Settled : Lowell Court Claim for BT account not in my name

[Lou18]

Up tp October 2014 BT account was in my ex's name but the paperless bills were sent to my personal email (he used to work offshore), After he moved out he stopped paying the bills. I contacted BT and tried to get the new offer advertised at the time for £26 per month. Despite cancelling the BT Vision etc the monthly payments were more than original ones. There never was a new contract with new charges or new account holder, the bills sent monthly via email were still sent as "Dear Mr XXXX..." in my ex's name, also when loggin online the bills were in my ex's name.

A long time passed with me trying to solve the issue, whilst asking BT to reopen an account in my name in order to retain the telephone number and with a new more affordable tariff.

I requested BT to send me evidence that account was originally opened in my name in 2011 which they were unable to provide. For clarification it was opened in my ex husband's name, DD was set up from his bank account and all the bills and online account were in his name (despite paperless bills sent to my email address).

Lots of phone calls and emails sent to BT the following year 2015 without reaching any conclusion, meanwhile I did not use the BT landline and other services they were continuing to charge for. At one point I tried to raise an enquiry with the Ombudsman Services but did not follow it up as I was in a middle of a nasty Court case with my ex about Child Arrangements and Divorce (he had unlawfully kept the child from seeing me breaching previous Court Order). Fast forward to January 2016 BT continues to send emails with monthly bills, still headed in my ex husband's name and still showing online set up in his name.

At this time I took the opportunity to set up an account with EE which already supplied my mobile phone services. They were happy to let me keep the landline number. One month later BT sent me an email addressed to me "Goodbye for now..."notifying me that my BT service is being stopped, I had already moved on with EE. One week later email sent again addressed to my ex with the latest bill. This was followed by another email from BT two weeks later addressed to me this time about the unpaid bill. Two months later April 2016 I received the last email from BT saying that the debts has been passed to Moorcroft Debt Recovery. Because I was still in the middle of a Court battle about the Child Arrangements with my ex, a friend of my who has been helping me deal with BT, contacted Moorcroft and explained the situation. I never heard anything anymore until this year when apparently the debt had passed to Lowell.

I received the Claim Form 26 September and following the guides on this website I acknowledged the claim and immediately sent the letter to Lowell (CPR...) asking them to send me Agreement with BT and Notice of assignment.
I have now received a reply from Lowell Solicitors. There is a letter included addressed to me dated April 2018, supposedly a copy of a letter from BT but it is not headed and doesn't have a BT logo, header or footer (the printed info at the bottom of the letter). I never received such a letter! There is also a copy of a letter supposedly sent to me in august 2018 from Lowell's solicitor Notice of Acting, again I never received the original. And lastly a copy of a letter from Lowell in April saying that my outstanding account with BT was sold and assigned to Lowell Portfolio. I don't remember receiving such letter but I have had many annoying phone calls from numbers I didn't recognise on my mobile for the last few months which I didn't answer and later found out were from Lowell.

Anyone would be able to suggest any advise? I have contacted local CAB but they are understaffed and unable to help. The latest date for the defence in court is 25 October.

[Lou18]

Scanned Documents 4.pdf

I've attached the three letters received from Lowell in response to my CPR 31.14 letter. As explained in my previous post the copy of letter dated 04 April 2018, supposedly sent by BT (as you can see from the attachments it is just a plain letter without headers or footers...) I never received any such letter and I haven't had any communications with or from BT since 2016.

Can someone help with this? The reply letter from Lowell's solicitor states that:

"As you are probably aware, accounts of this type can be obtained by telephone, over the internet and by mail order and therefore, if no signed contract ever existed then it cannot provided. The terms and conditions of telecommunications contracts are considered binding upon insertion of the SIM card and the requesting of service that is implicit in doing this, evidenced by phone usage costs, which forms part of the outstanding balance we seek to recover.

The County Court claim form that was issued to you is currently outstanding and you should respond how you deem appropriate within the timescales that have been set out by the court.

Failure to respond to the Claim may result in us applying for a County Court Judgement (CCJ) in Default to be entered against you..."

Any help is appreciated, thank you

[Kati]

Amethyst jaguarsuk

[Lou18]

Anyone?

[Amethyst]

Morning xxx apologies for missing your post, I'm just having a read back five mins...

[Amethyst]

Okay, sounds like it's got a bit of a mess.

When you sent your CCA and CPR 31.14 requests to Lowell, did you also send a Subject access request to BT ? If not, I'd get one sent to BT now. ( Subject Access Request Letter ) as that should show up what happened with the account.


Between your ex-husband leaving and your signing up with EE in 2016 you'd continued to use the BT services ( apart from Vision which you successfully cancelled?) ? Had you been paying the bills as well up to that point or had you just left them unpaid as they were in your ex's name? ie. was the £668 built up over that time, or is it a cancellation type charge imposed after you moved to EE?

[Lou18]

Hi Amethyst,

Thank you for taking your time to get back to me.
I haven't sent a CCA to Lowell as my understanding was that for a Telecommunications is not needed? but I'm sending one today to Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd and a copy of said letter to their Solicitors.
I'm also sending the Subject Access Request letter to BT today (Saturday).

Ex left in 2014 and stopped paying BT November 2014. I paid ONE bill only to BT December 2014 (over the phone, from my mobile phone). From January 2015 I didn't pay any more bills and had been trying to cancel and get a new account in my name. I have kept all the emails to and fro BT starting February 2015.

I did not use their services ie phone calls from landline etc. The amount they say it is owned to them is the cumulative from January 2015 to date I finally moved to EE January 2016.

Please note that I spent the best part of 2015 trying to solve this with BT via phone and email, my effort were to try to keep the landline phone number and hopefully have a better more affordable tariff (which BT were advertising heavily on TV at the time for around £26 per month for new customers which I was going to be should I have been able to get a new contract in my name with BT).

Despite many phone calls, endless emails to their customer resolution team and me not using the BT services (all phone calls were made via my mobile phone), BT continued to send monthly bills addressed to my ex.

[Lou18]

Any suggestions? Anyone?

[Lou18]

Can anyone help me with this? I have sent the CCA letter and postal order to Lowell and a copy of that letter to their Solicitors, I also sent Subject Access letter to BT , no replies yet and my deadline for submitting the Defence is this Friday. Is there anything I should do now ie start the defence or should I wait for the replies? Do I need to contact the Court and let them know I’m waiting for the replies?
I’d appreciate any advice as the time is running out.
Thank you

[Lou18]

Hi, can anyone help with drafting a defence letter please. It needs to be sent this weekend. I’m attaching the Claim Form, and the correspondence from Lowell Solicitors to my CPR letter.
ive sent the CCA letter + £1 postal order to Lowell Portfolio, a copy of said letter to their solicitors and Subbject Access letter to BT. I haven’t had any replies yet from Lowell for CCA or from BT for the Subject Access letter.

I never entered into agreement with BT, I tried to cancel the account that was in my ex’s name. Never used their services...more details are in the posts above.

ik in desperate need for help on how to write a simple defence which I need to send ASAP.

[MIKE770]

Example Defence work around that with your facts, then put up on here for checking minus personal details

[Lou18]

Hi,
As suggested I have started a defence draft. I'm not sure if I need to include all the paragraphs, I have already deducted a couple of paragraphs.
Paragraph 11 and 12 I'm not sure what sections 77 and 78 are and which one applies to my case if any at all. Paragraph 13, again not sure.


In the Northampton County Court Business Centre

Claim No: [XXXXX]




Lowell Portfolio 1 LTD

Claimant

And




[Defendants Name]

Defendant







DEFENCE

1. I received the claim [Claim Number] from the [Name of Court – often Northampton or Salford] County Court on [Date you received the claim]
2. Each and every allegation in the Claimants statement of case is denied unless specifically admitted in this Defence.
3. This claim is a BT PLC agreement regulated under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
4. It is denied that the Defendant has [previously] entered into [an agreement with BT PLC for provision of service.
5. The Claimants statement of case fails to give adequate information to enable me to properly assess my position with regards the claim.
6. The Claimant’s Particulars of Claim fail to state when the agreement was entered into.
7. The Claimants statement of case states that the account was assigned from BT PLC to Lowell Portfolio 1 LTD on 04 April 2018. The Defendant does not recall receiving notice of this assignment.
8. It is denied that BT PLC served any Default notice on the Defendant pursuant to s87 Consumer Credit Act 1974. The Claimant is required to prove that a compliant Default Notice was served upon the Defendant.
9. On the 29 September 2018 I sent a request for inspection of documents mentioned in the claimant’s statement of case under Civil Procedure Rule 31.14 to Lowell Portfolio 1 LTD’s solicitors. I requested the Claimant provide copies of the Agreement and Notice of Assignment].
10. Lowell Portfolio 1 LTD’s Solicitor has not sent any of these documents to me.
11. On the 18 October 2018 I sent a formal request for a copy of the original agreement to Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd pursuant to section [77 or 78] of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 along with the statutory £1 fee.
12. The Claimant has failed to comply with [s77 (1) / s 78 (1)] Consumer Credit Act 1974 and by virtue of [s77 (4) / s 78 (6)] Consumer Credit Act 1974 cannot enforce the agreement.
13. Under Civil Procedure Rule 16.5 (4) Where the claim includes a money claim, a defendant shall be taken to require that any allegation relating to the amount of money claimed be proved unless he expressly admits the allegation. Therefore, it is expected that the Claimant be required to prove the allegation that the money is owed as claimed.
14. I request the court orders the Claimants to provide the necessary documentation in order for me to fully plead my case else the Claim should stand struck out.
15. In the event that the relevant documents are received from the Claimants I will then be in a position to amend my defence, and would ask that the Claimants bear the costs of the amendment.
16. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief as claimed or at all.

Statement of Truth

The Defendant believes that the facts stated in this Defence are true.

Signed ________________________________

Dated ________________________________

[MIKE770]

Amethyst to check for you

[Lou18]

Amethyst Hi, have you had a chance to look at the defence draft? Thank you

[Lou18]

Hi, can anyone have a look at the draft defence please? My deadline is today at 4pm...I’m sending it via email as advised by the court because there few issues with the website. Any suggestions/help is greatly appreciated, thank you