claim against a credit card company

[rockchickxxx]

hello, i was advised to post here as im getting conflicting information from people and the debt camel urged i post here instead because i spoke with a solicitor and they said to proceed with the small claims court but then other people say its fruitless. I dont really know how is best to approach it now.

I'm just wanting a bit of advice really.. so I had an aqua card from 2013-2019, I had about 7 limit increases in that time when I was pretty much at my maximum limit around nearly all the increases. Anyways i complained to aqua that they shouldn't of increased my limits as I was struggling with debt, they denied it and directed me to the ombudsman. I totally forgot I actually contacted them to be honest that time was a bit of a blur as I was in a vicious cycle. I had a pretty bad gambling habit that progressed over the years. So fast forward to recently and I had clear legal marketing investigating unaffordable lending it took nearly 8 months or so for them to get the dsar from aqua. Anyways in the end it got halted because they wriggled out of it due to me making a complaint against them with the financial ombudsman. I was absolutely gutted because clear legal marketing said I had a strong case but couldnt proceed. So I decided to take it to the small claims court and now have a mediation booked but I asked for a copy of my dsar and I don't hold out much hope of getting it before the mediation. Is there any hope of winning a case against aqua in court even though the ombudsman agreed with aqua. i have doubt that my claim wasnt throuraghly investigated and recently as ive been going through my credit history ive noticed after aqua got me to my maximum limit increase of 5750, they then approved me for a new card even though i was drowning in payday loans, maxed out thier other credit card and had other loans etc etc. i honestly dont understand what these affordability checks were because there was alot of red flags. I am just having doubt that im wasting my time with all this even though i feel like they exploited my situation to the max.

[R0b]

Hi,

As you have already commenced legal proceedings and already at mediation stage, I am not sure we can help you much without you incurring further costs. We have very little information to go off because we don't know what you've said on your claim form so we can't even be sure if you have stated a legal basis for bringing a claim, nor do we know what Aqua have submitted as a defence.

Aqua are required to provide you with your information within one month or no more than 3 months if the request is complex. Really if the DSAR was important to your claim then you should have pursued that via legal proceedings first before submitting your claim for the increases in credit.

What is more worrying, is that you seem to have started legal proceedings without having a scooby about what it is you need to actually say or do. Nobody should be issuing legal proceedings without understanding what their claim is against the other side otherwise you run the risk of a court making a costs order against you if the claim turns out to be lacking in merit or you haven't stated a legal basis for bringing a claim.

Probably not what you want to hear but I get an inkling that if it goes all the way, you are not going to fare very well without some kind of legal representation. You may want to consider discontinuing proceedings only if the claim has been allocated to the small claims track. This means if you discontinue you won't be liable for costs or anything like that, although Aqua could ask the court to set aside the discontinuance and proceed with the claim, I have never seen companies such as them do that before, rather they just get on with life so the risk of that happening is low.

[rockchickxxx]

Hello, I know what the claim is against. I started a claim to the small claims court for irresponsible/unaffordable lending. I have pretty much most of the required information from my credit report I just want to mainly see all my statements but obviously yes I should have asked for dsar first but I am not clued up with this sort of stuff which is why I am asking questions and how best to handle it. The basic jist of the claim is aqua shouldn't have lent to me due to me running up my credit limits to the max and me not really paying the balances off much. Everytime they gave me a credit limit increase I was maxed out of credit. Also i was taking out credit to pay for credit. I am questioning thier affordability checks because the only thing they've drawn out is the fact I was never in arrears and always made me payments on time.

[rockchickxxx]

Anyways case closed now because aqua have made an offer in mediation so I haven recovered some funds.

[R0b]

Thanks for the update, sorry I didn't reply to your previous post I wasn't aware you had responded. I'm glad you were able to agree something through mediation and recover something. Next time, there are some law firms who specialise in these kinds of claims and if you're prepared to give up a % of compensation for them to represent you, you may want to look at that option before going down the route yourself.

[rockchickxxx]

I probably think if I'd have gone down that route I would have come out with a similar figure, I asked for 5k and got half so I'm happy with that. I know it seemed like I didn't know how to handle it but after seeing my statements I knew I had a case. They didn't even try to argue it they made an offer pretty much straight off the bat.. I'll be concentrating on going after them all now, barclays next but I'm leaving some to a claims company cos this one has stressed me out to no end....