Shop direct or Lowell's?

[joedempsey]

Hi all my wife lost her job and was unable to pay back her catalogue debt,as you are all aware it's racked with penalty fees massive amounts of interest,etc and then was eventually sold to Lowell's portfolio.
my question is we know there is a debt and I have requested a SAR request from shop direct, who would I make a claim against? Shop direct who racked up the debt or Lowell's who are demanding the full amount?
Just to give you a guide her credit limit was £1200 and the debt now stands at £4211.
I am not afraid of going to court over those charges.
could anyone give me advice over this.?

[Kafka]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Can you please provide a dated timeline of events for clarity? Lowell normally only but defaulted accounts and don't usually act as collection agents, so its probable that Lowell own it now.
All penalty chargesare reclaimable with interest from the day were applied so you are right to have asked for SAR.

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Hi thanks for the reply,
yes the account defaulted in January and was purchased by lowells on the 16th may.can I put a claim in against lowells or shop direct they are the ones I am angry with they sold the debt with all the charges on so I don't blame lowells for trying to claim the full amount.I was wondering were do I stand and which is the best way to go.

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Can anybody advise which way to go?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Hi all my wife lost her job and was unable to pay back her catalogue debt,as you are all aware it's racked with penalty fees massive amounts of interest,etc and then was eventually sold to Lowell's portfolio.
my question is we know there is a debt and I have requested a SAR request from shop direct, who would I make a claim against? Shop direct who racked up the debt or Lowell's who are demanding the full amount?
Just to give you a guide her credit limit was £1200 and the debt now stands at £4211.
I am not afraid of going to court over those charges.
could anyone give me advice over this.?

Hi thanks for the reply,
yes the account defaulted in January and was purchased by lowells on the 16th may.can I put a claim in against lowells or shop direct they are the ones I am angry with they sold the debt with all the charges on so I don't blame lowells for trying to claim the full amount.I was wondering were do I stand and which is the best way to go.

I'd say you'd better wait till you get your SAR so you can see exactly how that figure was arrived at. It sounds excessive for a catalogue account to have increased that much due to charges. :scared: :scared:

If Shopdirect have applied the charges, then any reclaim would have to go to them rather than Lowell, but you really need to wait for your SAR so you know exactly what you're talking about. :ranger:

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

thats great what would i do do i simply add all the interst charges up and penalty fees...i know for instance shop diects in house DCA rang 6 times in one night and put charges on every time.
how do i work out the SAR do i use a spread sheet or something? And another question cani still claim charges back even though the debt defaulted and wasnt paid?
my intention is to get it reduced to the correct amount and pay lowells the money back.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

thats great what would i do do i simply add all the interst charges up and penalty fees...i know for instance shop diects in house DCA rang 6 times in one night and put charges on every time.
how do i work out the SAR do i use a spread sheet or something?

Yes, once you get your SAR you'd have to add up all the charges such as those you mention above and calculate the interest. There are spreadsheets already set up for that purpose, I'll find you a ready-made one while you get your SAR back. They have 40 days to respond.

And another question cani still claim charges back even though the debt defaulted and wasnt paid?
my intention is to get it reduced to the correct amount and pay lowells the money back.

That would be the idea, to get the balance reduced. As I said earlier, when debts are assigned, sometimes refunds are paid directly to the debtor, depending on the terms of the assignment. But we are still a long way from that. Let's get the SAR first so we can see exactly what has been charged when.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Below is the SAR letter I tend to use:

Dear Sirs

Ref: xxxxxxxx

Subject Access Request - S.7 Data Protection Act 1998

Under the Data Protection Act 1984 and 1998, and including the right of subject access under these acts, I hereby request that you supply me with any and all historical data in your possession which, in any way appertains to me, including (but not exhaustively) a copy of the original signed executed agreement; statements of account; duplicate statements and/or printouts of all account transactions; all internal and external correspondence sent or received by you including memos, logs, notes, screen prints and transcripts; notes of manual interventions such as telephone attendants' notes, copies of stored telephone conversations, internal and external emails; any other information held on all types of media in any relevant filing system. If you have disclosed any information to a third party (with or without my express permission), will you please include details of this in your reply, along with notes of any legal action passed or pending (to include a true copy of default notices, court orders and the like).

If you store any of the older records on microfiche, please be aware that the Information Commissioner deems this to be a relevant filing system under the Act. As such, any microfiche data must be sent to me in fully legible and comprehensible form.

Where any information that you provide includes any charges, for example returned payments, late payment fees, and so forth, would you please advise your breakdown of actual costs (liquidated damages) incurred for each charge, and the Term or Condition on which you rely upon to claim such a charge. I also require that you forward, within the above mentioned time scale, a true copy of the Terms and Conditions that were in force at the time my account was opened, and any subsequent amendments to those Terms and Conditions.

Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my business with you. If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.

I enclose the statutory maximum fee of £10.00 to access ALL data held by you about myself. You have 40 days in which to comply with this request.

Yours faithfully,

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

thank you very much i will wait for the SAR to come back.

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

Hi just a update we sent shop direct a SAR request on the 9th June we still have not received any acknowledgement from them.
i emailed shop direct who stated they had not received the request and I should contact the post office, I opened an investigation with the post office who came back to us with a letter to confirm that shop direct did receive the letter on the 12 th June and further more they cashed the £10 postal order we sent them on the 9th July one month after receiving the letter.
Now we are in no rush because lowells have stop all demands till they hear from shop direct.
So I don't know the best way to go Leave it or push shop direct to produce the SAR.

Any help would be appreciated

[Kati]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

If they've cashed the Postal Order on the 9th July, and the Post Office have stated they delivered the letter June 12th, then you have proof they have received the SAR - they have 40 days to respond to an SAR request so that gives them until 22nd July (if you go from proof of delivery) or 18th August (if going from cashing of Postal Order) both of which have now passed.

You should now write to them again (sent recorded/signed for - costs approx £2) reminding them of your request:

[Your full address] [Phone number] [The date] [Name and address of the organisation] Dear Sir or Madam Non response to a subject access request I am writing further to my letter of [date] in which I made a subject access request, because I have not received any response from your organisation. As the statutory time limit for responding to my subject access request (40 days) has now expired, I would be grateful if you could provide a response as soon as possible. If I do not receive a response from your organisation within 14 days, I will submit a ‘request for assessment’ to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can find advice on the ICO’s website on how to deal with a subject access request [ico.org.uk/sar] and information on their powers and the action they can take [ico.org.uk/action] or call them on 0303 123 1113. *If there is anything you would like to discuss, please contact me at the above address. Yours faithfully [Signature] *optional

This gives them a further 14 days (from delivery) to comply with your request, but you will have to make sure you keep proof of posting and delivery in case you actually do have to make a complaint to the ICO :tinysmile_twink_t2:

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

thanks for the reply i will send that out this week...

regards

[joedempsey]

Re: Shop direct or Lowell's?

hi all
we finally got a email from shop direct asking for some more information ,in which i replied why had it taken 74 days to ask those questions.
they apologised and said that the SAR request had been mixed up somewhere in administration and will be with us within the next few days.
thanks to all for the support on this site.
i would like help when i finally get it to do the spreadsheet to to reclaim the charges plus interest and how to write the letter for the claim.

regards