Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

[Sandra's daughter]

Hello all,

Before Xmas I wrote to Capital One asking for refund of £240 in charges plus around an extra £100 in compensatory interest.

The came back to me Jan 2010 with an offer of £96 in charges (the difference between the current £12 charge level and the £20 I was charged) plus a tenner in interest.

I wrote to them rejecting their offer and threatening court action. They've now written to me again offering to refund the full £240 in charges and £23 in interest.

I want to accept this offer BUT their offer letter says any refund will be used to clear any outstanding balance on the account and the remainder, if any, will be sent as a cheque.

Well, my Cap One account is a closed account that I made a part payment on in full and final settlement with Buchanan Clark and Wells (debt collection agency) back in 2006.

Luckily, I have paperwork from BCW confirming receipt of this payment and that it was accepted in full and final settlement.

I am composing a letter to Cap One just checking they are aware of this full and final settlement. I figure they'll know why I am asking so thought in my letter I'd be straight and say the reason I'm asking is to check that IF I accept their offer I'll receive a cheque for the full offer amount of £263.

I wondered if anyone who had been through this with Cap One or another card provider had any thoughts on this letter? I haven't sent it yet. Here it is:

Dear Sir or Madam,

WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Re: Account number xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

Thank you for your letter dated February 3, 2010, offering to refund me £240 for all default sums charged plus £23 for interest charged on these default sums in the six years prior to the date of my complaint.

Your letter states that if I accept this offer you will offset the refund against any arrears, over limit amount or defaulted balance on my account and I will be sent a cheque for the remainder, if any.

I have a letter from Buchanan Clark & Wells confirming receipt of a payment in full and final settlement of this account dated May 22, 2006.

I spoke to one of your advisors on June 11, 2009, who confirmed that my Capital One account xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx was listed as settled with no outstanding balance. I would very much appreciate it if you could confirm this in writing.

I am keen to establish that if I was to accept your offer I would be issued with a cheque for the full offer amount of £263.

I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days.

Any thoughts anyone? I am inclined to be straight with Cap One about why I'm asking them to clarify the balance on my account but wondered if others who have been through this process think this is wise of me or not?

Any advice gratefully received .

Kind regards,
Sandra's daughter

[TUTTSI]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Your proposed letter is along the lines that I would have written. I think you will be fine as it is clearly a templated letter which they used.

Tuttsi

[charitynjw]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Hi Sd,

I would also request, for any further communication, that they supply a name (or dept.) who will be responsible for your dispute.

[Sandra's daughter]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Hi,

Thanks for your all your feedback on my letter.

Charitynjw my last letter DID come from a named person but the reason I haven't addressed my letter to her is in case she leaves in the meantime and then my letter never gets opened by anyone. Perhaps I worry too much but this has happened in my workplace!

[catinahat]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Yup, couldn't agree with you more Charity; I've never had any correspondance with the same name signed, more than one time... it makes for a very haphazard, disorganised confusing process. X

[Sandra's daughter]

Crap One wanna pay charges refund towards settled account - HELP!

Oh dear,


Looks like Capital One are going to play hardball with me. Sigh.


I sent them the letter pretty much as I drafted above.


Basically, I wanted to check if their offer £263 would be paid to me in the form of a cheque. I think it should be as the £488 balance on my account was paid to a DCA in full and final settlement of the debt in May 2006. I told Crap One I had a letter from the DCA to confirm this full and final settlement but I did not send Crap One a copy of it.


Anyway, had a letter back from Cap One yesterday. They say the oustanding balance "payable and due" on my account is £203 and that my account was only partially settled!


I was mightily peeved when I got this letter.



I think the best thing I can do now is send them another LBA. Below is the the response I have drafted - any thoughts?:

Dear Sir or Madam,

WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Re: Account number xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx

Thank you for your letter dated February 19, 2010.

You write that the current outstanding balance due and payable on my account is £203.90" and that the account was partially settled.

You say that you will offset the agreed refund of £263.26 against any outstanding defaulted balance and send me a cheque for the outstanding amount.

I would like to make it clear that I have at no point accepted your offer of £263.26 so it is not correct for you to refer to it as an agreed refund.

Also, I dispute the fact there is an outstanding balance "due and payable" on my account. Therefore, I respecfully decline your offer of £263.26 and write to inform you of my intention to claim the default charges applied to my account together with interest up to the date of judgment and court fees in proceedings through the county court.

I would like to make a few points for your consideration.

Firstly, I have a letter dated March 23, 2006, from Buchanan Clark & Wells informing me that their clients, Capital One, have instructed them to "initiate formal debt collection proceedings" for the unpaid debt of £488.90 on my account.

As I stated in my letter to you dated Febuary 15, 2010, I have a further letter from Buchanan Clark & Wells, dated May 22, 2006, confirming receipt of a £295 payment from me in, and I quote, "full and final settlement" of account xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A debt collection agency acting on Capital One's behalf accepted a payment in full and final settlement of the debt yet Capital One now say there remains an outstanding balance on my account and that any refund of charges would be put towards this balance. This cannot be right and I am prepared to argue this matter in court.

Furthermore, as I stated in my letter to you dated Febuary 15, 2010, I spoke to one of your advisors on June 11, 2009 chasing the whereabouts of information I had requested in a subject access request letter two month prior.

The male adviser I spoke to confirmed that my Capital One account xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx was listed as settled with no outstanding balance.

Secondly, I would also like to draw to your attention that £488.90 less a payment of £295.00 leaves £193.90. Yet you have the disputed "outstanding balance due and payable" as £203.90.

I have paperwork from Capital One that shows that on June 11, 2009, a "Copy Statement Fee" of £10 was debited from my account. I can only assume that this relates to a subject access request I made two months prior. Yet I sent a cheque for £10 to Capital One in order for this subject access request to be processed. This cheque was cashed May XX, 2009. Again, the fact that a payment has been wrongly added to my account in this way cannot be right and I am prepared to argue the matter in court.

Please find overleaf an updated schedule of the charges on my account.

I look forward to a full response to this letter within 14 days, otherwise I will commence court proceedings without any further notification.

[WendyB]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Just a point here....If you did not actually pay back the full amount i.e you paid 295 in f & f, then can you legitimately be entitled to the charges refund as you never actually paid them in the first place? Hope that makes sense and you can see where I'm coming from.

As in, if I'd charged you for something and you hadn't paid my bill, then the best you could expect would be a credit to bring the balance to nil, rather than a refund which would put you in a better position than you were in the first place. So then if this does make sense, the logical conclusion would be that if you accept their offer of 263 and they use 203 of it to offset a balance that you never paid in the first place, then you are actually 60 quid better off than you should be....

[Sandra's daughter]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Wendy, what a good point!

Reading your post actually made me realise that in my zealous pursuit of Capital One charges refund - I never considered that I was chasing refund of an unpaid account.

Oh dear. Time for me to reflect upon the situation and decide whether to accept their offer is a good one after all?

Am so embarrassed! What's more, you're the first person (online or off) to point this out to me. I ran Crap One's offer past my sister yesterday and she was all fired up saying: "Cap One are terrible, take them to court, of course they should issue you a cheque for the whole amount" etc!

Although - putting my case to one side for the moment - it still doesn't seem right that they want to go back on a full and final settlement (although I currently have no law to prove this point).

I mean, if companies could still chase you for the balance of a part-paid account even though the part-payment was accepted in full and final settlement of the account then what would be the point of 1, companies offering such a deal and, 2, consumers accepting such a deal? Do you see what I mean?

I really value your input Wendy, I hope others get involved in this, I really would like to hear what they think. Still can't believe that I never considered the point you're making. I need a embarrassed/blushing emoticon!

[WendyB]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

To be honest, I can't see that you'll get any more out of them, someone somewhere along the line is bound to notice what I have. And whether or not they are going back on a full and final offer is neither here nor there really is it? Because even if the f an f had never been made, you would in that case still owe them xxx amount, which means that even if they did refund the charges, they would have taken them off the balance anyway and only paid you the leftovrs. No company is ever going to send a cheque for a refund when there is a balance outstanding. (Well that's not strictly true cos Natwest CC did with me, but that's only because they are very stupid and made it worse by employing a very stupid firm of solicitors pmsl!!)

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Wendy x

[Sandra's daughter]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Hello,

After much consideration, I have decided to send the above LBA to Capital One stating my belief that it is wrong of them to apply their charges refund offer towards the disputed outstanding balance on my account.

This is because I firmly believe that a full and final settlement means there should be no outstanding balance on my account. There's also the fact that their own member of staff last year confirmed there was no outstanding balance on this account.

I'll wait to see what their response is and take it from there.

I'll post any updates!

Thakns for everyone's input.

SD.

[tifo]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

i am in the exactly the same situation.

i settled a Cap One account with a DCA with full payment of the outstanding balance, so not only did i clear everything i also paid charges, PPI and associated interest on the account.

i then reclaimed charges from Cap One and they offered the difference between £18 and £12 and sent the payment to the DCA, though i never accepted their settlement offer. As soon as the DCA got this refund, they resurrected the whole balance and it's again outstanding.

i then took them to the FOS who upheld that Cap One can pay the DCA, even if i've paid the account in full, because THEY (Cap One) weren't paid by me!

so, after the FOS and test case (because courts were putting credit card claims on hold as well) i'm chasing Cap One again and they're still saying the same, i.e. they will refund towards the 'outstanding balance' though there is NO balance. This time they can quote the FOS as upholding their offer. Plus the DCA now shows a balance to them.

I've enquired and the DCA have no record of the settlement letter (the settlement was done through their Legal Department's Director) and they say the balance is only for internal purposes as they are not chasing it. But this is still stopping Cap One from paying me direct.

Any advice what i can do (i can start my own thread)?

Thanks.

[Sandra's daughter]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Hello all,

Further to my last post, I did write to Cap One with another LBA asking them to reconsider but I have not heard back from them. They've had more than 14 days to respond so I could just start court proceedings. But I've decided to go to FOS as I wanted their opinion on when a full and final settlement wasn't a full and final settlement- basically the point Wendy B raised. I thought by going to the FOS I'd get a definitive answer which I wouldn't if I pursued a court case. I haven't yet written to FOS yet though and now I've read Tifo's post it doesn't seem as if the FOS will rule in my favour at all!

Still, I'm gonna give the FOS a go. The worst that can happen is that they will agree that Cap One can put the £263 charges refund they've offered me towards the £203 outstanding balance Cap One say there is on my account and send me a cheque for the remainder - which means I'll get a cheque for £60. And seeing as it's money I thought I'd never see again I figure that's better than nothing.

I'll post here how I get on with FOS.

SD.

[MIKE770]

Re: Considering charges refund offer from Cap One

Hello all,

Further to my last post, I did write to Cap One with another LBA asking them to reconsider but I have not heard back from them. They've had more than 14 days to respond so I could just start court proceedings. But I've decided to go to FOS as I wanted their opinion on when a full and final settlement wasn't a full and final settlement- basically the point Wendy B raised. I thought by going to the FOS I'd get a definitive answer which I wouldn't if I pursued a court case. I haven't yet written to FOS yet though and now I've read Tifo's post it doesn't seem as if the FOS will rule in my favour at all!

Still, I'm gonna give the FOS a go. The worst that can happen is that they will agree that Cap One can put the £263 charges refund they've offered me towards the £203 outstanding balance Cap One say there is on my account and send me a cheque for the remainder - which means I'll get a cheque for £60. And seeing as it's money I thought I'd never see again I figure that's better than nothing.

I'll post here how I get on with FOS.

SD.

Go to court route or FOS only will look at 6 yrs charges, and when Cap one send figures of proposals FOS do not check the accurracy of them, your choice all monies repayed or possible partial refund, my experiance, look at mike770 cap one thread regarding charges.