i have had dealings with bcw in the past and they are a bunch of bullies! The best thing is to refuse to speak to them on the phone and just write to them explaining that your case is on hold, if you can afford to make a nominal payment of say, £10 per month that should keep them off your backs, you may need to be seen to be paying something as obviously your overdraft is not covered by your charges claim. Hope this helps - they also threatened me with a house visit but as they are based in Glasgow I thought this would be highly unlikely and ignored them - they never turned up! Good luck and keep posting if you have any more problems.

Hi nackered - do you have the details of the Order dated 8th August from the court at all? If you could post them on here (without your personal details) someone should be able to help you!

I totally agree with you Lula! Hopefully someone with a bit of legal knowledge on here will be able to work on this and prepare an argument in case they do try this. My only worry is that the Judge did not comment when the Barrister mentioned this.

This is a link to a case that the Judge referred to when considering my request to stop Abbey from enforcing payment of my overdraft until after the test case Attached FilesCarlislevClydesdale.PDF (279.4 KB, 19 views)

Lisa, I was in court on Thursday to try to get my stay lifted. Unfortunately I did not succeed (no surprise there!) However, I am in the same situation as you as in I have an overdraft of £1400 which they have cancelled on 1st Oct and said that if I do not clear it, charges and interest would continue to accrue. I mentioned this to the Judge and said that I was worried that Abbey would begin to threaten me with a default and send information to the credit reference agencies if I did not pay this off. He said that as Abbey had applied for a stay until the outcome of the test case, he would look very unfavourably upon them if they tried to enforce this debt and that if I received any communication from them demanding payment or threatening action, I can use this as evidence and he would then lift the stay and force Abbey into court. He said the account was clearly in dispute as the amount I am claiming is much more than the overdraft as in your case. If I were you I would take Hellhasnofury's advice and get a letter sent to them asap and if you do receive anything, contact the court.

Hi Lula, I agree that it's not at all fair that Abbey can amend their defence to suit them if it seems that they have made a mistake. However, I do think they are worried about this as this was the Barrister's main concern before we went in, he said that I had mentioned the breach of contract in my letter to the judge and he seemed very nervous about this and seemed to be trying to put me off arguing this point. When we first got in there, the Judge said that what made my case stand out from others was that I had mentioned the breach of contract in my letter so this is definitely a sticking point. However, on the down side, when the Barrister said to the Judge that if he lifted the part of the stay that related to the breach of contract, Abbey would probably apply to amend their defence the Judge seemed to accept this and certainly didn't make any comment about this being unlikely to succeed.

Hi CF! Yes I have already sent two letters to Abbey registering the account as being in dispute each time they sent me a letter regarding my overdraft. It was rather funny when the Judge was telling the Barrister to make it perfectly clear to Abbey that he would not be best pleased if they tried to enforce payment of the overdraft he then went on to say that even if the Barrister did pass the message on, the left hand didn't seem to know what the right hand was doing at Abbey and that it was fairly likely they would still send an enforcement letter to me but that at least I would know what to do with it when it arrived:shock: - he is obviously getting to know Abbey almost as well as we do!!

Thanks for that Jo! Yes I know what you mean, the Barrister mentioned that to me before we went in and I just said it would be for the judge to decide whether to actually allow them to amend their defence and that I considered that to be very underhand and typical of abbey's tactics. He even mentioned it again in front of the Judge when he was giving his reasons why the stay should remain in place, I felt like asking whether I would be able to change my claim whenever I liked too but didn't have the nerve. It just seems as though the Judicial system will let the banks do whatever they like whereas we are made to toe the line at all times.

Well, I am back from court. As expected I didn't manage to get the stay lifted. Both the Barrister and the Judge were very friendly and informal. The Barrister approached me as I was waiting to go in and gave me a copy of an order made by a civil judge, Judge Mitchell in the Canterbury court in which he refused to lift stays on several cases being heard at the same time and giving details reasons for doing so. He mentioned the fact that I had, in my letter to the Court noted that Abbey had admitted the charges were imposed due to a breach of contract and that this meant that my case did not fall entirely in the remit of the OFT test case and could be heard according to principles of common law. He admitted that Abbey had made an error here and that they had now changed their terms and conditions accordingly and drawn up a new defence for recent cases. I said I was well aware of this and that I felt these were underhand tactics. I said that the charges were imposed on my account under the old terms and conditions and I still had the proof in Abbey's defence. His opinion was that the terms and conditions did form part of the OFT test case and therefore could not be heard separately and therefore the stay should remain. At this point I said I thought we should leave it to the Judge to decide and we were then called in. The Judge seemed very friendly and sympathetic towards me. I did not feel at all intimidated. He went through the main points of my letter and then asked me if there was anything I wished to say. I had prepared my argument and asked if it was okay to read from my prepared sheet as it was a very brief outline of the main points of my argument. I was given plenty of time to read this and to provide each of them with the copies of the documents to back up my argument and the Judge listened and commented accordingly as I went along. When I had finished he told me that although I had prepared a very good argument which was clearly set out, he had his hands tied somewhat as precedents had been set in higher courts where in similar cases to mine, stays have not been lifted. He commented about psm's case in Woolwich that although that particular judge had decided to lift part of the stay, no precedent had been set and that each judge had to make their own decisions based on information they had and how they interpreted cases in civil and high courts which did set precedents. In my case he could not see any benefit in just carrying on with the breach of contract part and the barrister commented that if the judge did do this, Abbey would most likely apply to amend their defence and remove any reference to a breach of contract anyway. The judge said it would be in everyone's best interests to keep the stay in place and see what happened in the test case so that there would be a definitive answer as to whether the charges are lawful or not. He did mention here "if indeed it does go ahead at all" as he said he had read news reports that the parties were trying to reach some sort of compromise! I said that I had heard that too and asked what would happen if this were the case and he said that the stay would then be lifted and my claim would be reinstated. I had got the copy of the BBC News website story about the OFT case and he asked to read it and said that it was the same story he had read. I commented that it was very frustrating that the facts surrounding the test case seem to be hidden from members of the public such as myself and that all we had to go on were news reports and letters from the banks themselves and that it was hard to decide what the truth actually was with so many different stories going round and he agreed. He said this was why in his opinion the test case, if it did go ahead would be a good thing as it would end the uncertainty. I went on to mention the fact that Abbey had just cancelled my overdraft facility and that there was a sum owing to them. They recently wrote to me asking me to pay this off to prevent further charges and interest being added to the account. I asked the judge, if he could not lift the stay, whether he would be willing to impose conditions which would prevent the Bank from applying these charges and interest as I felt it was not fair that they could continue applying them if they had requested and been granted a stay. Here, there was some good news! He said that a precedent had been set in the high court that Judges did not have the power to prevent banks from applying charges or interest but he went on to say that if the OFT win the test case, these charges would not apply anyway. I commented that as the test case was likely to drag on for a couple of years, this could amount to a great deal of charges and interest and that I expected the Bank would at some point start demanding repayment and threatening defaults and reporting me to cra's. He said that if this was the case, he would not be impressed as the account is in dispute until the test case is settled and if I did receive such letters, I could use them to apply to get the stay lifted and he would not stand in my way in those circumstances as he believes the stay should apply to both sides. He said "do I make myself clear?" to the Barrister and asked the Barrister to pass that information onto Abbey when submitting his case notes. So on the whole I think this was a fairly good result, the abbey can add charges and interest if they wish but they cannot try to force me to repay the overdraft or I can have the stay lifted. Glad it is over now for a while, I'm going to crack open a nice bottle of wine when the kids are in bed!! Thanks so much for all the support and help I couldn't have done it without you

Thanks so much for your help psm and chelseaboy! I really hope the Judge will stop Abbey from adding any more charges etc to my overdraft, that is my main worry really as if it takes a while for the OFT to settle the test case (if it even goes ahead at all!) they could add hundreds of pounds of charges and interest and I am determined not to pay them a penny more than they have taken already. BTW does anyone know if the Abbey usually send someone along to represent them at these hearing to lift a stay or is it likely to be just me and the Judge?

I am in court tomorrow to apply to have the stay lifted in my case. I have only been allocated 15 minutes so I am aiming to be very brief and to the point. I have prepared a bullet pointed list of my main arguments against the stay and have done copies of documents backing up each part of my argument. I have stuck to the main points covered in my letter complaining about the stay. I don't really expect the stay to be lifted, part of my argument is psm's case where the judge lifted part of the stay so I will concentrate on that. Also I am arguing that it is unfair that the Abbey can continue to add charges and interest to my account while I am prevented from challenging them due to the test case and am asking the judge to consider amending the terms of the stay to prevent Abbey from charging me for being overdrawn as they cancelled my overdraft on 1st Oct. I am sure I have read someone else did something similar but can't find it so can anyone help with this - is this worth even trying!?!

To be honest I haven't really done anything yet - have got an exam coming up which I am busy revising for. I am taking psm's advice and concentrating on the issues I brought up in my letter to the judge, I am pretty confident that I understand the arguments I am using, I just need to have a good read through and prepare copies of everything I am going to use. I have only been allocated 15 mins so I am not preparing a long speech or anything - short, sharp and to the point! I don't expect the stay will be lifted anyway, I'm not suffering financial hardship or anything. One thing I am hoping to get the Judge to agree to is to prevent Abbey from adding any more interest or charges to my overdraft which is being cancelled in October and to prevent them from putting adverse comments on my credit files until after OFT case is settled. Thanks for asking CF

Thanks for taking the time to post in my thread psm - Just noticed the time of your post do you ever sleep!! Great advice (as always) I did have the breach of contract defence so will be using that on 4th Oct and have copied the Order you have received. Have been studying the CPR rules 3.9 and 3.9 too and hoping to use these also as Abbey did not submit a bundle or reply to my lba etc. I doubt they applied for a stay in the proper manner either, thanks again, your thread is a mine of useful information and I really want to wish you all the best with your claim Lisa

Thanks for that CF! Glad you're still around - haven't "seen" you for a while;) Yes, I have been scouring threads for the last 3 hours and have been busy copying and pasting loads of info that I've found so far and will continue to do so. So much information on here, my head is spinning already, I will plod on and prepare as well as I can for 4th Oct.

Hi all! - Have a bit of an update on my claim at long last. As I mentioned above, when I received the letter from Court informing me that my case was stayed, I sent back a long letter saying how disappointed I was to have a stay at this late stage and setting out my reasons for disagreeing with the stay. I also sent further documents which I was going to add to my bundle following the updated version on this website with the more detailed witness statement etc. I have today received the following order from the Court:- Upon the Claimant objecting to the order dated 28th August 2007 Ex-parte IT IS ORDERED THAT 1. The Claimant's letter dated 28 August 2007 be treated as an application to lift the stay which is listed for consideration on 4 October 2007 @ 2pm with a time estimate of 15 minutes. Dated 05 September 2007 What does anyone think about this? When I phoned the Court this afternoon, they said it would be in my interests to attend and that I should take any documentation I feel would help me argue my case. Does the fact that the Judge has listed this for consideration mean that there is a good chance he will lift the stay or do you think they are just going through the motions and there is not much chance of success. Has anyone else attended something like this and managed to have the stay lifted. Any idea of what I should take with me apart from my original bundle? Sorry for all the questions but if there is any chance at all of getting this stay lifted I don't want to blow it now! Many thanks:)