Northern Soul Vs Robertson Holbrook

[Northern Soul]

Looking for some advice here. I "appointed" a company called Robertson Holbrook to act on my behalf to reclaim bank charges for a personal bank account, business account and one credit card. This was in March 2007.

 

At the time I was a combination of too busy and naive, so I assumed that they would just do it, get my money bank and that would be that.

 

The service they advertised was that they would reclaim 100% of the charges and the interest that I would have recieved, keeping the interest as their fee.

 

I didn't think anything of it that I hadn't heard anything while the test case was going on. But, I didn't get any updates at all from them unless I pestered them and every time I rang they said something like "we're waiting on statements" and I did feel like I was getting the cold shoulder.

 

Only recently I recieved a letter from Abbey Business with a full and final offer of 75% of my business bank charges. I was happy to take it though and accepted it, just waiting for the cheque now. I didn't accept it until I had confirmed to Robertson Holbrook that I considered our contract to be nul and void as their desire to pursue business bank charges through the courts at this point in time was not acting in my best interests.

 

I contacted Abbey and Abbey Business today and they both confirmed that they haven't any record of any correspondence from Robertson Holbrook against either account

 

I don't doubt that Robertson Holbrook must have done something, however they won't tell me what they have done when I pressed them, they confirmed they didn't have my statements and didn't know what amounts to claim.

 

What worries me is that they have asked for (verbally) 15% of my settlement from Abbey business saying that it "compares favourably to the market rate". I told them I wouldn't pay a fee that was disproportionate to their actual costs and that I felt that their lack of care etc. meant that I considered our contract terminated.

 

Am I right? And is it even likely that they will pursue me for this fee? Especially given that they don't even know how much my bank charges are!

 

Also, would it be worth writing to Abbey/Abbey Business to just confirm that this company are NOT authorised to work on my behalf?

[poppynurse]

I can't see Abbey offering 75% refund without being asked to??? Have you communicated with them? Without statements etc and knowing exactly what Abbey have charged you how do you know if this offer is really 75%. If Abbey are denying contact from RH how do they know you want a refund????

[Northern Soul]

This is what I'm tryong to establish, I have all my statements for my business account so I know how much was owed anyway, their offer does amount to 75% of the total charges.

 

My thoughts are that RH perhaps send their own "demand for payment" letters to a specific department within Abbey and that is all that they do. However RH won't tell me what they do, they don't have any details from Abbey and Abbey are insistent that (against my two accounts at least) there has been no correspondence whatsoever from RH.

 

My main problem is that if RH haven't contacted them, then why should I be paying almost £200 for their "service". Also, if Abbey don't have a record of a bank charges complaint on my personal account, I'll have to start my own complaint soon and RH's negligence could have cost me dearly if I hadn't phoned to ask them.

 

So I need to know, does this sound like RH have breached the "contract " for negligence, lack of due care and attention,not acting within expected timescale, failure to advise of the FOS being a free-of-charge option instead etc. etc.

 

I haven't ever recieved any written confirmation of the terms either.

 

Also if there is a chance that they have lost my paperwork and that's why they haven't acted any more, RH didn't even know one account was a business account, if they had the forms I had sent them, they would know.

 

Is there a data protection issue here?

[zootscoot]

Hi NS,

 

It is possible that they went via the Ombudsman. I have heard of such claims companies doing this as it reduces their risks, workload and costs. They would probably have given the Ombudsman their address for any correspondence but Abbey would have your address for making offers. If so and they lead you to believe that they would be pursuing your claim through the court this could also be a breach of contract.