our station only made a few hundred pounds a year. After I left my station I discovered that a certain radio station was playing unlicensed music, their people bringing in CD-R's they had downloaded, plus one guy even putting out on air an apology for bad language as he had played a song direct from a video streaming service. Being the nice guy I am, I wrote to PRS and PPL to tell them. Neither company bothered following up my affidavit and information. As such I now have total disregard for both organisations on the grounds that they are taking money but not enforcing the licenses they grant. I'm not talking about unlicensed or grey areas, this was a fully licensed operation who broke the rules. If I were running a business I would happily have music playing and tell PRS and PPL to go away. They only seem interested in taking money and doing nothing for it. (in my personal opinion, of course)

OOOh, can I claim royalties on coming up with that interpretation, I'm sure others will now use it to describe this wonderful company What else can I do at this stage though. Fiddle-It have said they dismiss the complaint made via Trading Standards, yet didn't take into account a follow-up I sent that explained the situation fully. Referring it to the FOS will force them to come up with a better answer, if they have one, or get a finger wagging. I'm unsure at this stage what legal action I could take.

Cheers for all that. We will see what they say to her letter. She has said In response to your letter dated 2 May 2015, I would like to provide you with further information before I take this complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I moved from xxxxxx to my current address in September 2007 and therefore I never received correspondence from you informing me you had identified problems with the Payment Protection Plan sales process. I had a one year redirection of mail with Royal Mail but your letter was sent after this time. The final loan was paid off in September 2007 therefore I did not feel it necessary to contact you with my new address as I no longer had an account with you. Obviously if I had received your letter in January 2009 I would have followed it up. I would now like the opportunity to do so. That's all she needed to say really.

I have not seen the letter itself, just what my sister quoted to me earlier. She wrote to me '3 years from the letter i supposedly received in January 2009'. I can get the letter later, she does not have a scanner. For now she's sent the letter telling them where they've gone wrong

That's what I thought - but I don't know on what grounds, why that is so ?

My sister had loans with Alliance and Leicester back in the 2000's. They were all paid off in 2007, following which she moved house. A few weeks ago she sent the FOS questionnaire off after finding her old paperwork in a box she'd only just got round to unpacking I had been telling her about claiming PPI and to do it herself, not to use a company who would take a big cut. I worked it out to about £2,000 on the one loan I had details of, but there had been three prior to that, rolling on, one paying off the other. The final total should be much more. she's had a letter to say 'go away'. Santander now control those accounts and have claimed that they sent her two letters in 2009 to suggest that they "...had identified problems with the sales of some PPI products and may be entitled to a refund...", and asking her to contact them. However, she never got those letters as she had moved two years prior and had only had one year postal redirection. They now say that her claim is 'time barred' as it is more than 3 years since they wrote to her. I wasn't aware that PPI claims could be time barred ? They are also trying to say that she would only be able to claim if the loan was taken out in the last 6 years, which was not the case. Time barred? Really ? I keep seeing messages to say that PPI cannot be time barred, but don't know on what grounds. Obviously, she's written back to advise that she never had the letters and why, making their argument invalid I would think.

Oh bother, as they say on the telly when they mean something much stronger This one had not yet been started on a court claim as I was advised some time ago to not have more than one case at once active in the court system in case things got messy and I was needed in court for another case, perhaps preventing me from dealing with something urgent on another. So I've had a claim against Halifax PLC running for some time and it's due in court shortly after they've stalled for months. In the meantime, I read on the BBC news website today that Carcraft are now closing down. I take it that means the holding company and everything. Does that mean there's no point in starting a claim in court ? I had every intention of this being the next claim to be started, it's been put off due to the other case still being active, which is an annoyance. This was for PPI, taken out via their own 'UK Car Group Limited' and not a regular insurance company. I had intended following up a successful claim with a further claim for the unwanted warranty they slapped on that we knew little about until we did the SAR many years later.

I realise the FOS will take forever and a day to come back with a decision. I've said in the paperwork that my requirements are that they make a full apology and offer suitable compensation for the distress I suffered, failing which the name and address of the agent so I can commence court proceedings. I disliked DCA's before all of this took place. Now I'm determined that the idiot who called will pay for his actions, one way or another. They have zero powers, no rights. Scotcall, Resolvecall and other names they've used have now changed to "fidélité credit management limited" - so that is how they pronounce 'fiddle it' in Scotland then ?

Complaint form compiled and sent to FOS with a full statement and supporting documentation. I've been ill again at the very thought of all this. Stress and anguish bring on bad things for me.

A brown envelope from Concentrix, advising that they are returning our original documents - they're returned my letter of complaint, but not said anything about it... It was obvious that this was not something that needed to be returned, unless it's their way of saying they are ignoring it ! All being logged and will eventually be added to a complaint to HMRC about these numpties.

Had some post this morning. Two letters from HMRC. Both are the standard end of year notifications of their calculations, no mention of Concentrix or the suspension. The letters details then payments they've just made, a catch up on 2014-15 and a small payment for 2015-16 with notification of when the next will be made and what the ongoing amounts will be. We are back on track with them, but no wiser about the mandatory reconsideration process that must have taken place. As and when we get that, or if nothing arrives in the next week or so, I'll be sending in a complaint as their actions caused us some big problems, mainly in not being able to pay bills as we had to put credit on our pre-pay energy meters or be without heating etc. They seem to have no consideration of how we are affected when they pull stunts like this. I object to a third party processing my information like this as well. Yet again it is proving that this sort of thing is not working properly.

They replied by email to say they sent their decision to my local TS in March and have not upheld the complaint. This is wrong on several counts. They claim that they sent letters to the person they wished to contact, advising that a visit may take place :- As I am not that person I was unaware of this They claim that it was not a cold call as they were working on behalf of a client who has a legitimate interest with the person they wanted to speak to. :- But that is not me, so I WAS cold called. They claim that I failed to advise them is the person they wanted to speak to lived at this address. :- As it was a total stranger I was not prepared to discuss anything with him about another persons whereabouts. It was clear from the moment I opened the door that i was not the person they wanted to speak to. I'm male, they say they want a female. Why do they think they are exempt from the 'no cold caller' sign on my door? I don't see that they are. It is quite clear - 'no appointment? Don't bother to knock' and is issued by the local Police. Having been told to 'go away' why did the muppet continue to rant on ? I made it clear I wanted him to go and he could see that he was getting me angry. Thank you for the CONC links, I will read and digest before sending my complaint to the FOS. I would love to know how to take up a private prosecution too.

No letters as yet, but wife tells me she's had a couple of payments into her account today... Looks like we got through to someone.

FCA site just refers to the FOS...

possibly. Will look into that.