Bookworm v 1st National Motor Finance - **WON in COURT**

[Bookworm]

DPA request on its way.

[clarkey1]

There is no stopping you now Bookworm?

[Bookworm]

You'd better believe it, baby .

 

Truth is, I couldn't afford all those £10 cheques, but now Halifax has paid up, I can!

[Bookworm]

And 1st at the post of those DPA request all sent at once... 1st National !!!

 

According to the paperwork, they only charged me twice at 25 quid a pop, though... My memory really must be bad, or it's the avalanche effect of all those creditors at once that make me remember it as being so much more... *sigh*

 

Ah well, still, £50 is £50... Well, £40, I suppose, considering the £10 DPA cost...

 

Prelim going off tomorrow, of course.

[Bookworm]

Prelim went off late, but got my sod-off letter response today.

 

LBA going today.

 

Rollin' rollin' rollin'....

[Bookworm]

And MCOL filed today.

 

Total claimed: £ 100.85, inc fees and interest. For charges of £50.00. Where's the sense in that? Ah well, their problem, that's £20 of interest I wouldn't have seen if they had paid up straight away.

[Bookworm]

And got sod-off letter no 2 today.

 

That's ok, I filed with MCOL yesterday .

 

.

[flojo1985]

Maybe I'm wrong but are we not supposed to wait the full 14 days even if we get sod off letter number 2????

[Bookworm]

If it's firm sod-off, there's nothing to stop you from filing straight away. OTOH, if they say "we'll get back to you", then you have to wait the full 14 days. I had only given them 7 days in LBA though, as their 1st sod-off had been quite categorical in their refusal. I got 2nd reply on 8th day.

[Bookworm]

Both acknowledgement from MCOL and bank received today. Good, they don't hang about, passed to their legal dept, they're defending. Mwah ah ah !!!!!

 

.

[brecken]

Hiya Bookworm, do you have an address for 1st National, my account went on to Davis & Co dont suppose you know anything about them.

£10k borrowed in 1998 £11,556 paid back early in 2003, surely Im entiteld to some thing back.

[Bookworm]

This is 1st National Bank/Motor Finance (owned by Abbey), not to be confused with "just" 1st National, which, surprise, surprise, is now owned by GE Money:

 

Address is:

 

3 Princess Way

Redhill

RH1 1UR

 

Never heard of Davis &Co, sorry.

[pj41]

Hi Bookworm,

 

Hope you remembered to claim your Tenners back for the DPA's in your MCOL.

 

 

(This reads like something out of a mission impossible script LOL)8)

 

Best of luck.

 

 

Paul

[Bookworm]

I should have, shoudn't I... But I forgot... Ah well.... The interest will make up for it....

[Bookworm]

Allocation Questionnaire sent back today.

 

Their defence: you signed agreeing to T&Cs. Well, that's all right then.

 

Only problem: I claimed £50, turned out they'd only charged me £25. So I have said in AQ that I accept I made a mistake, and will only pursue £25 + costs + interests. We shall see...

[Bookworm]

Hearing scheduled for October 12th, 10 am, Croydon County Court. Bring it on.

[Bookworm]

Bundles of docs for hearing ready and being hand delivered to Court today and posted to Solicitors today.

[Bookworm]

I am so ANGRY with these people's arrogance I am shaking as I type this, so apologies in advance for the typos.

 

Received letter from solicitors today. Remember this is a claim for a grand total of £ 66.24.

 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO COSTS

 

Dear Sir,

 

ref, bla bla...

 

Entirely without prejudice and based upon purely commercial grounds, our clients are prepared to repay you the sum of £25.00 being the only charge that was levied on your account. You have referred in your letter to already indicating that you accepted that the level of unlawful charges was in fact £25 and not £50. We fasl to see where you have previously indicated that this was the case; we refer in this regard to your Partiulars of Clain which clearly state a charge of £50.

 

Our clients are not prepared to reimburse the Court fee on the basis that your claim was exxagerated despite the fact that our clients had already indicated to you before proceedings that this was the case. Our clients have instructed us that they ewould have settled your claim on commercial grounds before proceedings had been issued if you would have accepted the sum of £25.

 

In order to finalise matters, our clients are prepared to pay you the sum of £36.24 in full and final settlement of yor claim to include interest and costs.

 

We reserve our clients' right to refer this letter to the Court on the issue of costs at the forthcoming hearing. We also reserve our clients' position in putting forward representation for wasted costs against you on the basis that this is a misuse of the Court's time and resources and an abuse of process in view of the amount of the claim and the fact that our clients are prepared to take a purely commercial view on order to resolve this matter.

 

Finally, it is also a condition of our clients' offer that this letter will remain confidential between the parties.

 

This offer will remain open for acceptance until 4 pm on 2nd October 2006, at which time the offer will be withdrawn and we will prepare accordingly for the Hearing.

 

Kind regards.

 

Yours faithfully.

 

Suitable reply typed and ready to go. Annnnnd DEEP breath.

 

PS: If you're reading this, Mr Solicitor, the fact that I have typed this letter in full should give you a clue to the tone of my answer.

[Bookworm]

My reply, if anyone's interested:

 

Dear Mr. xxx Solicitor,

 

I refer to your letter of 28th September 2006 and its contents.

 

Please note that I indicated in section G (Other information) of the Allocation Questionnaire that I accepted that I had made a mistake and would therefore not be pursuing £50 + interest + cost, but only £25 + interest + cost.

 

My claim was not “exaggerated” as you state, it was a genuine mistake thanks to the way your client sent out information relating to my account, only showing amounts and descriptions without showing whether these were credits or debits. I believed that an entry showing “D/D fee” indicated a charge, not a credit. May I remind you that under the Data Protection Act, a Subject Access Request should be legible and clearly understandable? It is highly questionable as to whether your clients in fact complied properly with my S.A.R, which in turn led to the mistake I made.

 

I am fully prepared to let a judge decide whether it was a genuine mistake on my behalf or an exaggerated claim. I thankfully have the documents sent to me in response to my S.A.R, and I will willingly trust the judge to make the right decision.

 

As for the letters to which you refer, one states £50 and refuses reimbursement. The 2nd states £25, and also refuses reimbursement. I therefore fail to see where you can show that your clients would in fact have settled for £25, when I have a letter clearly stating the very opposite.

 

As for the misuse of the Court’s time and resources and abuse of process, it is somewhat ironic that you should use that choice of words when it seems to me that you are in fact the one abusing the judicial process, by seemingly trying to intimidate a lay person into accepting a lesser amount than what is claimed.

 

I do not accept that I am abusing the process, quite the contrary. I am merely attempting to obtain justice against a vast company with huge financial resources and a legal department. The same company could have avoided the “wasted” costs to which you refer by settling on numerous occasions, and deliberately chose not to, perhaps in the hope that I would get discouraged and give up. THAT, in my opinion, is the abuse of process, and one, sadly, that is being mirrored up and down the country by countless financial institutions whose unlawful charges are being challenged.

 

In conclusion, be advised that only full unconditional settlement of £66.24 (I am willing to forego the pence accumulated since my last letter) will result in my withdrawing my claim.

 

Yours truly,

 

Bookworm

 

 

I also sent this letter to the judge:

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

The deadline for exchanging documents expired on Thursday, 28 September, and to date, the Defendant’s solicitors have failed to send me anything, beyond a letter in which they indicated that they would start preparing for the hearing after Monday (2nd October).

I would like to complain about the offhand manner in which these supposedly professionals are behaving towards a lay individual, and respectfully suggest that it would not be within the Overriding Objective as I understand it from the reading of Judge Patricia Pearl’s book, if they were allowed to present evidence or witnesses without giving me any advance information.

I feel that I am enough of a disadvantage as it is, one non-legally trained person against the might of a huge financial corporation with a vast legal department, and am both shocked and disgusted at the contempt with which they treat me and the Court’s Directions.

Respectfully yours,

 

So there.

 

Does it stop there? Does it b*ggery.

 

Received yesterday a letter, complete with Tomlin Order to sign and send on to the judge.

 

In it, it said that:

- claimant to pay defendant court fee of £30.

- Defendant to pay £36.24 within 14 days in F&F settlement.

- settlement includes confidentiality.

 

Now, if you've read the above letter, does it LOOK like he's read my letter? I ask you.

 

SOOOOO....

 

I sent this e-mail:

Dear Mr. Solicitor,

 

I hope you won't mind me e-mailing you in the hope of bringing this claim swiftly to an end.

 

 

I have today received a copy of your letter and Tomlin Order. Either you have responded to my letter dated 29/09/06, and choose to ignore every point I've made in it, or you haven't, in which case you are presuming that my silence means acceptance, a point you'd have a hard time getting a judge to accept, I feel.

 

 

I notice that you have stated the following:

 

 

"2. The Claimant do pay the Defendant's costs in the sum of £30.00 within 14 days."

 

 

I am the Claimant, and your client the Defendant. I assume that this is a genuine mistake, and would ask you to correct this accordingly.

 

 

In the schedule:

 

 

"1. The Defendant shall pay to the Claimant the sum of £36.24 within 14 days..."

 

 

Please confirm that this is in fact separate from the reimbursement from the Court Fee? If it isn't, then I'm afraid that as per my previous letter, this claim is in fact NOT settled, and I would appreciate if you would not take it upon yourself to misinform the Court.

 

 

I'll say it again: I, the Claimant, will inform the Court that this claim has been settled in full on clearance of a cheque for the sum of £ 66.24, and not before.

 

 

Furthermore, as previously indicated in my letter dated 29/09/06, I will not agree to any terms of confidentiality to be imposed on my claim, under any circumstances.

 

 

For the time being, and until I have received full payment, this case continues.

 

 

Feel free to respond by e-mail if you so wish.

 

 

Yours truly,

 

 

Response this morning:

 

 

“Without Prejudice”

Dear Bookworm,

Point 2 of the order is a mistake, it should read the Defendant pays the Claimants costs of £30.

The payment of costs is separate to payment of the claim. The global sum is £66.24.

Unfortunately the clause concerning confidentiality is non negotiable, this settlement is purely on commercial grounds as far as our clients are concerned. If you do not agree to the Tomlin order (subject to the amendment at point 2) the matter will proceed and we will disclose to the courts the attempts we have made to avoid occupying a District Judge for what will be a 90 minute hearing.

For the avoidance of any doubt our clients will be disputing your claim in full at the hearing. We will also refer to the fact that your allocation questionnaire was never sent to us.

Accordingly, this letter is written without prejudice.

Yours sincerely,

 

 

*sigh*

 

My reply, unanswered as of now:

 

Dear Mr. Solicitor,

 

Unfortunately, as you quite rightly state, the clause concerning confidentiality is indeed non-negotiable.

 

I will of course also disclose to the judge that the Defendant has attempted to impose unreasonable terms on the Claimant in this case, and that it is your clients who are - yet again - delaying the conclusion of what is an extremely simple monetary claim.

 

I am not sure how much clearer I can make myself, so I'll say it once more: Full and unconditional settlement of £66.24 will result in my withdrawing my claim.

Nothing less, nothing more.

 

Yours truly,

 

Jeez, these people don't get it, do they?

[angry cat]

 

 

Jeez, these people don't get it, do they?

 

No, Bookworm they do not!!

 

You stay calm and stick to your GUNS.

 

There are as you know 70,000 members, right behind you.

 

I have everything crossed for you:)

 

Love AC

[CrispDust]

really pi**es you off doesn't it? The contempt these "people" have for the general public.

[Bookworm]

Sure does.

 

Still, the way I see it, they have 2 choices:

 

They can pay up and forget about pressurising me into accepting conditions on MY claim.

Or they can make it from Wilmslow, Cheshire, all they way to Croydon to explain to the judge a) how a charge of £25 represent a true pre-estimate of losses, b) why they feel that they can try to impose conditions on a claimant.

 

The problem is that they are so used to dictating terms that they can't get used to having terms dictated to them. Their "mistake" earlier about claimant and defendant clearly shows that.

 

Me? Choosing what I am going to wear on Thursday.

[octron32]

Me? Choosing what I am going to wear on Thursday

 

anything that will go with the big cheesy grin when you win

[rogerebaker]

Bookworm

 

great thread really made me laugh

 

The fact its only £25 makes it even more fun, not much too lose !

 

The real shame is you know there gonna cave in

 

good health

[rich2568]

You`re a lot more patient that I could be in this situation!!

 

Just tell me Bookworm-- what papers are needed when getting ready for the court appearance? I`ve got "Unfair Terms.." &" OFT Ruling" & Copies of Statements showing penalties. Also all correspondence from solicitor and also signed statement from myself with my case laid out.

 

Anything else?