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I apologise in advance for an extremely long post but I feel that I need to set out a series of events that may or may not be significant and I am hoping that somebody will be able to help me understand what the key issues are and how I should move forward.
I opened a TSB current account in the early 1990s.
My recollection is that if you wanted a cheque guarantee card you had to have a TSB Trustcard (credit card) because it doubled as a cheque guarantee card. I therefore obtained a Trustcard for this purpose and started to use the credit card facility as well. This would have been around 1996.
Everything was fine until I was made redundant and became self-employed. Unfortunately, I was defrauded and lost all my money and fell into financial difficulty.
I wrote to Trustcard explaining the situation in 2003.
Looking back at the letters I wrote it seems that Lloyds TSB issued a Default Notice to me in November 2003. However, I don’t believe that the Default Notice was ever registered with the credit reference agencies even though the default was not remedied. I don’t remember whether a termination notice was ever issued.
At this stage I owed Lloyds TSB around £10k.
A day after issuing the Default Notice another section of Lloyds TSB agreed to cease charging interest and to receive nominal monthly payments of £5 per month which later increased to £7. This arrangement was subject to 6 monthly reviews and continued for a number of years.
In 2008 I received an unsolicited letter from Lloyds TSB stating that they were going to make this “informal arrangement” contractually binding on themselves, though they reserved the right to give notice to change the terms of the agreement and to recommence charging interest.
My payments continued at £7 per month.
In February 2010 I received a letter stating that my repayment plan had been time limited and that this had now ended, even though I had never been told before about this or when it was due to end. The letter reinstated the standard monthly payments and interest charges without notice and I subsequently found out that this had taken effect for a period that pre-dated the letter (ie interest became chargeable from 4th Feb 2010 but the letter informing me what was going to happen was dated 9th February 2010 and arrived much later). I wrote and provided a statement of means explaining that I could not afford anything more than I was paying. This was ignored.
In April 2010 I received a letter telling me that I was in arrears by nearly £200 though I had never received the statement containing this new monthly payment (I couldn’t have afforded to pay it anyway) and by the time I received this letter the outstanding payment had been taken from our joint Lloyds TSB current account containing joint working tax credit.
I wrote and phoned on a number of occasions but everything was ignored. During one telephone conversation I was told that I had received no replies because I had used the wrong address. I had used the address provided on the letterhead of their correspondence to me.
I submitted a complaint and eventually managed to recover the money taken from our current account and also the interest that had been charged to the credit card account.
Nevertheless Lloyds TSB continued to ignore my requests for an affordable payment plan but I continued to make the monthly payments of £7 anyway.
This situation continued until Lloyds TSB had registered a default with the credit reference agencies in October 2010. They then accepted the previous arrangement of £7 per month.
In the summer of 2012 Lloyds TSB conducted a review. I provided a statement of means and I then received a letter from BLS (part of Lloyds TSB) agreeing to the continuation of the arrangement.
Within days the account had been sold to a DCA.
In December 2010 I wrote to Lloyds stating that I believed they had not treated me fairly. I referred to the fact that the Trustcard had originally been issued as a cheque guarantee card and that they had taken money from my joint current account which indicated a linkage between the credit card and my current account. I stated that in agreeing a repayment plan with the intention of selling the account they had not treated me fairly and that Lloyds TSB may therefore have breached its statutory obligations under the Banking Conduct of Business Sourcebook and had created an unfair relationship. I suggested that to avoid legal action they re-purchase the account. They did not respond to my letter but, in my view, accepted what I had said by continuing to accept payments into the original Trustcard account throughout 2013.
Then recently I received a letter from the DCA referring to my repayment plan with them and offering me the opportunity to settle the account if I made a payment of about a third of the debt. I replied saying that I had written to Lloyds in December 2012 suggesting that they reacquire the account and that as far as I was concerned they had accepted the proposal (by accepting payments into the original account for some 7 months) and that I did not have a relationship with the DCA.
The DCA has now replied saying that Lloyds TSB had passed my letter to them and that this was why I had not received a reply. I find this quite disturbing. This was a letter specifically about my relationship with Lloyds TSB both as a Trustcard account holder and also as a current account holder. It had nothing to do with the DCA and it strikes me as being a gross transgression of the Data Protection Act.
To make matters worse, it appears that the DCA has now contacted Lloyds asking for their comments with the intention, I believe, of replying to the letter I had sent to Lloyds. I find this quite extraordinary.
I have no desire to enter into a relationship with this DCA. I will be 60 next birthday and my prospects of improving my income are bleak. I had been discussing with my family the possibility of putting together an offer to my creditors in full and final settlement but the total amount we would be able to muster would be a little less than the DCA wants to settle this Trustcard account.
I would welcome any advice on my best course of action. I guess the next step will be to request a copy of any credit agreement they may have. But I also wondered whether any of the following issues are significant:-
a) the default notice that was originally issued in November 2003 that was not remedied or registered with the credit agencies.
b) would it be more significant if a termination notice had also been issued around this time?
c) the manner in which Lloyds TSB cancelled my long standing arrangement and ignored all my attempts to communicate with them until they had defaulted the account in 2010 and then agreed to reinstate the original payment plan
d) the contractual arrangements it unilaterally imposed upon itself in 2008 and then broke in 2010
e) the way in which it negotiated a payment plan in 2012 with the express intention of selling the account to a DCA; and
f) the serious breach of the Data Protection Act in Lloyds TSB forwarding a letter about my relationship with that organisation to a third party DCA
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Spector
I opened a TSB current account in the early 1990s.
My recollection is that if you wanted a cheque guarantee card you had to have a TSB Trustcard (credit card) because it doubled as a cheque guarantee card. I therefore obtained a Trustcard for this purpose and started to use the credit card facility as well. This would have been around 1996.
Everything was fine until I was made redundant and became self-employed. Unfortunately, I was defrauded and lost all my money and fell into financial difficulty.
I wrote to Trustcard explaining the situation in 2003.
Looking back at the letters I wrote it seems that Lloyds TSB issued a Default Notice to me in November 2003. However, I don’t believe that the Default Notice was ever registered with the credit reference agencies even though the default was not remedied. I don’t remember whether a termination notice was ever issued.
At this stage I owed Lloyds TSB around £10k.
A day after issuing the Default Notice another section of Lloyds TSB agreed to cease charging interest and to receive nominal monthly payments of £5 per month which later increased to £7. This arrangement was subject to 6 monthly reviews and continued for a number of years.
In 2008 I received an unsolicited letter from Lloyds TSB stating that they were going to make this “informal arrangement” contractually binding on themselves, though they reserved the right to give notice to change the terms of the agreement and to recommence charging interest.
My payments continued at £7 per month.
In February 2010 I received a letter stating that my repayment plan had been time limited and that this had now ended, even though I had never been told before about this or when it was due to end. The letter reinstated the standard monthly payments and interest charges without notice and I subsequently found out that this had taken effect for a period that pre-dated the letter (ie interest became chargeable from 4th Feb 2010 but the letter informing me what was going to happen was dated 9th February 2010 and arrived much later). I wrote and provided a statement of means explaining that I could not afford anything more than I was paying. This was ignored.
In April 2010 I received a letter telling me that I was in arrears by nearly £200 though I had never received the statement containing this new monthly payment (I couldn’t have afforded to pay it anyway) and by the time I received this letter the outstanding payment had been taken from our joint Lloyds TSB current account containing joint working tax credit.
I wrote and phoned on a number of occasions but everything was ignored. During one telephone conversation I was told that I had received no replies because I had used the wrong address. I had used the address provided on the letterhead of their correspondence to me.
I submitted a complaint and eventually managed to recover the money taken from our current account and also the interest that had been charged to the credit card account.
Nevertheless Lloyds TSB continued to ignore my requests for an affordable payment plan but I continued to make the monthly payments of £7 anyway.
This situation continued until Lloyds TSB had registered a default with the credit reference agencies in October 2010. They then accepted the previous arrangement of £7 per month.
In the summer of 2012 Lloyds TSB conducted a review. I provided a statement of means and I then received a letter from BLS (part of Lloyds TSB) agreeing to the continuation of the arrangement.
Within days the account had been sold to a DCA.
In December 2010 I wrote to Lloyds stating that I believed they had not treated me fairly. I referred to the fact that the Trustcard had originally been issued as a cheque guarantee card and that they had taken money from my joint current account which indicated a linkage between the credit card and my current account. I stated that in agreeing a repayment plan with the intention of selling the account they had not treated me fairly and that Lloyds TSB may therefore have breached its statutory obligations under the Banking Conduct of Business Sourcebook and had created an unfair relationship. I suggested that to avoid legal action they re-purchase the account. They did not respond to my letter but, in my view, accepted what I had said by continuing to accept payments into the original Trustcard account throughout 2013.
Then recently I received a letter from the DCA referring to my repayment plan with them and offering me the opportunity to settle the account if I made a payment of about a third of the debt. I replied saying that I had written to Lloyds in December 2012 suggesting that they reacquire the account and that as far as I was concerned they had accepted the proposal (by accepting payments into the original account for some 7 months) and that I did not have a relationship with the DCA.
The DCA has now replied saying that Lloyds TSB had passed my letter to them and that this was why I had not received a reply. I find this quite disturbing. This was a letter specifically about my relationship with Lloyds TSB both as a Trustcard account holder and also as a current account holder. It had nothing to do with the DCA and it strikes me as being a gross transgression of the Data Protection Act.
To make matters worse, it appears that the DCA has now contacted Lloyds asking for their comments with the intention, I believe, of replying to the letter I had sent to Lloyds. I find this quite extraordinary.
I have no desire to enter into a relationship with this DCA. I will be 60 next birthday and my prospects of improving my income are bleak. I had been discussing with my family the possibility of putting together an offer to my creditors in full and final settlement but the total amount we would be able to muster would be a little less than the DCA wants to settle this Trustcard account.
I would welcome any advice on my best course of action. I guess the next step will be to request a copy of any credit agreement they may have. But I also wondered whether any of the following issues are significant:-
a) the default notice that was originally issued in November 2003 that was not remedied or registered with the credit agencies.
b) would it be more significant if a termination notice had also been issued around this time?
c) the manner in which Lloyds TSB cancelled my long standing arrangement and ignored all my attempts to communicate with them until they had defaulted the account in 2010 and then agreed to reinstate the original payment plan
d) the contractual arrangements it unilaterally imposed upon itself in 2008 and then broke in 2010
e) the way in which it negotiated a payment plan in 2012 with the express intention of selling the account to a DCA; and
f) the serious breach of the Data Protection Act in Lloyds TSB forwarding a letter about my relationship with that organisation to a third party DCA
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Spector
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