jax v Lloyds CC

[jax007]

I sent off Tools Barclaycard template letter requesting full refund and interest at contractual rate - this is the reply.

Please note the marked paragraph - ![

Can anyone offer suggestions as to what I should reply in terms of trying to secure contractual interest and also full refund of the £12 charges too.

Many thanks

jax

[Budgie]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Without having seen the actual letter that you sent off to Lloyds here is the gist of what I would reply with. Feel free to adapt it as you wish to suit your own claim.

Account No: xxxxxxxxxxxxx


Dear xxxxxxxxxxxx,

Please see attached copies of our recent correspondence.

Thank you for your letter dated xx/xx/xxxx, received today, xx/xx/xxxx.

I note that you have offered £xx.xx as a gesture of goodwill, I must inform you that I will not be accepting this offer, which I consider to be derisory and insulting.

As outlined in my earlier correspondence I explained that the charges you have applied to my account are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Further or in the alternative, I believe that your charges are a Penalty. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this was Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor co Ltd [1915] AC 79 along with Murray v. Leisure play [2005] EWCA Civ 963

The £12 mentioned in your letter, dated xx/xx/xxxx, has been set by the Office Of Fair Trading as a figure that was deemed fair but which may or may not reflect any actual and or real loss. Should you wish to provide me with a detailed breakdown of your liquidated costs in relation to these charges, and show that they are in fact £12, I will consider your offer.

Although in my letter dated xx/xx/xxxx I informed you that I would start legal proceedings within 7 days, as a gesture of goodwill I will give you an extra 7 days to make a full and unconditional refund of the requested amount. Since first writing to you on xx/xx/xxxx interest has continued to accrue on the outstanding amount. So I take this opportunity to submit further revised figures. The total amount I now require you to repay is £xxx ( £xxx charges plus £xxx compensatory interest – the compensatory interest has now been calculated up to xx/xx/xxxx ) Revised spreadsheet is attached.

Should you fail to meet my request within 7 days I will be forced to start legal proceedings; you will receive no further warnings.


Yours Sincerely


Please post up a copy of your original letter to Lloyds ( with personal data removed ) so that I can double check and help with any mods to your next (LBA) letter

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Thanks Budgie

(How are you by the way? Long time, no speak!!)

The letter I sent had none of the legal points - it was a copy of the one sent to Barclaycard by Tools basically leaving the lender to make on offer on penalties charged..

(BTW I have had a reply from M&S offerin 100% of charges plus 23.9% interest using the same letter!)

Have attached the letter sent.

Thanx hun
x

[Budgie]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Hiya Jax,

The initial letter you sent ( largely based on Tools b'card letter ) was a preliminary letter asking for a refund of charges plus interest.

There were a couple of things that could happen when they received your letter, they would either pay up or put up a fight. They have decided to put up a fight, have made you a derisory offer and are hoping that you will take that and disappear.

Up to you what you do next.

If you wish to continue the fight you could send something along the lines I have proposed ( which is a letter before action - LBA ). At this stage, as indicated in the letter, I would recommend doing a proper spreadsheet, calculating the total of the charges and the interest you are expecting them to repay. This will be needed anyway should the matter progress on to a court claim.

Let us know what you decide to do and feel free to pop up a draft of your letter ( + spreadsheet etc ) if you would like it checked.

People have been reclaiming credit card charges for a few years now and it is amazing that the credit card companies are still using the same old delaying tactics when dealing with these claims !

Just a quick question before you embark upon the next stage though. How much do you owe on this card compared to how much you expect to receive as a result of your claim?

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't this be recoverable???

Can someone put me straight on this please?

Ta muchly
jaxx

[Tools]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

The penalties (charges) are irrecoverable by Lloyds from you Jax. Not that you cannot recover the charges from them.

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Thanx hun!!

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

OK I've done my LBA really based on the original letter following Tools example with Barclaycard, ie leaving the bank to provide the figure for charges.

However, if they come back with more cr4p, I'll formally SAR them and go from there.

Can someone please check the content of my LBA and make sure I haven't said anything discriminating!

Ta muchly
jaxx

[Budgie]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Have tweaked a few bits Jax.

Deleted to avoid confusion

[EXC]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

The £12 mentioned in your letter has been set by the Office Of Fair Trading as a figure that was deemed fair, but which may or may not reflect any actual and or real loss. Should you wish to provide me with a detailed breakdown of your liquidated costs in relation to these charges, and show that they are in fact £12, I will consider your offer.

Far be it for me to comment on Budgie's work but the OFT specifically said that the £12 figure was their own 'investigatory threshold' and was not deemed as what is fair, and that ''only a court can decide'' what is fair.

I've not seen the letter Jax got from Barclaycard but if they are suggesting that the OFT stipulated that £12 is 'fair', they need to be pulled up on it in my view.

[Budgie]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Yes, you are right Exc, that sentence was from a very early letter I sent to Cap One in my own claim ( years ago now ) and was in context at that time, but does not work as a stand alone.

Have tweaked the draft letter below.
To be honest we could add quite a few paragraphs but that is not the point of an LBA. We will save the blurb for later.

Please feel free to tweak further !!



Default charges on account number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your letter dated 27 July 2010.

I note that you have offered £97.47 as a gesture of goodwill. I must inform you that I will not be accepting this offer, which I consider to be derisory and insulting.

Please provide me with a list of all charges applied to the account since it was opened and confirm which, if any, charges you have previously refunded.

As outlined in my earlier correspondence I believe that the charges applied to my account are contrary to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. Further, or in the alternative, I believe that your charges are a Penalty. Penalty charges are irrecoverable at common law. The precedent for this is Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage and Motor co Ltd [1915] AC 79 along with Murray v. Leisure play [2005] EWCA Civ 963

By virtue of the fact that you have applied these penalty charges to my account and additionally charged me interest, at the contractual rate, on these unlawful penalty charges, you have been unjustly enriched. You have also been further unjustly enriched by using my money and turning it to account in the normal course of your business.

Although in my letter dated 14 July 2010 I informed you that I would start legal proceedings within 14 days, as a gesture of goodwill I will allow you an extra 14 days to make a full and unconditional refund of all charges applied to my account account plus compensatory compound interest at the contractual rate.

The £12 mentioned in your letter was merely a threshold figure, set by the Office Of Fair Trading as a figure above which they would presume unfairness. They further state that "only a court can decide finally whether a term is unfair, or at what level default charges should be set to meet the requirements of the UTCCRs." Should you wish to provide me with a detailed breakdown of your liquidated costs in relation to these charges, and show that they are in fact £12, I will consider your offer.

Should you fail to meet my request within 14 days I will be forced to start legal proceedings; you will receive no further warnings.

Yours Sincerely

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

That's super thanks Bud - and thanks to Exc for being on the ball as ever xx

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

OK have had FINAL reply from Lloyds CC and they are not budging on the 8% interest (see attached letter).

You will see they have offered to refund 'remaining balance of charges' and have again added 8% interest.

My thoughts are to refuse this offer and instruct them NOT to credit my account as if I do decide to put in a court claim I'll be batting on a sticky wicket just going for contractual interest????

I am thinking I ought to reject offer and submit an SAR and then write to them again with MY figures for refund.

Any thoughts on this please?

ta
jaxx

[jax007]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Bump please

ta

[Budgie]

Re: jax v Lloyds CC

Hi Jax,

Am pretty sure they will have already have credited your account with what they have offered you !!

Decision now really is with you.

It would help if we knew the exact details of the charges applied to your account, so yes the SAR would be useful.

However all that will mean is that we can can check that they are refunding all of the charges and that they have calculated the 8% interest correctly ( I bet they have just added a straight 8% simple to the charges total and not taken the elapsed time period into account ). I am also pretty sure that they won't have taken any pre-six years charges into account, so again it is probably worth doing the SAR just to make sure exactly how they have arrived at their figures.

You pretty much know what would be involved if you wanted to pursue the compound interest aspect. It would mean a court claim, court appearances, loads of studying of relevant case law etc etc.

Personally, I would suggest you do the SAR, we work out some figures and maybe try a last letter approach to see if we can tweak up the figure. At the conclusion of that exercise you can make a decision about which way you want to go.

Regards

Budgie