Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

[jax007]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

Evidence of payments we requested to be made from this account on the 23rd June as alledged.

Sorry - just being picky but it's alleged.

jaxx

[Sapphire]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

Well I've been busy and now have a bit of time to update this thread. Here's a couple of letters I have received.......

22 July 2009

COMPLAINT REF ......

Thank you for getting in touch. I am sorry you are unhappy about your bank account charges.
I am sorry that you have had no response to your initial letter dated 19 May 2008. I have been unable to find any record of receipt of this letter.
We believe your complaint relates to the level, fairness or lawfulness of the charges. If it relates to another issue about your bank charges such as an administrative error then please let us know.
From what you've said in your letter, or from initial investigations we have carried out, it may be also that you are experiencing financial difficulties.
We want to help our customers if they are in financial difficulty or hardship. So that we can see if there's anything we can do we've sent a copy of your letter to our collections team. This is because they can help you review your financial to see if there's anything we can do to help. They can also discuss a variety of repayment solutions tailored to your needs.
The collections centre assists customers who are experiencing financial hardship or difficulties, and their accounts are in arrears. The collections centre will provide a variety of repayment solutions tailored to your needs. However they won't be able to deal with the charges covered by the OFT waiver.
Our unplanned overdraft charges are clair and represent a fair charge for a banking service that is valued by our customers. However, Lloyds TSB (along with other major UK banks) has now become involved in legal proceedings with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to clarify the fairness and legality of these charges. The case has been called a 'Test case' because the decision will clarify the law in this area.
In the first step of the test case last year, the Judge looked at our current terms and conditions and decided that unplanned overdraft charges are not penalties. They are, however, assessable for fairness. The banks appealed this part of the decision. On 26 February 2009, the Court of Appeal held that these charges were assessable for fairness. The banks are now appealing this decision to the House of Lords.
In January this year, the judge also ruled that our historic unplanned overdraft charges are not penalties but can be assessed for fairness. This judgement appliesto all our customers whose accounts were covered by the terms and conditions applying before November 2007. The court has not yet decided whether the charges are fair or not and further hearings will be held before any final decidion is reached.
For the time being, during the determination of the legal issues in the test case, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has agreed we can suspend the normal timetable for dealing with complaints about unplanned overdraft charges.
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has also generally decided to put all investigations and determinations concerning the fairness and legality of unplanned overdraft charges on hold, until the conclusion of the test case.
Until then, please do keep all the documentation we have sent you as it will make it easier for you to support your complaint at this time.
If you're thinking of making a claim through the courts, please note that we will be asking the courts to postpone proceedings about bank charges until the conclusion of the banks' proceedings with the OFT.
I have fully investigated the specific instance you mentioned regarding your account entering an Unplanned Overdraft on 23 June 2009. Following my investigation I found the Unplanned Overdraft to have been incurred as a direct result of the Planned Overdraft limit being reduced on 20 June 2009. According to our systems, your Planned Overdraft limit was set to decrease by xx monthly. Your bank statements show the date of your next Planned Overdraft renewal. This means that whilst your account balance remained xxxx.xx your overdraft limit reduced from xxxx.xx to xxxx.xx . This resulted in a balance in excess of your planned overdraft by xx.xx.
We appreciated that you may have wanted to have your complaint dealt with more quickly, but we can assure you that we are taking steps to ensure that your complained will not be disadvantaged whilst the test case continues.
We will also keep you updated about any important develpments in the test case. You can also check the latest position on our website Welcome to lloydstsb.com. If you do have any queries or concerns regardings any of the above, please give us a call on 0845 300 0000 - we'll be glad to help.

[Sapphire]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

Another letter dated 7 August 2009.

COMPLAINT REF .....

Thank you for contacting us recently. We're very sorry to hear that you have some concerns.
Let me assure you that your complaint is getting the attention it deserves and one of my team members is looking into your concerns to understand what's happened. We will get a response to you as soon as we can.
We want you to be happy with every aspect of our service and that also means dealing with your complaint promptly and fairly. So I have attached to this letter a document called 'Voicing your concerns'. If has information about what to do if you are still unhappy with us after we've been in touch with our full response.
Once again I am sorry that you've had cause to complain in the first place. If you would like to talk to someone about this or provide more information please don't hesitate to contact me or a member of my team on the number above.

[Sapphire]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

Then we received 2 copies of a letter yesterday from SCM (their in house solicitors I believe) basically with the usual threats, pay up in 14 days or else, it will affect your credit rating, blah di blah di blah.

No sh ' t sherlock we know that BUT the account is in dispute and nothing you can do. So am firing off the account in dispute letter to them today.
Then I'm going to reply to Joanne Pain and Zoe Sweeby in Customer Service Recoveries who wrote the first two letters, asking them again to tell me what these 'alleged' direct debits/payments are that they said we due to come out of the account.

Okkies, account in dispute letter (from Curly's CCA guide) prepared ready to post later.

This is the letter I'm sending to Joanne and Zoe in Customer Service

Thank you for your letters of 22 July and 7 August 2009, the contents of which are noted.

Unfortunately you do not seem to have addressed my query as follows:

‘Evidence of payments we requested to be made from this account on the 23rd June as alleged.’

What payments ?????

I would appreciate you re-investigating this query and look forward to your reply at your earliest convenience.

[Amy]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

Why are there multiple question marks? Does it make it more of a question the more you add?

[Sapphire]

Re: Sapphire V Lloyds (joint A/c)

PMSL I thought it might make them take more notice.