Close motor finance - Disputed debt default

[cyril1982]

I had gap, however this is another grey area. Basically they rang and offered me gap i said send me the info by post and i'll decide, they said i acepted the insurance, i disputed this trading standards requested proof that a policy was in place it took close 5 months to come up with an apparant policy shedule, however it was from their own "in house" insurance company and i think it was fraudulent.

 

Put this way, had i tried to claim i wouldn't have bet on my chances of them paying out.

 

But despite this, even giving them the benefit of the doubt the total for this gap policy was one months payment, this still didn't take us below the 1/3 marker which is when they brought up these so called charges.

 

other than the gap policy there were no other insurances such as ppi or brakdown.

[postggj]

[your address]

 

 

 

[their address]

 

 

[DATE]

 

 

 

 

Data Protection Act 1998

 

Subject Access Request

 

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxx (or multiple numbers if more than one account)

 

 

Please supply me with copies of all the data which you hold on me in relation to any matter and in any form and for any period of time.

 

 

Please note that I require disclosure of any personal data which you hold on me for the entire period of my dealings with you.

 

The Subject Access is not limited to my transaction history and it is not linited merely to 6 years of historical information.

 

Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my financial business with you.

 

I require all information on details of all insurance products supplied by close motor finance.

 

 

This is to include the statement of means, statement of price, details of all insurance premium tax paid, and underwriting sheets.

 

If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.

 

I enclose the statutory maximum fee of £10. You have 40 days in which to comply. Furthermore, if I discover that you have levied disproportionate penalties or charges which are invalid under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations against me, then I shall be reclaiming them together with any interest charges which you have levied on them.

As it is your wrongdoing and mishandling of my account which has created the necessity for this Subject Access Request, I shall also be reclaiming the enclosed £10 Data Protection Act subject access request fee.

 

If there is specific information which you require in order to satisfy yourself as to my identity, please let me know by return. However, please note that the above address is the one which you normally use to communicate my private business to me and which you have hitherto found to be acceptable.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

[

 

[name] PRINT NEVER SIGN

 

 

 

 

 

 

send this by recorded delivery

 

 

from what you have told me this is an illegal repo and unlawful recession of contract

 

 

google s.90 of the consumer credit act 1974 for an insight

 

 

you are in for one hell of a payday but we need the docs on the qt so they can hang themself

 

keep your thread updated

[cyril1982]

Thank you, i will bang that letter in the post with the £10 p.o tomorrow and as soon as they reply i'll update.

 

i'll definately be pursuing this untill the end, i have just won a 12 month battle with barclaycard over a seperate issue so i'm nothing if not stubborn and determined.

 

I know they only did this because i asked about VTing the agreement and i'm not about to let them land me with a default for six years, it has already lead to me being refused a mortgage so i can't move house as i had planned to do.

 

And of course if i am owed money, which i believe i am, i want it back.

 

thank you for your help and i'll update as soon as i get a reply from these jokers.

 

Cheers.

[postggj]

my pleasure

 

ive done four of these illegal repo and won them all

 

send the £10 by postal order

print your name and never sign

 

say nothing on the phone

everything in writing

[postggj]

remember

 

its close who we are dealong with

 

the dca has no part so just ignore them

[cyril1982]

thanks alot mate, i'll speak to you soon (well as soon as they reply) and hopefully we can take that tally to 5.

 

Cheers.

 

yea i'm gonna send the request to close's head office.

[IainHL]

here is the default notice

 

img007.jpg picture by thedon1982 - Photobucket

 

i'm not 100% sure it may have been the 11th, the date given in the default notice to rectify is the 10th of feb but the issue was that this deafult notice only arrived approximately 3 days before this date.

 

Given the dishonest nature of close throughout this whole episode, and given that i beleive their motivation to repo was because they did not want me to VT i beleive the default notice was deliberately sent out late, however this i can not prove.

Well, irrespective how late they may have sent out the default notice ("served by 1st class post"!), it is dated 25/01/2008, and thus would be deemed served on 29/01/2008 (2 working days after posting). But 14 days from then (which is the amount of time they have to allow you to rectify the default) would then be 12/02/2008. Oh dear, poor Close! Can you say "unlawful recission of contract"?

 

The other problem is if the date of the agreement is not 15/03/2007, then how can they have given you on the default notice "sufficient information to identify the agreement"?

 

Also, by what you have said they never actually sent you a termination notice (or delivered one with the repossesion agents)?

[cyril1982]

No there was no ternination notice and the agents who repo'd did not give me any paperwork.

 

i have already proven that i paid over the 1/3rd my bank statements clearly show what i paid, it all comes down to what they are trying to claim they charged me.

 

I should hopefully get a copy of the agreement with my S.A.R if not i'll request one seperately but if the charges are not in the agreement at the level close claim they applied them then i'll be disregarding their argument and ploughing ahead with court action.

 

I always read agreements and do not remember seeing that they would charges me £50 for a letter or £35 for a phone call, thats the kind of thing which really annoys me and i would not accept an offer of finance, even with a good APR, if there were stupid penalty clauses like that in the agreement because all it says to me is we are a bunch of p1ss taking scroungers who only offer a low APR because we want to sucker you and charge you senseless untill we get the shirt of your back.

 

No thanks.

[cyril1982]

Well, still not had a reply to my S.A.R and tuesday is the deadline, doesn't look like close wanna play ball but we will see what the week ahead brings.

[postggj]

ok

 

the default notice is dated 25 JANUARY 2008 (A FRIDAY) DO NOT COUNT A STAURDAY

 

SO SERVED 29/01/08

 

TO RECTIFY THE BREACH WOULD THEN BE 12/02/08

 

 

YOU NOW HAVE AN ILLEGAL RECESSION OF CONTRACT

 

HOW DO YOU NOW WANT TO PLAY THIS

[cyril1982]

Well the plan is to take close to court, i am waiting on the S.A.R as there are some claims close made which i hope to disprove with the documents supplied from my S.A.R but it seems maybe close don't want to arm me with that information, i'll update this thread later in the week, close do still have untill tuesday to comply.

 

I'll allow them a few days grace, say untill the end of the week before i decide my next move.

[cyril1982]

ok, so nearly two weeks past the dead line for compliance and still no reply to my S.A.R I have found a template on this website allowing them seven days to comply before i seek remedy via the courts, so it looks like i'll have to take them to court just to get the documents i need to, well, take them to court. Great!

 

Here is a copy of the letter i am sending tomorrow by recorded delivery:

 

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

Section 7 – Data Protection Act 1998

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Account: xxxxxxxx

 

You have failed to comply with my Data Protection Act Subject Access Request dated (Insert Date).

 

If you do not comply within the next 7 days I shall seek a Court order obliging you to do so together with damages at the discretion of the Court and without any further notice.

 

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

 

 

 

[name]

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

Can we get this thread moved to vehicle repos please??

[Calb0b]

Can we get this thread moved to vehicle repos please??

 

 

OMFG if Wannabe is on this now, I almost feel sorry for Close:D

 

They are about to get Owned.

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

OMFG if Wannabe is on this now, I almost feel sorry for Close:D

 

They are about to get Owned.

The amount of faith you have in me is most admirable, but please desist now or I gonna kill you!!!!

[Calb0b]

Cost of the car £4k

Cost for damages £4k

Cost for costs £2k

(Made up figures)

 

The look on their solicitors face, when you said "I'm going to apply for summary judgement" Priceless:D:D:D

 

Sorry I stop now (Don't want you litigating against me:eek:)

 

 

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

In a nutshell:

 

• They say your agreement started 15th March 2007, you say it started earlier
  
• You have bank statements to prove you made payments totalling more than a third
  
• They didn't take the final direct debit and then defaulted and repo'd on the basis that you'd missed the payment
  
• They have confirmed to Trading Standards and FOS that you HAVE paid more than a third BUT have deducted charges from what you have paid taking it below the threshold
  
• They have still not provided a copy of your agreement
  

The questions I need answered are:

 

1. What date did the agreement actually start?
   
2. What date is on your bank statement as the FIRST payment date
   
3. Exactly how many cleared payments are showing on your bank statement?
   
4. Have you got a statement of account from Close in your SAR??
   

From what I can glean so far, they are in deep $hit and they know it!!!

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

Also, do you have a bank statement that covers the date they didn't take the last payment to prove that the money was there??

[cyril1982]

hi wannabe,

 

i am now satisfied that the agreement started in march 2007 and the amount close say i paid in total is almost exactly what my bank statements show i paid.

 

myself and close have never really disagreed on how much money i paid, they have always agreed that what my bank statements show is correct so we are both agreed on the £3,904 total amont paid.

 

where we disagree, and always have, is on how much in charges was levied against the account, this has always been close motor finances defence, both to trading standards and the F.O.S. and they have always won this argument because i could never prove that the charges stated in the "recreated" CCA were not close motor finances "standard" charges which were used routinely on all of their credit agreements.

 

what close have now provided me in response to my recent SAR is a summary of charges which does not tally with the charges outlined in the recreated CCA, the charges actually levied are much less than those stated in the recreated CCA.

 

i now have a case to argue that the recreated CCA is innacurate, possibly deliberately misrepresented, as if those charges were close motor finances "standard" charges then t is resonable to expect that the charges actually levied back in 2007/2008 would be at that level, the summary of charges they have supplied shows that they were not, they were applied at a lower level.

 

Also close have provided me with a summary of my account which states that the 1/3rd was paid, as i have emailed you.

 

so i now have a summary of my account printed from close motor finances own computer system which states 1/3rd has/had been paid i have a balance sheet and payment log showing exactly what i paid in charges and when you minus one from the other it leaves me £75.40 over the one third.

 

given that all of these documents are close motor finances own records i find i hard to fathom how they could argue against them.

 

i know they will persist with this charges defence, the only difference now is i have some proof that it is nonsense.

 

wannabe, you have seen the docs have, wouldn't you agreewith me?

[cyril1982]

Also, do you have a bank statement that covers the date they didn't take the last payment to prove that the money was there??

 

this is actually a grey area, i was not having financial difficulty at the time of repo and i was not in arrears, as you will see from the docs i emailed you, there were 3 returned D/D's but the reason for this was that i had changed my bank account (stayed with same bank just had two accounts and decided to switch over to the other, long story as to why and not relavent to the case so i'll spare you the long explanation) and my bank manager told me that all direct debits would be swtched over to the new account for me, but that did not happen and once my money was transfered into the other account obviously there was no money available when close went in for the DD on the old one.

 

close rang me up (didn't tell me i was paying £10 for the call mind) and i immidiately paid the money by debit card from the new account, i requested a new DD mandate but it never arrived.

 

so i had to ring up and make payments by debit card, which i did.

 

ok so heres what i do have, included in the SAR where notes placed on my account by my account manager and the samll team in the office which handled the day to day running of the account.

 

these notes show that i repeatedly requested a direct debit mandate each time i rang with payment and that i complained about it not being sent.

 

also on the notes is a running log of how far off one thrd i am (unfortunately for close it is wrong, in my favour) and it shows that close employees were discussing repo'ing my vehicle in december 2007 despite all payments being upto date and this is when the running log on how far off 1/3rd i am begins.

 

on 28 dec 2007 an entry reading "Hirer is a slow payer and close to one third, suggest do not pursue.

 

That basically means if i miss a payment they are planning not to notify me as they normally would by letter and/or phone call but instead to terminate the agreemnt and repo.

 

so in jan just before next payment becomes due a note goes on my account which reads "slow payer, close to a thiird do not pursue" but i make the payment by card so tough luck they cant term and repo.

 

then i make my next payment at the end of jan, this was due to close saying i was making my payments on the wrong date, i remember this conversation, they bascally said that after i had missed a d/d and paid by debit card a few days later i had continued making my card payments on the same date of each month from the date of my debit card payment meaning all my payments by card had been late as they should have been made on the date each month that my D/D were supposed to come out.

 

i just accepted that and said, "ok, sory no one had pointed that out and i hadn't realised, here is your payment. so i paid twice in jan at close motors request.

 

After this payment goes on my account though a note appears with lots of starts which reads;

" ********only £87.08 off a 3rd****** NOD (notice of default) will go out over the wekend due to conduct of account, suggest do not chase and on expiry of NOD term and repo as this is last chance to get vehicle back.

 

 

Now i have three problems wth that statement,

1. one why is a notice of default being sent out to someone who is upto date on their payments?
   
2. What do they mean due to conduct of account? it's upto date for cryng out loud.
   
3. now this is the biggie, and it pretty much renders the last two objections irrelavent, that figure £87.08 off a third is wrong, as the docs i now have in my possession show i was £75.40 over 1/3rd by this time.
   

sorry this reply became so long winded but what i am getting at is, yes i can prove i had funds available to pay, i can prove that close never went in for paynet on any of my bank accounts and i have notes on my account which prove that close deliberately did not pursue payment because in their own words "this was their last chance to get the vehicle back" am i the only one that thinks that is actiing in bad faith?

 

i'm just glad close are an equal oportunities employer though and don't mind employing people with "difficulties" in the mathematical department as thanks to someones less than average abilty in maths they got their sums wrong and i was not £87.08 off a third, i was £75.40 over 1/3rd....WHOOPS...

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

Hello, I have studied the docs you sent and I can't seem to get it to add up If you started the agreement in march 07 and car was taken feb 08 that means you only had it for 11 months so how were 12 payments made??

 

The charges defence is crap nonsense!! It's not a defence that would stand up in court by any stretch of the imagination! Your agreement states a figure, after which they cannot repo without a court order, end of.

 

Charges are irrelevant anyway because they just get added to the balance they don't get taken off what you have already paid. In any case they are unlawful!

 

Nowhere in your agreement does it make any reference to the fact that charges will be deducted from your payments as soon as they become due, the argument is entirely without merit!!!

 

The agreement you have sent me is a pre contract, it's not even the real thing.

 

I've also looked at your default notice and it states arrears of £143, I'm confused at how they've come up with that figure as it is less than 1 of your regular monthly instalments

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

Well that explains that!! Fabulous!!

 

Like I said, charges are irrelevant. It's a feeble, pathetic argument in a vain attempt to get them out of the hole they have got themselves into.

 

The fact that the third issue is not in dispute is literally all you need to win

 

There are absolutely no arguments or defences for it, so don't let them or anyone else tell you otherwise!!

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

From their calculations you have paid your deposit plus 12 monthly payments plus one months payments for the insurance. That clearly takes you over the third

 

This is an unlawful repossession under section 90 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and there is no defence that will change that fact!

 

Forget Trading standards and the FOS, they're not there to make any legal judgements nor do they have sufficient powers to do so!

 

Your next step is a letter before action to close and then pending their response, a court claim.

[wannabedebtfreesoon]

"Hirer is a slow payer and close to one third, suggest do not pursue." - That suggests intent to me

 

" ********only £87.08 off a 3rd****** NOD (notice of default) will go out over the weekend due to conduct of account, suggest do not chase and on expiry of NOD term repo as this is last chance to get vehicle back."- and that suggests despicable behaviour that makes me want to string them up high by their dangly bits

[cyril1982]

the extra payment is due to them asking for an extra payment i jan 08 i take it you got that from my other post.

 

everyone i have spoken to (trading standards and FOS) says that charges and insurance premiums do not count towards the 1/3rd so i will have to work on that basis but as i have proven that even with these amounts taken off i'm still £75.40 over the one third.

 

i think i am going to proceed wth the letter before action but first i have a little bit of ground work to do to solidify the foundations of my case.

 

i asked my legal advisor about how i could defend if close started saying i had paid extra charges on top of those already declared, because i am almost positive this is their only plan to defend as it is the one they have used and won on twice, but not this time thanks to new evidence kindly supplied by close motor finance themselves.

 

basicly there is an abundance of docs missing from my SAR not least the proof that the GAP insurance policy was actually in place, i have disputed this back when it was with tradiing standards as i maintain i only asked for information to be sent to me but that i did not agree to the policy.

 

Close have never been able to provide a document from their insurance underwriters, sterling insurance, to prove a policy was in effect.

 

So what i am going to do is write again, as i did before, demanding that close send all of the docs that are missing from my SAR iincluding phone calls and insurance policy docs etc and that once they supply everything they have that they include a "statement of truth" that all of the documents they have sent amount to everything which they hold about myself and my account with them and that all of the dicuments are truthful and correct.

 

My legal advisor told me that if i can get this statement of truth then it would be hard for close to introduce any further "evidence" or argue that the information they have supplied is wrong if they have signed a statement of truth saying that it is complete and is correct.

 

so i think i'll ask for all of my docs and a statement of truth first then see what happens from there.

 

i'll keep you posted.