Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

[gony]

Hi,

I was made aware on Fri night that my wife has been in dispute with Barclaycard over a supposed outstanding balance on an Egg card.
Apparently when Barclay took over card in Oct 2011 there was an outstanding balance.
My wife has spoken to them a number of times and disputed the fact that she had a balance on this card.
It has got to point where mercury (Barclays debt collection agency) have been in touch a few times and left my wife stressed and out of pocket as she agreed to pay cash towards the supposed debt or she would be in difficulty.
My wife stopped using the card in 2009 and had left dd min payment running.
When she did an audit of her accounts 2010 she stopped the dd.
I spoke to Barclay card on Fri night and a manager has agreed to attempt to get the transactions for the period in question, as I explained
that I was not willing to settled a debt that I have no evidence existed.
The will call me tomorrow night to go through this.
Does anyone have any advice on what my position is and how I should proceed?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

First of all, she shouldn't let them intimidate her. She shouldn't be paying anything if she's not sure she owes the money in the first place.

I also have a bad Egg which I took out in 2001, last used in 2005 when I was abroad, left the DD running till 2009, balance hardly went down! :mad2: :scared: :mad2: :scared:

Cancelled the DD in Jan 2010, haven't heard anything since, other than a generic email in 2011 advising me that the account had been sold to Barclays, and that I should continue to make payments as usual, so I have, was paying £0.00/pcm, still am! msl: msl: msl:

There are two letters/requests that can be sent: a SAR and a CCA request.

A SAR is a request under the Data Protection Act, for all historical data (including statements). Normally they'll only send the last 6 years, but it should cover as far back as 2007, so it should be OK for the purpose. It costs £10 + postage and they have 40 days to respond.

The other is a CCA request, for a copy of the original credit agreement. A response to a CCA request should include a statement of account but not any historical data. It costs £1 + postage and they have 14 days to respond. This is most useful to challenge/assess the enforceability of the account, providing, of course, that there is an outstanding balance in the first place. :thumb:

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Below is the SAR letter, which should be sent recorded delivery with a cheque or PO for £10, and signed digitally using a computer font rather than your real signature. :typing:

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,

[gony]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Thanks Parrot.
What do you advise I say to them on Tues, especially if they read out statements for the period of last activity on the card?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Hi,

I spoke to Barclay card on Fri night and a manager has agreed to attempt to get the transactions for the period in question, as I explained
that I was not willing to settled a debt that I have no evidence existed.
The will call me tomorrow night to go through this.
Does anyone have any advice on what my position is and how I should proceed?

What do you advise I say to them on Tues, especially if they read out statements for the period of last activity on the card?

I would say you should get everything in writing. Normally we'd say you shouldn't speak to them over the phone at all and communicate with them only by letter.

If you guys decide to speak to them, I'd still ask them to send you the statements in the post, there's little point in having things read out to you over the phone that you have no time to digest or verify, nor will you have any record. Requesting a balance over the phone is fine, but statements should be printed and posted for you to scrutinize and keep!

If they agree to send you statements then fine, but don't discuss anything else over the phone. Above all, do no make any repayment offers or reach any agreements. As an extreme example, I know of someone who, back in 2000, agreed a repayment plan with a creditor over the phone, where the creditor promised to freeze interest. Last year, after 12 years of repayments, he received a statement for £24k!!!

It turns out they'd been adding interest all along, and he didn't have anything in writing to prove otherwise.

[gony]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Ok many thanks.
As they are going to call, I will wait to see what they have to say and then request hard copies be sent out.
If they refuse I will say I will send a SAR request.
I will not pay anything out until I have seen statements.
Is it reasonable to ask them to stop interest whilst this is sorted out?

[gony]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Update: They phoned early and agreed to send statements by post for all transactions since egg card opened. They have waived last 6 months of late payment fees and stopped late payments for next month.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Wife in difficulties over old Egg card

Ok many thanks.
As they are going to call, I will wait to see what they have to say and then request hard copies be sent out.
If they refuse I will say I will send a SAR request.

Sounds like a plan! :thumb: If you can save the time and trouble of sending a SAR, then by all means.

I will not pay anything out until I have seen statements.
Is it reasonable to ask them to stop interest whilst this is sorted out?

Are they still adding interest even when if was defaulted years ago?

When was this card taken out? Was it an online application? If so, was it before or after January 2005?