Debt Collectors

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

So, Mint have refused again to refund the charges.

They disagree with me on the amount of charges too.

They've also not responded with regards to my offer of payment. I've not made any payment so far since writing the letter.

As the CCA is compliant - I'm not too sure whether to send the LBA and risk them taking me to court first. I don't want a CCJ against me.

Any ideas peeps please?

[Curlyben]

Re: Debt Collectors

Sounds about right.
The OFT DIDN'T say £12 was fair, just they wouldn't investigate charges below this level.

Doesn't mean they are lawful, now does it ??

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Thanks CB.

Oh burger it then.

I will send the LBA and start making the £5 payment and just ignore their stupid second letter and see what happens. Fingers crossed no court stuff!

[Curlyben]

Re: Debt Collectors

Here's exactly what the OFT had to say.

Where credit card default charges are set at more than £12, the OFT will presume that they are unfair, and is likely to challenge the charge unless there are limited, exceptional business factors in play. A default charge is not fair simply because it is below £12. Setting a threshold for intervention is a pragmatic pro-consumer action that is designed to give the industry the opportunity to change its practice without litigation. It is supported by detailed guidance to the industry as to how to reduce the likelihood of public enforcement.
A default charge should only be used to recover certain limited administrative costs. These may include postage and stationery costs and staff costs and also a proportionate share of the costs of maintaining premises and IT systems necessary to deal with defaults
Where we conclude that a fee above the threshold is unfair we are likely to challenge the charge but will have regard to all the circumstances in deciding whether to do so or not. We will regard default charges set below the threshold as either not unfair or insufficiently detrimental to the economic interests of consumers in all the circumstances to warrant regulatory intervention at this time. This does not affect in any way the statutory rights of individual consumers, or groups of such consumers, to challenge the level of default charges, either above or below this threshold

Might be worth using some of it

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

So, I sent this letter to Mint on 5th January:

5th January 2009

SENT BY RECORDED DELIVERY

Mint Credit Card
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC
36 ST ANDREW SQUARE
EDINBURGH
EH2 2YB

Dear Sir/Madam

Re:− Account Number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Repayment of Penalty Charges Request

Further to my letter of 20th December 2008 and your reply of 30th December 2008, I note that you have not responded to my token offer of £5 per month (see letter of 20th December 2008) on the understanding that no more charges or interest are added to the account, so that all payments made will reduce what I owe you. As I have not heard from you in this regard, I therefore presume that you accept this token offer; I will begin making the payment with immediate effect.

Once again, I would remind you of your obligation under the banking code that you will "develop a plan with you for dealing with your financial difficulties and we will tell you in writing what we have agreed.”

Again, further to my letter of 20th December 2008 and your reply of 30th December 2008, I am writing again to ask you to refund to me the penalty charges which you have added to my account over the last 3 years which amount to £132.50 plus £20.16 which you have charged me in interest on those charges. Therefore the total I am requesting at this stage is £152.66.

You no doubt are aware that under OFT guidance, a default charge is not “fair” simply because it is below £12. A default charge should only be used to recover certain limited administrative costs.

I give you a final further 14 days to reply to me accepting, unconditionally, my request in of refunding me the FULL amount of penalty charges, plus interest in and letting me know a date by which I will receive a refund, which should be made to reduce the balance directly on the above account.

If you do not respond, or you do not respond positively, within this time period, I shall send you a letter before action giving you a further 14 days in which to reflect.

If you do not respond to my letter before action within 14 days, I shall commence a County Court claim against you.

I hope that this will not be necessary and an acceptable solution can be accomplished.

I would appreciate your due diligence in all the above matters and look forward to hearing from you in writing.

They've responded agreeing to repay charges of £64.80 including 8% interest!

I'm going to accept it - I had added on a few charges to my spreaddie that related to cheque transfer fees etc, so I guess I cannot get those back!

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Received this letter from Mint:

Thank you for contacting us with your complaint regarding an aspect of your letter dated 20th December 2008. I am sorry that you felt the need to raise this issue with us.

Your case has been investigated fully and I wish to confirm that the collection of this outstanding balance has not been dealt with by MINT since 24th July 2008. We passed the account to debt collecting agents, namely Triton Credit Services, at that time for your non-payment of the agreed repayment arrangement. (I had sent them a letter via CCCS offering them £1 until further notice, they never responded to this, but I note from the statements that they put the minimum payment as £1 each month. This was also after issuing a letter of final demand on 10th July. I do not have record of receiving this letter.

However, since 12 December 2008, Allied International Credit (UK) Ltd has been dealing with its collection and you must contact them direct with any offers of repaynment and all paynments must be sent to them direct. They have already made contact with you about the account. They sent me a postcard and that is all.

I am able to confirm that no further charges have been applied to the account since its cancellation on 1st April 2008 and interest has not been charged since 30th April 2008. This is supported by the monthly statements we that sent until we instructed agents in July 2008.

bla bla bla

I sent a letter back in December offering Mint £5 per month (see previous posts). I cannot afford to pay anymore than this at the present time, but want to start paying this debt off - I do not want to receive a Statutory Demand or any other sort of court letters!!!!! What should I do please? Any suggestions gratefully received.

Many thanks.

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Bump:bump2:


Mint have repaid the charges - apparently taking them off the balance.

From my understanding, the fact that the charges have been taken off the balance owing, the debt is obviously still owned by Mint

Any thoughts on this please - I've sent a bemused letter to the DCA, they received this on 24th January 2009. Basically I want to start paying this off, but at an amount that I can afford...................

[Amy]

Re: Debt Collectors

Start paying them anyway, they will write back then.

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Hi,

I've made a £30 token payment and have set up a standing order as of March to pay £10 per month direct to Mint.

I've drafted this letter to Mint - please could someone take a looksie?

Mint Credit Card
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC
36 ST ANDREW SQUARE
EDINBURGH
EH2 2YB

Dear Sir/Madam

Re:− Account Number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Further to your letter of 30th January 2009, I look forward to receiving a statement showing that the charges of £64.80 have been deducted as agreed from the account.

Furthermore, I have today made a payment of £30 (which should actually reach your account today) in relation to my previous letters offering a £5 token monthly payment. I am now in the position of being able to offer £10 per month to begin reducing the debt on the account. The £30 payment today relates to token payments covering December 2008, January 2009 and February 2009. Once I am in a position to be able to make further increased payments to reduce the debt significantly, then I will do so.

I look forward to receiving statements on a regular basis showing the charges that have been deducted and showing payments that I make on the account to reduce to balance.

I also make the request that you instruct your “agents” namely Allied International Credit, who use such unpleasant bullying tactics to stop contacting me as I am making payments direct to yourselves.

Once again, I would remind you of your obligation under the banking code that you will "develop a plan with you for dealing with your financial difficulties and we will tell you in writing what we have agreed.”

Also, today, I have received this letter from Allied International Credit - had a stupid moment and phoned them to see exactly what the settlement figure would be. Spoke to a right old hag who was very rude and wanted to know all the usual stuff, started quoting CCA at me, so I told her she had no clue of what she was talking about and put the phone down on her - not before though her telling me that the settlement figure was around £1800 and I had to pay it before the end of the month as the whole figure was now due. I told her that was not possible - she said that she would put it on hold for 48 hours to see if I can could hold of any money - what am I going to do, rob bank?!?? Oooh could charge into Natwest and rob them! LOL

Anyway, Allied International Credit do not have the correct figure in the letter below (Mint have taken off £64.80 in charges).

I've already sent one of CB's bemused letters to them, I'd really prefer to keep this out of court if possible what should I do now please?

[StoneLaughter]

Re: Debt Collectors

I doubt they'll take you to court; you've been paying what you can afford and the court will see this and be quite nonplussed as to why you're being sued when you're paying! If they award Judgement they may well even set a LOWER payment than you've been making... you can then save up the difference and pay them a lump sum when ytou feel like it...

[Curlyben]

Re: Debt Collectors

oh dear very sad threat-O-gram letter indeed.
File it under I

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Now received this letter from Mint:

They are a total pain in the proverbial, why should I deal with Allied when the account was in dispute with Mint before they passed it over? I do not want to pay or deal with a DCA, I want to continue to pay this back to Mint. Any ideas please?

[Curlyben]

Re: Debt Collectors

Well I'd continue with Mint.
As is clearly mentioned AIC are merely agents and as such can't do toffee with regards enforcement.

I'd also push them for the remaining charges or their Final Response on this matter so you can take it to the FOS for further action

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Hi

Have yet to push Mint for their final response, but in the meantime have received this letter from AIC - so they want to come to a deal, but I do not want to deal with them! Any ideas please?

[Birdie]

Re: Debt Collectors

Updating this thread.

I've sent this letter to Mint:

27th April 2009

SENT BY RECORDED DELIVERY

Mint Credit Card
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC
36 ST ANDREW SQUARE
EDINBURGH
EH2 2YB

Dear Sir/Madam

Re:− Account Number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I have continued to make payments to reduce the balance – I made a payment today of £20 to yourselves to cover March and April payments. As I previously notified you, once I am in a position to be able to make further increased payments to reduce the debt significantly, then I will do so, in the meantime, I will continue to make the £10 direct to yourselves in order to reduce the balance.

Once again, I make the reasonable request that you instruct your “agents” namely Allied International Credit who use such unpleasant bullying tactics to stop contacting me as I am making payments direct to yourselves.

Indeed, I would also remind you of your obligation under the banking code that you will "develop a plan with you for dealing with your financial difficulties and we will tell you in writing what we have agreed.”

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully