Letter of Claim - Restons Solicitors Debt Claim. Inaccurate & against contract.

[Serpream]

Honestly I overlooked that and have no clue. Sounds hilarious. Maybe I was in a government experiment and forgot, which might explain current health issues :P

Sadly I cannot unless I really dig deep, or guess. I am wondering if Project Shiraz was manager covering the mistake. They love to deny any mistakes made in forms, or a agreement, despite acknowledging agreement was made for no interest...

[Amethyst]

Ok in 2006 you had a normal account.... you then had a couple charges issues so applied for a student account... then it was a student account until when it changed to a Ultimate Reward Current Account presumably that was the account they changed you to when you finished being a student?

The £5's start May/April 2011 ( on the statement list ) which scans with the bit's I posted above ( 15 April 2011).

[Serpream]

I believe the ultimate account was what was done in error as I should of just been finishing my last year of College at the time, it also added/increased charges on overdraft.
They have nothing on record of agreement, stating I made no agreement. Yet still acknowledge I spoke with a manager and charges was removed.
So sadly it seems I have no records of the specifics agreed, but that Project Shiraz to me screams a codename...

Honestly the fact they wait till 2017 to question themselves if debt was sold makes me curious on what happened to my payments and who actually received them... Halifax imply I stopped in 2011, so yeah i'm confused like hell right now.

[Amethyst]

Joys of a SAR. Did that actually come from Restons or Halifax ? ( see I'm confused now as you labelled it Restons PDF )

[Serpream]

Joys of a SAR. Did that actually come from Restons or Halifax ? ( see I'm confused now as you labelled it Restons PDF )

2018-11-29.HalifaxBundle.pdf - That is the data request i made directly to Halfiax on first asking for advice here. It arrived today signed for form Halifax themselves.

Restons has refused to cooperate and supply anything as included in the Shared Folder.
I am dumping files in same folder for ease of sharing and keeping track.

[Amethyst]

Aye, I'm just going bonkers, don't worry xxx I'll have a look again in morning.

[Serpream]

Aye, I'm just going bonkers, don't worry xxx I'll have a look again in morning.

Honestly I can truly understand with the weird terms they hide things in these forms. Again many thanks for helping. It boggles my mind how Halifax still held account till 2017, so many errors.

[Serpream]

Hi. Just wondering should I start considering replying about the errors of the bank that failed to realise my account was sold until 2017? Or should I respond stating I am happy to go to a tribunal as the evidence provided by Halifax should a grievous error of procedure?
I got till fill in finance form by 17th Dec by their demands. I still ain't happy providing them information they clearly do not have.

Thanks

[Serpream]

Final update. Due to no idea of further steps. I will comply with Restons and fill the form they requested by 17th. I will seek Citizens Advice after Christmas period. Thanks

[Amethyst]

Morning, just having a read back see where you're at xxx

[Amethyst]

The balance on the account when it was sold / written off was £916.20 and Restons are claiming you owe £676.20 ( that would be 48 months of £5 payments )

Up until October 15 you were paying £5 a month. You started the payments in April 2011, so there's 6 months payments missing ( April 2011 + 48 months is April 2015 ) - there might have been odd payments missed throughout the last 4 years - you have your transaction lists so should be able to see if the amount being claimed is right and does account for all your payments. But they do seem to be accounted for in the figures.

Of course, as you guessed originally, there's no evidence of the bank manager agreeing you could pay £5 a month for 6 years then it would be written off. If you did pay £5 a month for 6 years it would only be £360 so there would still be a £550 debt hanging over. It may have been a misunderstanding or the bank manager might have just been trying to cover his arse, but there is no evidence, only that when the original closure was made when they recalled the overdraft, they agreed you could make payments for 12 months without getting a default but did warn that if it wasn't repaid in full over the 12 months it would default and go to collections.


With Restons now chasing the remaining debt and the DD having been stopped ( by Halifax ) in 2015 there's no argument for statute barring - the payments have basically just served to keep the debt alive, although off your back and in the background, but it does appear to be the case that it will be deemed owed and legitimate.


To avoid court action, which seems to be Restons intention, you could provide them with your income and expenditure sheet aligned with your current circumstances and start getting this paid off - OR - Cabot are likely to have purchased the debt for a low % of the amount outstanding - you could, if you are in a position to do so, make a full and final offer to settle around the 50% mark.


I understand that on principle it feels wrong to pay this - the bank made a cock up originally by removing the overdraft while you were still a student - their resolution to that as shown in the SAR is different to your recollection of the resolution and it is more likely that the Halifax documents will win out and it would be a shame after all this time to get a CCJ against you for the debt.

[Serpream]

The balance on the account when it was sold / written off was £916.20 and Restons are claiming you owe £676.20 ( that would be 48 months of £5 payments )

Up until October 15 you were paying £5 a month. You started the payments in April 2011, so there's 6 months payments missing ( April 2011 + 48 months is April 2015 ) - there might have been odd payments missed throughout the last 4 years - you have your transaction lists so should be able to see if the amount being claimed is right and does account for all your payments. But they do seem to be accounted for in the figures.

Of course, as you guessed originally, there's no evidence of the bank manager agreeing you could pay £5 a month for 6 years then it would be written off. If you did pay £5 a month for 6 years it would only be £360 so there would still be a £550 debt hanging over. It may have been a misunderstanding or the bank manager might have just been trying to cover his arse, but there is no evidence, only that when the original closure was made when they recalled the overdraft, they agreed you could make payments for 12 months without getting a default but did warn that if it wasn't repaid in full over the 12 months it would default and go to collections.


With Restons now chasing the remaining debt and the DD having been stopped ( by Halifax ) in 2015 there's no argument for statute barring - the payments have basically just served to keep the debt alive, although off your back and in the background, but it does appear to be the case that it will be deemed owed and legitimate.


To avoid court action, which seems to be Restons intention, you could provide them with your income and expenditure sheet aligned with your current circumstances and start getting this paid off - OR - Cabot are likely to have purchased the debt for a low % of the amount outstanding - you could, if you are in a position to do so, make a full and final offer to settle around the 50% mark.


I understand that on principle it feels wrong to pay this - the bank made a cock up originally by removing the overdraft while you were still a student - their resolution to that as shown in the SAR is different to your recollection of the resolution and it is more likely that the Halifax documents will win out and it would be a shame after all this time to get a CCJ against you for the debt.

Thanks for reply. Just been out to double check. As mentioned there is a odd reference to a "Project Shiraz" and the fact that Halifax have commented 14/03/2017 they type "Debt Sale Account?". This would explain why i have never been notified until now and seems a failure of process.

I guess in short I should contact Reston to come to an agreement? Most errors seem to been caused Halifax side which sucks. I will double check my old statements i saved after eats and thx for reply again. Just panicking due to christmas post delays.

[Serpream]

My final update and thanks again for the help.
I put my case forward to Reston's, including my medical and the issues with the evidence from Halifax and errors shown within. Reston have now dropped my case and refuse to deal with it on Cabot behalf.
I am awaiting feedback from Cabot directly now regarding their stance on these errors of process, but looking good if Reston's backed down.

More importantly I now have time to sort correctly once they contact, without a constant timer ticking over my head with threats.

Hope others have as good luck.

[Amethyst]

Cabot may issue proceedings themselves through Mortimer Clarke solicitors. Restons tend to do cases that have security available ( such as a property where a charging order can be sought ) so if your IE sheet showed you are unable to offer security or make much in the way of payments towards the debt ( which they should have had an idea about in advance being as you were making £5 payments for a long time ) they might have simply decided it wasn't something they wanted to continue with. Not sure what the letter from Restons said but likely they have passed the account back to their client and are no longer acting on their behalf. I think there is probably some more action to come on this although hopefully Restons will pass back your queries/IE sheet etc back over to Cabot and they'll take a similar view and not continue trying to collect.

All you can do is wait and see for the moment.