Argos Store Card. AilxPartners report.

[carrbags]

Hi all,

 

I'm a first time poster who has finally got around to reclaiming late charges & over limit fees from credit & store cards held now and in the past by myself or my wife.

 

We have kept the majority of statements going back years and as a result HSBC and M&S settled after the first letter asking for charges back, actually paying us the contractual rate of interest rather than the standard 8% we asked for.

 

We are at varying stages with two MBNA, Tesco, Barclaycard & Argos.

 

After asking Argos for charges & interest we received a letter rejecting our claim. They have three separate listed points for rejecting the claim, extracts of which are as follows.

1. "You are responsible for making the required payments on time and for keeping within the agreed credit limit. If you fail to meet these obligations, we are entitled to recover the costs incurred by us.

We have recently commissioned AlixPartners UK LLP to undertake an independent assessment of the costs attributable to contractual default by our store card customers. The report AlixPartners have produced clearly demonstrates that the costs we incur when customers default exceeds our default charge of £12.

Our default charges therefore reflect a genuine estimate of our costs."

 

2. This point states that £181.50 of the default charges were longer than 6 years ago, although we weren't claiming for anything over 6 years

3."Further and in the alternative, we reserve our right to set off your claim (which is denied for the reasons set out above) against any debt owed to us."

 

Has anyone come across anything like point one before ? At first we found it a bit of a worry, but then after rereading the letter a couple of times, point three seems to suggest that they're not that sure of the validity of point one. Also this account is closed so there is no debt owed to them.

 

The letter finishes with " Under the terms of our Complaints Procedure this is our final response with regard to your complaint" plus the usual bit about our right to refer to the FOS within six months.

I thought this a bit arrogant.

 

It seems to me we have three options. Drop it, go to FOS, threaten court action.

 

Any advice or experiences of a similar nature would be very welcome