Militant Consumer's Friend v Egg Loans PPI - WON

[militantconsumer]

Egg have responded to our follow up letter:

 

[militantconsumer]

So it looks like this one is heading for the Financial Ombudsman now.

 

Surely we have a right to know if the PPI was mis-sold, not just be given a "gesture of goodwill"? How have the refunds been calculated? (they've ignored that question).

 

Surely we are entitled to 8% interest if the FOS finds that we were unlawfully deprived of the money? Or are we supposed to just accept that it is "not Egg's policy to refund" this?

 

Are they right about the offsetting of this money, or can we demand a cheque?

 

And what about the default being recorded with CRAs? They have ignored our argument that we would not have defaulted if it wasn't for the unlawfully added PPI premiums.

[militantconsumer]

In the meantime Collect Direct are carrying on regardless.

 

This template looks rather like a County Court Claim Form if you ask me.

 

And they are still chasing a higher amount without any PPI refunded.

 

[militantconsumer]

TO COLLECT DIRECT

 

Dear Sir or Madam

 

Thank you for your letters dated XX December 2009 and XX December 2009.

 

This Egg Loan account remains in dispute for two reasons, which I have already explained in a letter to your client.

 

The matter is also now with the Financial Ombudsman Service, who will be carrying out their own investigation.

 

In these circumstances, I am sure that you will agree that it is entirely inappropriate for a Debt Collection Agency such as Improved Financial Solution Limited to attempt to recover monies from an alleged debtor.

 

I will be making no payments to either you or Egg Banking, and I look forward to hearing that you have decided to close this account and return it to your client.

 

 

Yours faithfully

Edited December 29, 2009 by militantconsumer

[militantconsumer]

TO EGG

 

 

Dear Sir or Madam

 

ACCOUNT IN DISPUTE

 

I am writing to make you aware that I consider the above account to be IN DISPUTE for the following two reasons.

 

1. Payment Protection Insurance

As you have failed to fully address my complaint as detailed in my letter of XX November, I have referred this matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service for their investigation. I anticipate that they will soon ask you to provide some of the information that you have refused to supply to me.

 

2. Unenforceability of Agreement

The original agreement is a multiple agreement as defined by section 18 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. However, the prescribed terms are not separately listed for the restricted credit and unrestricted credit elements of the agreement. This means the agreement was improperly executed and is therefore unenforceable, as per sections 65(1) and 127(3).

 

Future conduct

I trust you will now be in a position to reduce the balance on this account to £0 and to remove any default that has been registered by yourselves with any credit reference agency, as required by the Data Protection Act 1984.

 

Furthermore, please be aware that from this point onwards I will respond only to written contact. You are now under notice that I will not discuss personal or confidential matters over the phone under any circumstances whatsoever.

 

I trust you are aware of the limitations placed upon you now that the account has been formally disputed. I particularly draw your attention to the legal requirement that a creditor is not permitted to take any action against an account whilst it remains in dispute.

 

The lack of a valid and enforceable credit agreement, together with the unresolved issues surrounding payment protection insurance, are both very clear disputes and therefore the following applies:

• You must not demand any payment on this account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.

• You must not add any further interest or charges to this account.

• You must not pass this account to any third party.

• You must not issue a default notice on this account.

• You must not register any information in respect of this account with any of the credit reference agencies.

 

Any further actions taken by Egg Banking PLC or their agents to collect the alleged debt whilst it is under dispute will be vigorously defended. I am also aware of the law regarding harassment of creditors under these circumstances and will use UK law to defend myself.

 

I look forward to receiving a satisfactory response.

 

 

Yours faithfully

[militantconsumer]

I forgot to mention, we have also made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman about just about everything mentioned in this thread.

 

The only part we have left out is the s18 unenforceability arguments, but we have said that we believe the interest to be charged on the PPI was not disclosed at the point it was (mis)sold and is also not clear from the agreement.

[militantconsumer]

Ok, it is interesting to see that Barclaycard have just looked into our PPI complaint and decided to 1) admit they got it wrong; 2) refund the PPI premiums; 3) refund the interest charged; and 4) pay 8% interest per year over the intervening period.

 

More info here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/barclaycard/187319-militants-friend-barclaycard-3.html#post2682394

 

If Barclays can do it, why can't Egg?

[militantconsumer]

Egg have responded with a standard letter stating:

 

We note that you consider your agreement to be unenforceable. However, you have not specified any reasons why you believe this to be the case. Please reply, in writing, stating why you believe your agreement to be unenforceable.

 

Actually that is exactly what we did do - see post 130 above.

 

It then goes onto say: you borrowed, you paid back, we will hound you and trash your credit rating, etc, etc.

 

No mention of the PPI element of our letter.

 

No word from the FOS yet.

[militantconsumer]

Time for an update on this case.

 

For those who don't remember, this is a pre 2007 loan agreement with PPI added. However, the prescribed terms are rather brief and the general consensus on this site is that the agreement is probably unenforceable.

 

See posts 1-2 of this thread for a summary of the situation and a copy of the agreement.

 

We have been overseas or a few months and so not responding to the regular threatograms.

 

Perhaps they think we have given up arguing, because now we have received a CLAIM FORM from the Bulk Processing Centre in Northampton. Yes, they have finally decided to take us to court.

 

Now, fortunately I know how to deal with these forms from experience at work. So we have just been online to acknowledge service (AOS).

 

We will also get the CPR letter off ASAP and make sure we get our defence in on time.

 

Whatever happens, this is good news because we will finally get some closure on this issue. And hopefully other CAGGERS will be able to learn from our experience.

[militantconsumer]

Surprise, surprise, Egg failed to respond to the CPR request in time for us to complete our defence.

 

Bryan Carter solicitor did, however, kindly tell us that our account was on hold while Egg got their ass into gear.

 

Luckily, we are not stupid enough to think they wouldn't go straight for judgment in default if we missed the defence deadline....

 

Defence is in. Next move to Egg.

[spamheed]

Hope it all goes well and subbing with interest

[stuartmck]

I'm just starting out on a similar path with an almost identical CCA. Subbing & looking forward to more updates.

[militantconsumer]

We have reached the Allocation Questionnaire stage.

 

It is due at court tomorrow (Monday).

 

Question A is:

 

Would you like to use the free small claims mediation service provided by Her Majesty's Courts Servie, to help you settle your claim with the other party?

 

We have received Bryan Carter's completed questionnaire and they have answered YES.

 

We would like to answer NO because we think we owe nothing. I would not be happy with a mediation which meant we had to compromise by paying a % of the balance claimed.

 

Will it count against us if we answer NO to this mediation service? Could we open ourselves up for a costs award if we lose the case?

 

*See posts 1-2 of this thread for a summary of the case and a copy of the agreement*

[pabrmu]

Hi MC,

Any update?

[pabrmu]

Hi MC,

Yes, I am wading through pt's post re multiple agreements.Only another 100 pages to go, but keep getting sidetracked!

I have a similar case with GE Money/Link.

I wish you luck in November.Keep us informed.

[militantconsumer]

Adjourned until January next year.

 

We hadn't complied with the order to serve all the documents on Egg 14 days before the hearing (and send a copy to the court), and the judge felt that it was unfair on them not to have had a chance to respond to our evidence.

 

Egg hadn't sent anybody along so we don't have to pay any costs for the rescheduled hearing.

 

The judge kept asking us what our main complaint was about an agreement that we had signed. One of the first things she said was that our defence looked like it had been copied from the internet.

 

But she was very understanding and fair.

[pabrmu]

Hi MC,

Did you ask why she had even mentioned that you had used the internet for your defence?

I bet that she wouldn't have said to a solicitor/barrister that it looked as if their case had been copied from law books.

[militantconsumer]

We have won!!!

 

We went back to court this morning to find that Egg had sent a barrister (Mr Faucett) along to represent them. He tried various negotiation tactics with us in the waiting area, up until the point that the judge was waiting for us to go into court. We didn't accept any of these offers because, although the claim of £4,000 eventually went down to an offer of us paying just £1,000 to Egg, they were only going to mark our credit file as "part-satisfied" rather then "fully satisfied".

 

The judge let us know via the usher that he wanted to know what the issues were and whether the case would be going ahead (as he was overbooked). We wrote on a piece of paper that:

1. We wanted an adjournment, with Egg to pay our costs of a half day unpaid leave (because they had only served their witness statement on us at 6pm last Friday before a Monday morning court hearing, not giving us time to seek advice, etc).

2. We could not accept a "part-satisfied" entry on our file if we were making a full and final settlement agreement as that would leave us open to be pursued in the future for the rest of the amount claimed.

 

Egg's barrister was allowed to see this note before we gave it to the judge. He said he was happy with us giving that to the judge.

 

But just before the usher took it into the judge, the barrister suddenly handed us a "Notice of discontinuance" - in other words, Egg had decided not to proceed with the case.

 

I guess they were just seeing if they could get some money out of us before telling us about that decision. (The document appeared to have been faxed through from Shoosmiths about an hour previously!)

 

We then had to go into court for 5 minutes so that the judge could close things off. He said he was very disappointed to have been deprived of such an interesting case! We asked him if Egg could start the proceedings up again in the future, but he said this was not really possible because we would be able to get it struck out if that ever happened.

 

So now we are £4,000 better off than we were when we got up this morning and, even though I wouldn't be surprised to find a DCA chasing us for this in the future, we really do have some closure on the matter and the threats will be empty ones.

[militantconsumer]

The interesting question is why Egg didn't want this to go before a judge. There was no risk of costs because it was small claims track.

 

They had already spent money on the court claims, on Bryan Carter preparing a reply to our defence and a witness statement, on Shoosmiths making calls and sending us offer emails over the last week, on an Egg employee writing an additional (ludicrous) witness statement, and then on sending a barrister along today. Having already spent all that money, why not let the barrister go into court for one hour longer and get a judgment for £4,000? Why offer to settle for £1,000 a few minutes before going into court? (bearing in mind we actually offered them that amount back in January.....).

 

I can only assume that either:

1. They thought they might lose and, although a county court decision would not be case law, the result would be all over the internet.

2. Perhaps they really did think we would get an adjournment with costs and they didn't fancy coming back a second time.

 

Seeing as we haven't made any kind of confidentiality agreement, there is nothing to stop us sharing all this information on CAG.

[42man]

Well done....title changed to WON

[militantconsumer]

I have to go to work this afternoon but can/will post up copies of various documentation later - mainly our own witness statement, which is what Egg were up against. I can tell you now that the main points covered in our witness statement were:

 

1. Was default notice issued properly (or at all) - if not they can't take us to court

 

2. Multiple Agreements angle (re-finance, PPI and cash) and so improperly executed and so unenforceable - as explained earlier in this thread

 

3. Secret Commissions - was a secret commission made on PPI and was this a 'charge for credit'. If so they shouldn't have charged interest - hence again improperly executed and so unenforceable.

 

4. Unfair Relationships - a sordid history of ****** behaviour against us!

[frettful38]

Well done militantconsumer I look forward to you posting.

[WelshMam2009]

I have to go to work this afternoon but can/will post up copies of various documentation later - mainly our own witness statement, which is what Egg were up against.

 

Well done MC!!

 

I would be really interested in seeing your statements as I have an Egg loan re-financed around about the same time.

[stripper]

Great news

[citizenB]

Yes, fantastic news.