Application Form But No Agreement

[CD36]

An application form would be older than a credit agreement, so why do so many creditors and DCAs struggle to provide the latter when a CCA request is made, but invariably can provide the former?

[PlanB]

Re: Application Form But No Agreement

An application form would be older than a credit agreement, so why do so many creditors and DCAs struggle to provide the latter when a CCA request is made, but invariably can provide the former?

Probably because a lot of creditors wrongly thought that an application form was all that they needed to get a consumer to sign to set up an account. As a result a lot of them (Capital 1 & MBNA spring to mind) didn't follow up with a compliant credit agreement. It's bound to be a struggle to find something that didn't exist in the first place

[CD36]

Re: Application Form But No Agreement

That's interesting, so is there a conclusive list of those providers that did/didn't provide agreements?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Application Form But No Agreement

That's interesting, so is there a conclusive list of those providers that did/didn't provide agreements?

No, there can't be such a list because the same company wouldn't have operated consistently over the years and there are many ways in which an account could be opened: in branch, by post, in a shop, online, by phone, at an exhibition or special event, etc. Application forms were often provided in booklet form as well as printed on magazines and various publications, posted to people's homes, etc. as a result of marketing campaigns. If you applied in branch you could well have signed a proper agreement with all the terms while someone who applied on the same day would just have filled out a form without any terms from a publication, or applied over the phone and never received anything to sign.

For online applications from January 2005 onwards, a tick box is as good as a signature, but you'd still need to sign an agreement if you didn't apply online. Furthermore, banks have been buying each other's accounts, so an MBNA which started, say, as an Abbey card may well be unenforceable due to lack of terms, while an MBNA account that was opened with MBNA from the start may well have all the terms. It's impossible to generalize due to the large number of variables involved.

[CD36]

Re: Application Form But No Agreement

^ That makes sense. Mine were both from leaflets inside a magazine, which is probably why they were able to provide the application form but not the agreement, as there probably never was one.