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I have been reading a lot of the posts in this and other similar forums with interest and wish I had ne so earlier, as I would not now be in the mess I am in… I am writing to ask for some advice and/or help, as I have recently received a Count Court Claim Form by Cabot Financial (UK) Limited, for a debt I previously had with an Egg credit card. The long and short of it so far has as follows:
I originally applied online for an Egg card about 10 years ago. I received the card and used it for many years without a problem. That was until about 4 years back, when I was made redundant (timing just before the recession hit did not help either!).
At first we used savings to keep everything in order, but after a while (about a year or just over) even those started drying up and so I approached all my creditors (with Income / Expenditure forms completed) to enquire about a reduced payment arrangement. Some creditors were good and some were bad with Egg being the worst, telling me that my options were to (i) carry on paying the monthly total, (ii) pay the full balance, or (iii) default and then deal with the outcome! As options (i) & (ii) where not possible at the time, I unfortunately chose to do nothing (hiding from it all is not really an option as I am now more clued up…L).
What happened next was that I received a letter of default by Egg, and 2 or 3 months later (if memory serves) a letter from Egg saying that they would be taking me to court. I braced for the oncoming and then nothing happened… Until a letter came through my letterbox about 1½ - 2 years ago from Cabot (their standard NoA on their letter-headed paper) advising that they had taken over the debt.
By that time, in the peak of the recession and due to the first default by Egg, I was finding it impossible to remortgage the house to pay other creditors and was getting more and more letters by various DCA’s, so thought that Cabot was yet another DCA acting on behalf of Egg (i.e., I was not fully clued up at the time that they had ‘bought’ my debt to Egg). Eventually they called me on the phone and asked that we arrange a small token payment. I agreed to this and all was fine for a while (with the odd missed payment admittedly).
Then back around February this year, I missed a payment (that is another story for another time) and their calls started again (have caller display at home). At the time I was simply not in the frame of mind (for the lack of a better expression to hand) to be able to deal with anything like and I assumed that they would just collect next month and all would be fine. But the calls carried on sporadically until on July 11th I received a letter from their legal department Morgan Solicitors (dated July 7th), telling me that the account was in default, asking me to contact them within one month to settle the account in full, or be taken to court. They specifically stated that “If we do not receive a response within one month of the date of this letter, legal proceedings will be issued against you without any further notice or warning to you”.
I did in fact contact them on the 21st and in our discussion I did quote that as I had been previously requested to make ANY offer possible to clear the debt, I was trying to raise a 50% figure (through family predominantly) to offer for F&F settlement. Their advisor stated that as it was now with the legal department, I either had to accept a monthly payment enough to clear the balance in 60 instalments, or they would be taking me to court. I said that I would have to look into this and she then advised that as I had contacted them, I now had another month (or 28 days) to look at whether the proposed monthly payment plan is feasible, or reply formally otherwise. This would have meant that I would be allowed until August 18th, before any Court action was taken by them, so I had enough time to see what I can do.
Surprise, surprise, on the 13th of the month I received (hand posted) a Northampton County Court Bulk Centre Claim Form, issued on the 10th of the month. For this to happen it obviously meant that they did not follow their own procedures and keep to their word and exactly a month after the original Morgan letter they applied at the Court. I did call the Court to query this and they advised that though I may be able to add this fact to my defence, there is no legal framework regarding such matters yet ratified, it is currently simply work in progress. As such, as far as the Court can see the Claimant can apply at any time and even with no notice (is this really the case?) to the Asignee!
The relevant Claim Form details are attached below:
The Date of Issue is 10 AUG 2011
The Particulars of Claim are the usual brief and perhaps vague details they offer:
“ The Claimant is the Assignee of a Debt(s) from Egg Banking Plc
Egg Card reference 2xxxxxx, (note their own reference no, though the full Egg card no is stated in the Morgan letter alongside their own reference no?)
Notice of Assignment having been given to the Defendant in writing. Despite demand for Payment, 6xxx.xx remains due. The Claimant claims 6xxx.xx and interest under the s.69 County Courts Act 1984 and costs. ”
The amounts mentioned are as follows:
Amount claimed: 6xxx.xx
Court fee: 190.00
Solicitor’s costs 100.00
Total amount: 6xxx.xx
Whilst on this point, how is it and they can add costs and interest on a defaulted sum? Is this correct? And can also they really take what was an unsecured loan and turn it into one secured against assets like my property?
So, I now need your kind advice on where to go next. I believe that I have 14 days to reply (one way, or another) from the day of Service, which is 5 days from the day of issue of the Claim. This would mean I am allowed up to 10 + 5 + 14 = up to the 29th August at the latest (which I would assume can be done online)? Can you please confirm this assumption?
By the way, I have tried National Debt Line for assistance and their advice was (in not so many words) that I have to take it on the chin and have a CCJ, as the time for other action has lapsed now that they have applied at the Courts…? Apparently that is because I have made payments towards the debt, which means that in the least morally I have accepted the debt with Cabot!
Having now spent a few days looking at all of this, my thoughts on the morality issues are as follows:
For me to consider their moral rights, they also need to do likewise. Leaving aside the fact that I personally do not find morally correct that they prey on people in desperate need, they are also the ones that did not consider my moral rights as promised. Specifically, they promised me enough time to reply before being dragged to Court and then they lied and did otherwise.
I am now considering how to ask them to provide ALL the necessary proof to substantiate that the ARE the LEGAL owners of the alleged debt and that the said alleged debt is legally enforceable. As if they (as previously have also done in similar cases) do not hold the correct legal rights to the alleged debt, then they would be further proving that their moral stance is not quite spotless! Finally, as I was told by Morgan’s that the time to negotiate is now over and the next step would most likely be the Court, the Court of Law is not where cases should be judged on morality, but simply in accordance to the Law. And if they do not possess / cannot provide the correct documents when required and in the correct format, then the Law is clear, as the alleged debt would become unenforceable! Please advise if I am failing completely in my line of thought so far…?
I need your help please as to how to reply via the Northampton CCBC Claim Form. As you will have gathered, I am thinking that if I am really going to end up in Court, I will be going fighting and not simply lying down (famous last words!)… I mean what have I got to loose by asking them to further substantiate their claim?
I have read up a lot over the last few days and I am now unsure what is best to do next. I believe I should be doing as follows next:
1. Submit the Acknowledgement of Service in the first instance, before the deadline of (is it Issue Date 10th August + 14 days, or Issue Date 10th August + 5 days to ‘Date of Service’ + 14 days) 24th / 29th of August (please advise). I assume I should also be selecting box ‘1. I intend to defend all of this claim’?
At this point, it mentions that I may have 28 days from the date of service to prepare my defence (instead of 14), by sending the Acknowledgement of Service in. Do I need to do anything else to get the 28 day allowance enabled, please?
2. Next I need to serve Cabot with an SAR, requesting original and legible copies of CCA, T&T’s, and …what else please…, alongside sending a £1 PO to cover their costs? Any idea if there is a template I can use and/or which may be the best template available please?
3. Then sit and wait, as I need to allow 12 days for this to be completed and returned.
4. If the resulting documentation does not arrive / is incomplete, I need to swiftly apply (on a certain form?) for the debt to be ruled unenforceable.
Am I missing something here please?
Perhaps I should also add here that given all that I have read so far in all the forums and given that Egg themselves threatened Court action (for a sum nearly the £7k mark) and did not follow through, given the Cabot advisors’ insistence that I make ANY offer to settle the account in full and finally given Morgan’s expediency with which they are trying to push this though (i.e., before I even get the chance to build an argument against them), my gut feeling is that they do not have all that they need…
…but, on the not so nice side… If by some chance they do come up with all the required information and documentation, will my stance be (ie, saying that until they prove their validity of claim I am not recognising it and neither does the Law - hmmm, even though I have made payments towards it as I thought I was paying Egg?) detrimental to what then happens after this point? And does anyone know what would actually happen in such a case?
One more question please. As this is going through the Bulk Centre, do I still get the chance to present myself? Or do I need to be asking that it is not dealt with through the Bulk Centre? Would there be additional cost implications there?
Sorry for the length of the post, but I hope I have captured most of it in the first instance…
ANY help and/or advice would be much appreciated, especially as the clock is ticking!
Kind regards
I originally applied online for an Egg card about 10 years ago. I received the card and used it for many years without a problem. That was until about 4 years back, when I was made redundant (timing just before the recession hit did not help either!).
At first we used savings to keep everything in order, but after a while (about a year or just over) even those started drying up and so I approached all my creditors (with Income / Expenditure forms completed) to enquire about a reduced payment arrangement. Some creditors were good and some were bad with Egg being the worst, telling me that my options were to (i) carry on paying the monthly total, (ii) pay the full balance, or (iii) default and then deal with the outcome! As options (i) & (ii) where not possible at the time, I unfortunately chose to do nothing (hiding from it all is not really an option as I am now more clued up…L).
What happened next was that I received a letter of default by Egg, and 2 or 3 months later (if memory serves) a letter from Egg saying that they would be taking me to court. I braced for the oncoming and then nothing happened… Until a letter came through my letterbox about 1½ - 2 years ago from Cabot (their standard NoA on their letter-headed paper) advising that they had taken over the debt.
By that time, in the peak of the recession and due to the first default by Egg, I was finding it impossible to remortgage the house to pay other creditors and was getting more and more letters by various DCA’s, so thought that Cabot was yet another DCA acting on behalf of Egg (i.e., I was not fully clued up at the time that they had ‘bought’ my debt to Egg). Eventually they called me on the phone and asked that we arrange a small token payment. I agreed to this and all was fine for a while (with the odd missed payment admittedly).
Then back around February this year, I missed a payment (that is another story for another time) and their calls started again (have caller display at home). At the time I was simply not in the frame of mind (for the lack of a better expression to hand) to be able to deal with anything like and I assumed that they would just collect next month and all would be fine. But the calls carried on sporadically until on July 11th I received a letter from their legal department Morgan Solicitors (dated July 7th), telling me that the account was in default, asking me to contact them within one month to settle the account in full, or be taken to court. They specifically stated that “If we do not receive a response within one month of the date of this letter, legal proceedings will be issued against you without any further notice or warning to you”.
I did in fact contact them on the 21st and in our discussion I did quote that as I had been previously requested to make ANY offer possible to clear the debt, I was trying to raise a 50% figure (through family predominantly) to offer for F&F settlement. Their advisor stated that as it was now with the legal department, I either had to accept a monthly payment enough to clear the balance in 60 instalments, or they would be taking me to court. I said that I would have to look into this and she then advised that as I had contacted them, I now had another month (or 28 days) to look at whether the proposed monthly payment plan is feasible, or reply formally otherwise. This would have meant that I would be allowed until August 18th, before any Court action was taken by them, so I had enough time to see what I can do.
Surprise, surprise, on the 13th of the month I received (hand posted) a Northampton County Court Bulk Centre Claim Form, issued on the 10th of the month. For this to happen it obviously meant that they did not follow their own procedures and keep to their word and exactly a month after the original Morgan letter they applied at the Court. I did call the Court to query this and they advised that though I may be able to add this fact to my defence, there is no legal framework regarding such matters yet ratified, it is currently simply work in progress. As such, as far as the Court can see the Claimant can apply at any time and even with no notice (is this really the case?) to the Asignee!
The relevant Claim Form details are attached below:
The Date of Issue is 10 AUG 2011
The Particulars of Claim are the usual brief and perhaps vague details they offer:
“ The Claimant is the Assignee of a Debt(s) from Egg Banking Plc
Egg Card reference 2xxxxxx, (note their own reference no, though the full Egg card no is stated in the Morgan letter alongside their own reference no?)
Notice of Assignment having been given to the Defendant in writing. Despite demand for Payment, 6xxx.xx remains due. The Claimant claims 6xxx.xx and interest under the s.69 County Courts Act 1984 and costs. ”
The amounts mentioned are as follows:
Amount claimed: 6xxx.xx
Court fee: 190.00
Solicitor’s costs 100.00
Total amount: 6xxx.xx
Whilst on this point, how is it and they can add costs and interest on a defaulted sum? Is this correct? And can also they really take what was an unsecured loan and turn it into one secured against assets like my property?
So, I now need your kind advice on where to go next. I believe that I have 14 days to reply (one way, or another) from the day of Service, which is 5 days from the day of issue of the Claim. This would mean I am allowed up to 10 + 5 + 14 = up to the 29th August at the latest (which I would assume can be done online)? Can you please confirm this assumption?
By the way, I have tried National Debt Line for assistance and their advice was (in not so many words) that I have to take it on the chin and have a CCJ, as the time for other action has lapsed now that they have applied at the Courts…? Apparently that is because I have made payments towards the debt, which means that in the least morally I have accepted the debt with Cabot!
Having now spent a few days looking at all of this, my thoughts on the morality issues are as follows:
For me to consider their moral rights, they also need to do likewise. Leaving aside the fact that I personally do not find morally correct that they prey on people in desperate need, they are also the ones that did not consider my moral rights as promised. Specifically, they promised me enough time to reply before being dragged to Court and then they lied and did otherwise.
I am now considering how to ask them to provide ALL the necessary proof to substantiate that the ARE the LEGAL owners of the alleged debt and that the said alleged debt is legally enforceable. As if they (as previously have also done in similar cases) do not hold the correct legal rights to the alleged debt, then they would be further proving that their moral stance is not quite spotless! Finally, as I was told by Morgan’s that the time to negotiate is now over and the next step would most likely be the Court, the Court of Law is not where cases should be judged on morality, but simply in accordance to the Law. And if they do not possess / cannot provide the correct documents when required and in the correct format, then the Law is clear, as the alleged debt would become unenforceable! Please advise if I am failing completely in my line of thought so far…?
I need your help please as to how to reply via the Northampton CCBC Claim Form. As you will have gathered, I am thinking that if I am really going to end up in Court, I will be going fighting and not simply lying down (famous last words!)… I mean what have I got to loose by asking them to further substantiate their claim?
I have read up a lot over the last few days and I am now unsure what is best to do next. I believe I should be doing as follows next:
1. Submit the Acknowledgement of Service in the first instance, before the deadline of (is it Issue Date 10th August + 14 days, or Issue Date 10th August + 5 days to ‘Date of Service’ + 14 days) 24th / 29th of August (please advise). I assume I should also be selecting box ‘1. I intend to defend all of this claim’?
At this point, it mentions that I may have 28 days from the date of service to prepare my defence (instead of 14), by sending the Acknowledgement of Service in. Do I need to do anything else to get the 28 day allowance enabled, please?
2. Next I need to serve Cabot with an SAR, requesting original and legible copies of CCA, T&T’s, and …what else please…, alongside sending a £1 PO to cover their costs? Any idea if there is a template I can use and/or which may be the best template available please?
3. Then sit and wait, as I need to allow 12 days for this to be completed and returned.
4. If the resulting documentation does not arrive / is incomplete, I need to swiftly apply (on a certain form?) for the debt to be ruled unenforceable.
Am I missing something here please?
Perhaps I should also add here that given all that I have read so far in all the forums and given that Egg themselves threatened Court action (for a sum nearly the £7k mark) and did not follow through, given the Cabot advisors’ insistence that I make ANY offer to settle the account in full and finally given Morgan’s expediency with which they are trying to push this though (i.e., before I even get the chance to build an argument against them), my gut feeling is that they do not have all that they need…
…but, on the not so nice side… If by some chance they do come up with all the required information and documentation, will my stance be (ie, saying that until they prove their validity of claim I am not recognising it and neither does the Law - hmmm, even though I have made payments towards it as I thought I was paying Egg?) detrimental to what then happens after this point? And does anyone know what would actually happen in such a case?
One more question please. As this is going through the Bulk Centre, do I still get the chance to present myself? Or do I need to be asking that it is not dealt with through the Bulk Centre? Would there be additional cost implications there?
Sorry for the length of the post, but I hope I have captured most of it in the first instance…
ANY help and/or advice would be much appreciated, especially as the clock is ticking!
Kind regards
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