Lowell Court Claim for a telephone contract defence

[Ruta]

Hi all,
I have received a claim form from county court about an unpaid vodafone telephone contract that has been assigned to lowell.
I took a contract and phone around 2015 summer, paid it for some month until November, then received a high bill for some abroad charges, and being young and stupid I decided just to throw the sim card away and do not bother anymore about it. Normally, received some letter from vodafone and eventually lowells have bought the claim and been chasing me up for a couple of years. It led to me receiving a county court claim form on 30Oct. This forum has been extremely helpful for me, I found a thread that was almost identical to my situation, so I decided to try to dispute this, thinking I have nothing to lose.
Firstly, I acknowledged the claim and selected to defend all and contest jurisdiction.
Secondly, I've sent a SAR to Vodafone,asking for all the data that they hold on me, (8th Nov)
CCA to Lowell asking for a copy of consumer credit agreement with 1£ postal order,(8h Nov)
CPR 31.14 to Lowell solicitors, asking for for disclosure and inspection of the agreement, any default notice, notice of assignment, notice of termination, any other documents referred to.(6 Nov)
Was going to put in my defence with the court, as per a template I have found on the forum that seemed relevant, but unfortunately I have received an email from lowell solicitors yesterday stating:
As this is a former telecommunications matter it is not regulated by the Consumer Credit act 1974, the original creditor is therefore not required to retain a copy of the agreement. Subsequently, we are unable to request a copy of this agreement. A copy of the notice of assignment has been attached to this email. We have asked our client to provide us with a copy of the default notice and notice of termination and we will contact you once we have received a response. And an email today stating : As we advised you in our email on 20th November 2018, a copy of the agreement will not be provided to you. We have asked that our client provide a statement of your account and will contact you when we receive a response.
I understand I took a bigger bite than I could chew, this got a bit too complicated to comprehend for me. As I understand I was disputing the claim ,providing lowell will not be able to provide documents to back this claim as they seem to buy claims in bulk, but in my case did they actually provide what I was asking and I have no where else to go from here? I've got less than two weeks to put in my defence, which was going to state that they have failed to provide any information to back the claim, now I really do not know what options I have now.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice!

Ruta

[Amethyst]

You're doing absolutely fine.

As this is a former telecommunications matter it is not regulated by the Consumer Credit act 1974, the original creditor is therefore not required to retain a copy of the agreement. Subsequently, we are unable to request a copy of this agreement. A copy of the notice of assignment has been attached to this email. We have asked our client to provide us with a copy of the default notice and notice of termination and we will contact you once we have received a response.

That is \ pretty standard response in these kind of claims. Sometimes they go on about how putting the SIM in the phone means you accept to give Vodafone your first born child and so on. They do need to evidence the terms on which they rely in the amount they are claiming.

As we advised you in our email on 20th November 2018, a copy of the agreement will not be provided to you. We have asked that our client provide a statement of your account and will contact you when we receive a response

Lowell have only provided a notice of assignment.

They have asked Vodafone for the default/termination notice and the statement of account.

So they haven't provided everything you have asked for.

Have they stated the date the agreement was entered into / the contract started ?

Have they said what the terms of that agreement/contract were ?

What was the minimum term of the contract ? What terms allowed for a termination charges ? How is the amount being claimed made up?

So you amend the defence to deal with those issues.

At the moment it seems all you know is that you did have a contract with Vodafone, you used the phone for a bit, had a dispute over some excessive overseas call charges, stopped using the phone. I'd assume the amount being claimed isn't just for the charges that you were disputing. So it needs justifying and showing that they were entitled to add further amounts.

Do you know if the contract included a phone/device? or was it just a SIM monthly call/data contract ?

You have already SAR'd Vodafone so that should produce something so you can check how the amount being claimed has been made up.

[Ruta]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I have amended my defence accordingly. The contract was for a sim and a mobile device as well. What happened was I had the contract for approximately six months, I have paid every month untill I started having issues with the phone. I took it to vodafone which they said will be sent to fix, I have not received it back, contacted them the person I spoke to was very unhelpful so I said I wanted to terminate the contract as I was unhappy with their services. Since then I did not receive any notification from them so I threw my sim away and that was it.
I have filed my defence and received a directions questionaire copy from lowells and one from court. As I understand I am not going to go for mediation service as I do not agree to come to some sort of agreement with them? I am sending my directions questionaire to court tomorrow, just not sure about one thing. I saw in a similar post dealing with lowel a drawft order for Special Directions was enclosed together with the DQ. Do I need to do that as well and where can I get a template of that as on the old post it is not available anymore. THANKS FOR ANY ADVICE IN ADVANCE XXX