Nice one mate well done. Did you write them that letter before or after your AQ went in?

Recieved a letter from Abbey this morning. "Dear MarkyT" YOURSELF -V- CAHOOT CLAIM NO. 7 QZ 23915 We are in the process of reviewing this claim and preparing our response. A defence will be filed in due course. In the meantime, we note that you have claimed the sum of £2514.24 in respect of charges that you say have been made on your Choot account. However, you have not provided details as to how this sum has been calculated. Similarly, you have not provided details of the interest showing how that amount is made up with reference to each charge. As you will appreciate, you will need to produce evidence to the Court regarding these amounts, and this information should have been supplied by you when you filed your claim. We should be grateful if you would provide such details to us as soon as possible. It would also be helpful at this stage if you can provide e-mail and telephone contact details to us. We look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully Abbey National plc." Now, I sent 3 letters on 26th Febuary. One to the court - recorded delivery, one to cahoot - recorded delivery and one to Abbey - standard delivery. Each of these letters included my schedule of charges. The recorded items were signed for on the 28th. Should I send another schedule to abbey (recorded this time of course)? I also noticed that the letter has been hand signed but there is no name on it. The signature looks like a squiggle so I have no idea who sent it.

I had a subscription to Microsofts Live service which I cancelled at the beginning of the year. The debit card they have on file for me expired around the same time. I recieved an email a couple of weeks ago telling me that the debit card had expired and that I should update it to ensure continuous service. I ignored it thinking it must have been sent in error. I got another email this morning saying the same thing. I was going to call them this evening when I get home but I've just logged into my current account and see that they took £9 quid from my current account at the end of last month. I would reckon the £9 is 2x £4.50 Can they still take money from an account using an expired debit card? They certainly don't have any other financial details so I'm unsure as to how they could have taken the money - more to the point, should my bank have allowed the transaction to go through. Any Ideas?

:o and me. Like I said though in my first post - I'm no expert. EDIT: smileys not working properly?

I agree. This way you stay squeaky clean.

Hi there Joanne, I'm no expert, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't send them another LBA and then take them to court after the 14 days passes. I wasn't in a position to make my claim immediatly after the 14 days but i was after 4 weeks (obviously not as long as you though). If you send them another LBA then if it does go to court and they try to use this in their defence (which I doubt they would) you have at least sent them a fresh LBA. They could argue that they never recieved the first letter so I would send your new one recorded delivery and at least that way you know when they recieve it.

They have 28 days i think to file the defense. You should have recieved a letter from the court confirming your claim has been issued to the bank. On the back of that letter, it will explain the timescales.

Defendant acknowledge my claim on the 2nd March 2007. Only took them 3 days to acknowledge. That seems worryingly fast. Anyone have any idea if this is a good or a bad thing?

Claim now in. Reference number 7QZ23915

Brilliant. Thanks 121.

OK folks need help on this. I'm finally able to enter the MCOL today and am confused with something. The total of my charges is £2085. I have indicated on MCOL that I wish to claim interest totally £429.24. Do I add this to my claim ie the box in which you add the numbers or do I just enter the £2085 while detailing the interest in the text box in which I detail my claim? Please help cos I need to get this in asap. EDIT: Meant to ask as well, I've entered the defendants name as Cahoot and on the second line c/o Abbey National plc. Is this correct?

Sorry to hijack this thread for a minute but could I ask a quicky? On the spreadsheet I notice there are only 2 entries for Cahoot but quite a few more for Abbey. Can I use the examples of Abbey in my bundle or do I have to stick to Cahoot (I'm suing Cahoot). The last letter I recieved from the bank was from Abbey on Abbey headed paper but corresponding to a Cahoot account.

Not really ready to make the claim on Monday due to things happening at home over the last couple of weeks. Haven't had a chance to prepare anything yet. Probably will be what I spend all weekend on now.

Well well well, received a letter from Abbey yesterday. I thought a little odd as I bank with Cahoot. "Dear Mr MarkyT thank you for contacting us and I am sorry that you have been so unhappy that you have felt you must complain. One of my team will be responsible for investigating you complaint and I have enclosed out Complaints leaflet, which explains our procedure for doing this. High quality customer service is of great importance to us at Abbey and we will do everything we can to resolve your complaint in a timeley and satifactory manner. I know it is important to you that we resolve you complaint quickly, but we want to complete a thorough investigation and sometimes this can take time. If we have not contacted you before then, we will write to you in four weeks to let you know what is happening. If you have employed someone to handle you complaint on your behalf, please note: employing a third party complaint-handling firm, or a solicitor, or financial advisor does not affect how we review your complaint. Please be aware that: Abbey does not charge you to investigate your complaint Abbey will not be liable for any costs incurred if you do decide to employ a third party to handle your complaint during this review Abbey, in general, will only make payment directly to account holder(s) if your complaint is upheld and redress is due. Although I do not know what the outcome will be, I do hope that we will be able to find a solution that you are happy with. Yours sincerely Andrew Nelson Business Manager"

The first charge they applied was in March 2001 so it looks as if it'll be ok. I've been looking under the court bundle this morning and don't understand this one bit. How much of this stuff am I exected to learn and understand and how does it get used?

Yep, its a current account opened 6 years ago this very month. I'm in Tyne & Wear. What I do find rather amusing from the statements is how the cost of the charges seems to steadily rise from £20 for a returned DD to 35 at the moment. And now I noticed that in the last 2 months since I first sent them the SAR letter, they are now allowing DDs to go through if I'm over my overdraft. Normally, if I went a penny over, they would bounce it and hit me with a charge. This happened xmas 2005 when they charged me £175 right at the beggining of december and left me with the most miserable christmas ever.

thought that would be the way to go - LBA is in the post:-D

Ok, just recieved the standard go away email from cahoot: Dear xxxxxxx, We don't accept that cahoot's charges are unfair or unlawful under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The object of these Regulations was not price control nor were they intended to interfere with people's freedom to agree the terms of their contracts. It's well known that banks make charges and cahoot's charges are in line with those of other banks. The terms and conditions of the account and the charges that apply are clear and fair and were provided to you at the time you opened it. You freely agreed to the terms and conditions and the charges when you opened the account. You weren't under any obligation to do so and could have gone to another bank if you didn't agree to the charges. Equally, you're free to move your account to another bank at any time if you don't agree with the charges. In any event, we don't agree that the charges are disproportionate. The charges are reasonable and proportionate to the administrative costs incurred by cahoot. I'm therefore unable to refund the charges you've incurred fully appreciating the disappointment this may cause. Please be assured I have carried out a full investigation for you and I hope you feel I have offered a fair response to all of the issues you've raised. I will keep your file open for the next 8 weeks and if I don't hear from you within that time, I will assume that everything is resolved and will close your file. If you remain dissatisfied though you can find details of how to take your complaint further within Abbey at legal T&Ts under the heading 'Complaints policy'. The complaints policy also explains your ultimate right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This bit at the bottom in bold has me stumped a bit now. Do I continue with the letter before action (which I have sitting printed next to me waiting to go now) or do I have to take this up with abbey? Would the court see this in a bad light if I don't?

I too would have thought where they have "manual" next to a transaction it meant manual intervention was required but I fail to see how a returned DD could require that. Have they come back to you yet with an explanation?

Excellent news! Well done.

What happened Sharmal, did you recieve the cheque? Have you gone to court?

I recieved an email today from Cahoot to say that my complaint has been brought to the attention of their service relation managers. Now, do I give them 14 days from when they sent the letter or 14 days from when I sent it. I'm still a little confused about this.

Got all the charges worked out - £2085 which is about what I'd estimated in my head. Letter goes off to Cahoot this afternoon. I must say this is rather exciting.

Letter turned up today with 45 pages of statements and my £10 cheque returned. The ball is now rolling. I'll keep you all posted of my progress.

Well to be fair, my rate isn't doubling but is at about 9% so the rise is fairly steep. What about you clara? EDIT: Just logged in to double check - currently at 9.1% and I noticed that they put the email on my online banking message system TODAY. This gives me 24hours notice of the first increase. secure message from them as follows. "5 Dec 2006 type: customer message Your cahoot flexible loan interest rate. We have sent you an important email about your cahoot flexible loan account. Your flexible loan account interest rate has changed to 9.4% APR variable with effect from 6 December 2006 and 14.9% APR variable from 19 December 2006.Details of the change have been sent to xxxxx.xxxxx@xxxxx.CO.UK. If you did not receive a copy of this email, please email us through the 'contact us' section of your personal homepage. Please also check that your contact details are up to date in 'change my details' section above."