pmahonc V Abbey

[pmahonc]

been doing quite a bit of reading on the forums over the past few months and i'm now in a position to start going after the abbey. I've used the vampiress's spreadsheet to add up the charges on the first joint account i had with the abbey but has been closed for over three years now. i already had all my statements so i haven't needed to do the SAR. it totals £1301.00p in charges and the contractual interest at 29.9% comes to £3252.00p, all told a total of £4553.98p.

The second account has an overdraft of approx £2500.00p which i can't at the moment pay off but will still apply for the charges {they can take the overdraft from what they owe me} i'm still in the process of adding this one up but with contractual interest at 29.9% is up to £8000.00p and still climbing. I will be doing these seperately, both accounts are joint accounts.

They should get the first letter just before the new year.

 

Merry christmas and a happy new year to all on the forums

[pmahonc]

I have just received two letters from the abbey the following in response to my prelim letter.

 

Banking Specialist Team

P0 Box 5885

Milton Keynes

MKIO IFA

Tel: 0845 600 6014

Fax: 0845 600 1378

Typetalk: 18001 0845 600 6014

 

 

03 January 2007

 

Our Ref: xxxxxxxx

 

Dear

 

Thank you for contacting us and I am sorry that you have been so unhappy that you have felt you must complain.

 

One of my team will be responsible for investigating your complaint and I have enclosed our Complaints leaflet, which explains our procedure for doing this. High quality customer service is of great importance to us at Abbey and we will do everything we can to resolve your complaint in a timely and satisfactory manner.

 

I know it is important to you that we resolve your complaint quickly, but we want to complete a thorough investigation and sometimes this can tak-e time. If we have not contacted you before then, we will write to you in four weeks to let you know what is happening.

 

If you have employed someone to handle your complaint on your behalf, please note:

employing a third party complaint-handling firm, or a solicitor, or financial adviser does not affect how we review your complaint. Please be aware that:

• Abbey does not charge you to investigate your complaint

• Abbey will not be liable for any costs incurred if you do decide to employ a third party to handle your complaint during this review

• Abbey, in general, will only make payment directly to the account holder(s) if your complaint is upheld and redress is due

 

Although I do not know what the outcome will be, I do hope that we will be able to find a solution that you are happy with.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Nanson

Business Manager

Enc. Complaints Leaflet

 

the second letter was to say that they are going to register a default notice, and that it will be registered 28 days from the date of the letter.

 

I know that because i have called both accounts into dispute they are not allowed to post a default until the matter is settled.

I'm inclined not to bother with the LBA template but just to write to them saying that as they are serving me with a default notice rather than trying to sort the matter out i'm immediately going to court with no further notice.

The 14 days notice of the prelim letter is up on 16th Jan for the first letter i sent.

 

Should i just wait until the 14days are up and then send the LBA, Or do as i suggested above.

 

Any help would be much appreciated

 

Thanks

[Lula]

do a search on here for the Banking code, and read up on it, there is a section that says that they are in breach of some section of the banking code if they default you whilst the account is in discpute, there was a cracking letter on here somewhere but I cant remember now, basically telling them that they cant default you, any help here would be appreciated because I cant remember who wrote the letter, it may be in the banking templates library a link to which is in my signature

 

Good luck

[pmahonc]

Thanks Lulai found that, It's section 13.6 and clearly states that a default can be served only if the account is not in dispute. I've included the statement in my LBA, which i sent off on Monday.

Today i received a bank statement stating that they had charged me £61.10 on the 10 th january and will deduct a further £67.55 on the 10th of february, so i will now have to send them another letter updating my schedule of charges and reminding them that they have only 9 days before i file a claim.

[Mad Nick]

pmahonc, thought this other Abbey thread might help, especially post #11

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/abbey-bank/55594-suec-abbey.html

Regards Mad Nick

[pmahonc]

Thanks Mad Mick I've posted a reply in that thread about the default notice which i found thanks to lula. In regards to the charges i mentioned i was rather hoping that they might have suspended any charges or actions regarding the account until the dispute was over ( stupid of me thinking they would miss a chance of trying to make more money)

pmahonc

[Mad Nick]

pmahonc, FWIW I had two charges in January which they immediately reversed off their own bat. Regards, Mad Nick.

[pmahonc]

heres a really dumb question and i apologise in advance for asking but what does FWIW stand for???

Regards pmahonc

[Mad Nick]

pmahonc, for what it's worth, FWIW means for what it's worth. And in a similar vein, can someone explain what IHMO means - and I genuinely don't know. Regards, Mad Nick

[Lula]

IMHO In my humble opinion

[pmahonc]

Just recieved this today from abbey in response to my LBA.

 

 

Abbey complaints

Abbey

P0 Box 5129

Milton Keynes

MK9 2YN

Telephone: 0845 600 6014

Facsimile: 0845 600 1378

Typetaik: 18001 0845 600 6014

Email: customerservices©abbey.com

Date: 24 January2007

 

 

Our Ref

 

Dear Mr

 

 

As you know, we are currently investigating your complaint that you raised with Abbey four weeks ago. I am sorry for the delay you are experiencing and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued patience.

 

Our research is taking longer than expected because we want to make sure a full investigation is done. If we are unable to complete our investigation beforehand, we will write to you again in four weeks time to let you know how we are getting on.

 

I am sorry that it is taking longer than originally thought and would like to reassure you that your complaint is very important to us.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

Marc Winder

Head of Compaints

 

 

It looks like they must be getting snowed under with all the complaints they are getting if they reckon they require 8 weeks from when they receive a preliminary letter. Its that or my accounts must be REALLY complicated.

 

pmahonc

[Lula]

same old crap different customer, just use your own timetable, they are pretty hot on taking your money but not so hot on investigating complaints

[pmahonc]

Actually its good they acknowledged 4 weeks instead of the original two that i originally gave them on account of the christmas period. i'm already preparing my N1 to submit on the 5th of february.

[pmahonc]

I was wondering if i can amalgamate the two claims i have with the abbey into one, so far i have been keeping them seperate but proceeding at the same pace. they are both at the sent LBA stage, in fact they are one week into the LBA stage. I'm filling in my N1 in preparation but would like to put both on the one claim, i cant think of any reason not to except the fact that it will raise my court costs from £370 to £400, Which i would get back if successful.

 

Also i recieved a letter from the abbey stating the usual rubbish "We have finished investigating etc", along with a list of charges. Looking through this list i noticed that the unauthorised interest rate has changed from 29.9% down to 28.7%, as i'm claiming contractual rate interest this has the effect of reducing my claim by approx £200, when i have updated my spreadsheet with the new interest rate should i inform abbey now seeing as they will be getting a copy with the N1.

 

TIA pmahonc

[pmahonc]

Just came across this article on fools.co.uk . I did see an article on the bbc website that stated more or less the same thing. Perhaps it might help people worried about going to court follow a different course in reclaiming their money back.

 

Ombudsman NOT Failing Claimants On Bank Charges - 19/01/2007

[pmahonc]

Just been reading kazzaw v lloyds and i see that tideturner recommends splitting the claims if they go over £5000, i've got 1 claim under £5000 and another for £10843 i was thinking of amalgamating them all into one claim, i take it that i should actually be thinking of splitting them into four claims?. the figures above also include contractual interest. has anybody got any suggestions.

 

TIA pmahonc

[pmahonc]

went down to court today and filed my n1 for the largest of my claims, just over £11,000 with costs. The girl wasn't certain i had filled it out correctly as under the value section i had put down contractual interest and she reckoned i couldn't charge interest on interest?, i tried to explain that you had to put down contractual interest as it counted towards the total of the claim, but you couldn't put down statuatory interest as that was up to the judge. She then thought that i couldn't claim contractual interest on the interest that the bank had charged me, i then mentioned that the reason i was claiming interest on their interest was because i wouldn't have incurred any interest charges if the bank hadn't enforced their charges on me. as it was i had to wait for an hour for her manager to get back from lunch to okay it. oh well it's filed now, it will be issued today and posted tomorrow. Now to carry on with the preparations.

[pmahonc]

received a copy of my claim from the court yesterday, It will be deemed served on the 10th February 2007.

Received this morning a letter from DRMS ltd {Debt collectors} requesting payment of my overdraft, so i rang them to inform them that the account was in dispute and that i had started court action, they thanked me for informing them and if they needed anything else they will contact me.

I also rang the abbey to see if they had issued a default notice as they said they would, to which the reply was that my account had been handed to a debt collection agency and i should contact them, My reply was that the default notice was nothing to do with the debt collection agency as the abbey would have issued it, and that is they had could she inform allen betts head of unsecured debt that he was breaking section 13.6 of the banking code and i would send him a letter confirming this.

One thing i forgot when checking my credit file is that the abbey don't pass information on to all cra's but only seem to use experian, i use experian and there's no mention of abbey on it so i'll have to apply to the other two cra's just in case and adjust my court action if there is a notice.

oh well back to the preparations.

[pmahonc]

I was wondering if anybody could help me understand what the term Mutuality and reciprocity actually means in case i have to argue it in court, I've tried to google it but about the only thing i could find was a strasburg lecture on human rights. I thought it was along the lines of "good for the goose is good for the gander" type of thing.

 

FIA pmahonc

[pmahonc]

received from the court today response pack saying Abbey are going to defend all of this claim. {what a Surprise}{NOT}. they did it fairly quick mind you, I took the N1 to court on the 9th feb and it was deemed issued on the 10th feb and the court had the reply by the 15th feb and that includes the weekend.

 

I also received an alert from experian saying a key factor in my credit file had changed, when i looked surprise surprise, Abbey has issued a default notice {dated 9th February served 19th feb} even after i told them they were breaking section 13.6 of the banking code.

Only thing is i hadn't included the default removal in my POC. So to save myself some money adjusting my claim i was thinking of going down a different route and sending the following letter to the FSA.

 

I would like to make a complaint against Abbey National Plc. I am at the moment trying to reclaim my bank charges against the Abbey and have issued two letters to them one at the end of December 2006 and one a fortnight later. I then issued court proceedings against them which was deemed to have been served on the 10th February 2007. I received a letter from the Abbey dated the 8th January 2007 stating they were going to serve a default notice on my credit file in 28 days time. I rang the Abbey immediately and informed them that I had sent them a preliminary letter demanding my charges back and that if I didn’t receive a satisfactory reply I would be sending a Letter before action and if the reply to that was not satisfactory I would be issuing court proceedings therefore the Account was in dispute and that under section 13.6 of the banking code they could not issue a default notice until the dispute was resolved, As the amount I am claiming (£6000) is greater than the overdraft owing I expected them to wait until the matter is resolved one way or the other before taking any action. The abbey has since passed the account over to a debt collection firm and today marked my credit file as defaulted on the 9th February 2007.

 

I will also send a copy of this letter to Allen Betts Head of debt management at Abbey

 

I would appreciate any help you can give me on this matter.

 

Paul

[pmahonc]

Does anyone have any comments about the letter to the FSA please.

 

Beginning to feel lonely in here.

 

pmahonc

[Mad Nick]

pmahonc, waste of a stamp (well, you did ask). Didn't you see their head muppet on Watchdog ? I would concentrate on Abbey. What about referring to them having ignored your previous letter, and threatening (in the nicest possible way) that, unless they call the dogs off, you'll write to the Court drawing its attention to the intimidatory tactics which the Defendant is employing in relation to your pending County Court claim. Have to be prepared to do it, though. Regards, Mad Nick

[pmahonc]

Mad Nick unfortunately i missed watchdog was hoping to see it on the web. Must admit i like your idea. Not to concerned over the dogs they can bark and snarl as much as they like, what about just writing to the court like you say, as Abbey have already been told as has the debt collection agency. Why give them a second chance. They know they've broken the code, they even posted the default 9 days after they were served the N1 and 4 days after they acknowledged they were going to defend it, can only be seen as intimidatory surely.

 

pmahonc

[Mad Nick]

pmahonc, it just seemed best to try Abbey first - and best give them a deadline to reply to you. And second thoughts, I'm not sure what would happen if you wrote to Judge X and said the Bank was being nasty to you. So rather than saying write to the Courts, just threaten to draw attention to the Bank's action "in the context of your claim". That leaves you free to do it how you like (eg in your AQ, witness statement, letter, whatever). Regards, Mad Nick

[adam1976brown]

can i just clarify something here..sorry to sound a bit dumb... i have filed a claim (thread ..me vs abbey)... i have a n overdraft that i am paying off... if i stop paying it and send them a letter stating the section xxx saying an account cannot be defaulted if it is in dispute i will be ok???? please help an idiot...