Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

[jayb1239]

Received a claim? Yes
Issue Date: 8-8-2017
Amount approx: 2378.75
Claimant: ME IV LIMITED
Solicitor: RESTONS Solicitors Limited
Original Credit: Everything Everywhere

Particulars of Claim:
The Claimant claims payment of the overdue balance due from the Defendant(s) under a contract between the Defendant(s) and Everything Everywhere dated on or about Apr 30 2014 and assigned to the Claimant on Mar 02 2017
Particulars a/c no **********
Date: 20/07/2017
Item: Default Balance
Value: 2193.75
Post Refrl Cr NIL
Total: 2193.75

Stat Barred? No

Have sent: Acknowledged the Claim

Other Info:
Hi, Hopefully somebody here may be able to provide some guidance or assistance with this matter.
The debt and claim are my Wife’s not mine, however my wife suffers from an array of mental health issues including Bipolar Type 2 and as a side effect of this has her Ostritch moments and before diagnosis could be extremely reckless in her spending and borrowing. I discovered this court claim over the weekend and noticing the date on it I immediately completed the Acknowledgement of Service online to buy a little more time so that I could seek some advice in order to find out if this is a lost cause or whether I can help prevent her receiving a CCJ. She spoke to the company and offered to pay monthly when I got her to call over the weekend however she was advised that it was too late for that at this point and if she couldn’t pay the full balance immediately then they would be seeking a CCJ.
My wife has no recollection of the company ME IV LIMITED however that doesn’t necessarily mean that she didn’t receive a letter to say that the debt had been assigned to them as she will quite often hide/destroy debt letters rather than deal with them. However she usually at least knows who has been trying to contact her but drew a complete blank with this company name.


Hopefully there is something that I can do to help, or there is some advice that can be given.


Thank you in advance

[warwick65]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Hi
Welcome to the mad house that is LB - no seriously you will get some great help here.

ME IV are a debt purchaser who buy delinquent debts from various companies, obviously in this case EE.
Sadly Restons are possibly one of the most devious firms of solicitors (IMO) who will no doubt play mind games with you- such as pay all or we get a CCJ.

It might help if you could type out the particulars of claim as they appear on the claim form

£2000 seems quite a hefty amount for a mobile phone claim

Once the Particulars are posted we can advise on what to do next- the key thing will be to send a request under CPR31.14 for documents mentioned in the claim form (if any, again Restons tend to be rather vague in their POC)

A Subject Access Request to EE might be in order to because that may tell you more details about how the account was opened and any other correspondence that was (or wasn't) sent.
[MENTION=6]Amethyst[/MENTION] [MENTION=5553]charitynjw[/MENTION]

Sorry but mobile phone contracts are not an area where I can offer more than basic advice

[jayb1239]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Thank you for your reply, The particulars were added into the first post in the pre-generated part at the top of the post, unless I’m missing something or I’m looking at the wrong part. The only part that I could see on the Claim Form under the heading “Particulars of Claim” was the following ;

The Claimant claims payment of the overdue balance due from the Defendant(s) under a contract between the Defendant(s) and Everything Everywhere dated on or about Apr 30 2014 and assigned to the Claimant on Mar 02 2017
Particulars a/c no **********
Date: 20/07/2017
Item: Default Balance
Value: 2193.75
Post Refrl Cr NIL
Total: 2193.75

[jayb1239]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

I also thought it seems hefty however at that period in time my Wife was undiagnosed and un treated and going through a lot of mental turmoil which also came along with an awful lot of financial recklessness. It’s only in the last 12-18 months that she was diagnosed and there has been a slow and steady improvement since then. Thankfully our marriage survived all of this and we are still going today stronger than ever. My wife claims she doesn’t remember how the bill became so high however I have a suspicion that she was maybe taking out contracts in order to get the handsets and then selling them as a quick way in her mind to get cash to fuel her spending however I have no proof of this.

[warwick65]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Hi
i am sorry , yes I think the POC were there- I am just blind or stupid

All you can ask for in a cpr31.14 request is a copy of the contract and possibly the assignment ( I would ask for the assignment not limited to the Deed and the Notice) see what they say

I would just like to add, if your wife says she has no memory of how the bills arose I personally believe her and frankly it doesn't really matter anyway.

I was able to spend an eyewatering amount of money a few years ago and I honestly can say, yes while I know where it went and believe the figures, if you had asked me how much it was at the time, I bet I would have quoted 10 maybe 20% and believed it.

It is possible she just bought an all singing all dancing iphone with unlimited minutes texts and data which were very expensive way back when , if over a two year contract it could come up to 1300 etc and then with fees and interest get to a lot more.

[charitynjw]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

EE (formerly Everything Everywhere), I'm fairly sure, never done CCA-regulated agreements, so it will probably be the accumulated monthly airtime payable on the rest of the contract, regardless of the actual termination date of the contract. Maybe some actual phone calls as well?

You do need to get access to the T&Cs of whichever contract this was.

A SAR to EE should give you a starting point plus other data which could be revealing.

If it were me I'd also write to the Claimant's legal rep, requesting disclosure of a copy of the contract including T&Cs, the Notice of Assignment, the Deed of Assignment & a detailed breakdown of the sum allegedly owing.
Offer to pay for reasonable copying costs.

Get proof of posting for all communications & keep file copies as evidence.

[jayb1239]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Thank you, would the letter to the claimants legal representative be via the CPR31.14 mentioned above or just a letter requesting it? What do I do with regards to the claim as obviously the clock is ticking and I caught this quite late, is there a way to delay the proceedings so that I can wait for replies from the above requests or am I just trying to delay the inevitable.

Thank you again for your time and advice. It is much appreciated

[charitynjw]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Thank you, would the letter to the claimants legal representative be via the CPR31.14 mentioned above or just a letter requesting it?
I recently sent a CPR 31.14 request to a Claimant's sols & received the anticipated " The case will probably be allocated to Small Claims Track & CPR 31 is not applicable to SCT".
So I've resent the disclosure request, omitting any mention of CPR 31, & offering to pay reasonable copying costs.
Let's see what they do with that, lol!
What do I do with regards to the claim as obviously the clock is ticking and I caught this quite late, is there a way to delay the proceedings so that I can wait for replies from the above requests or am I just trying to delay the inevitable.
You can invite them to agree to a 28 day extension to the defence deadline. If they do agree, you (defendant) will need to notify the court.

Thank you again for your time and advice. It is much appreciated

####

[jayb1239]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Thank you, I will get a letter written and posted out tomorrow. I assume that I make the request for a 28 day extension within the same letter to the solicitor as opposed to the claimant?

[charitynjw]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Yes, to the solicitor, ref [Claimant] v [Your wife] Court claim no. [XXXXXXXX].
Get proof of posting & keep a file copy.
& yes re the 28 day extension.

[jayb1239]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Hi all,
I wrote to Restons with help from charitynjw to request access to the documents mentioned above by charitynjw. These were;


1. A copy of the original contract between myself and Everything Everywhere
2. A copy of the Terms & Conditions in force during this time
3. The Notice of Assignment for this debt
4. The Deed of Assignment for this debt
5. A full breakdown of the sum allegedly owing


This afternoon I recieved a response from Restons;

Dear Madam,
We are in receipt of your letter dated 29 August 2017 which we take to be a request for inspection of documents pursuant to CPR 31.14.

CPR 31.14 states: -
“A party may inspect a document mentioned in -
(a) a statement of case;
(b) a witness statement;
(c) a witness summary; or
(d) an affidavit”

You would have been provided with a copy of the contract and the contractual Terms and Conditions at the time the account was opened and hence we see no reason why you now require additional copies.

Furthermore, the other documents you have requested are not “mentioned” in the Particulars of Claim and therefore CPR 31.14(1) does not apply.

Although your letter states that you require the requested documents in order to file a Defence / Counterclaim, we would point out that the Particulars of Claim contains sufficient information in order for you to understand what the Claim relates to, namely:

a) the date the account was opened;
b) the account number;
c) the outstanding balance;
d) the name of the original creditor; and
e) the fact that the account has been assigned to the Claimant and when it was assigned.

We trust this clarifies matters.

[warwick65]

Re: Court Claim - ME IV LIMITED / Everything Everywhere - 8-8-2017

Hi
Pretty bog standard Restons reply i am afraid- you will see they always do this

I do feel that CPR31.14 requests are always just part of 'the game' although always worth sending as some solicitors do produce documents that may or may not be genuine.

They are there to make life as difficult for you as they legally can and IMO sometimes tread over the line

This is something you must include in your defence as well as putting them to proof that a valid DN was issued and that the claimant has the right to bring the claim by producing the Deed of assignment

[jayb1239]

Just a quick update on this, also sorry for reviving my old thread. My wife decided that she wanted to deal with the matter herself due to me having other things to deal with in life, which ultimately resulted in a CCJ being granted against her. I completely forgot about the entire matter until I found a letter from the bailiffs stating their intention to visit as she had failed to make any payments towards the CCJ.

I took back over initially with the view to get the warrant recalled and the CCJ repayments reduced on the agreement that payments would be made. Initially the request was rejected so I wrote again explaining my wife's mental health issues and status as a "vulnerable person". Quite quickly Restons recalled the warrant and agreed to vary the repayments to £30 per month which was much more affordable than what the CCJ had been awarded for.

On the back of my success and before making a single payment to them I wrote again to try my luck explaining that the outstanding debt of £2378 being repaid at £30 per month would take over 6 years to repay, re-iterated my wife's track record on repayments and offered £800 as full and final settlement on the condition that the CCJ was marked satisfied. They phoned and advised that they had passed it to their client so I told them to make note of the fact that no repayments would be made until I had an answer as any repayments would affect the offer amount. After about a month and a half I got a call telling me that they had decided to accept my offer!!

I don't know if anybody was interested in an update however I was here anyway so thought that I would post just incase.

[Amethyst]

Oh bugger The CCJ will show on her file for six years from the judgment date, marked as satisfied it will be slightly better - are your credit files linked by financial association ?

[jayb1239]

Oh bugger The CCJ will show on her file for six years from the judgment date, marked as satisfied it will be slightly better - are your credit files linked by financial association ?

Yes they are, at this point however I expect the damage done by the link to be minimal, not the best outcome but still a good one in my opinion, plus thats another debt gone!