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Hello,
Really hoping that someone can help me out with the below.
Basically in July last year I have requested Vanquis to change my address, they haven't and because of personal circumstances I was not able to sort it out until March this year and then got a statement...had a bit of a shock moment so sent them the below :
They sent me back a reply, on the 28th of March (posted by them, have the envelope with the date stamped) which contained a set of T&C's and a simple letter which I will scan if it needs being.
I sent them this as a reply :
They have not replied to that as of yet, so in the meantime I have sent their CEO this letter, which I have sent to financial ombudsman service together with my formal complaint :
Today in the post I got a letter from DCA demanding payment, what should be my next step ???
Any help kindly appreciated.
Cheers
Really hoping that someone can help me out with the below.
Basically in July last year I have requested Vanquis to change my address, they haven't and because of personal circumstances I was not able to sort it out until March this year and then got a statement...had a bit of a shock moment so sent them the below :
Dear Sir/Madam
ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I do not acknowledge ANY debt to your company.I require you to supply the following documentation before I will correspond further on this matter.
1. You must supply me with a true copy of the alleged agreement you refer to. This is my right under your obligation to supply a copy of the agreement under the legislation contained within s.78 (1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 (s.77 (1) for fixed sum credit) - your obligation also extends to providing a statement of account. I enclose £1 in payment of the statutory fee (postal order serial no: 000010 088002 6495171)
2. A signed true copy of the deed of assignment of the above referenced agreement that you allege exists.
(a) The state of the account, and
(b) the amount, if any, currently payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor, and
(c) the amounts and due dates of any payments which, if the debtor does not draw further on the account, will later become payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor.
With regards to the section above can you please supply me with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my account with your organisation. Alternatively, a complete set of statements for that period will be acceptable.
Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.
If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.
3.You are notified that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not under S189 of the CCA 1974.
4. I would also like to point out that under the Limitation Act 1980 Section 5 “an action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued’’
Non-compliance with my request is a criminal offence under the above Act and will result in a report being submitted to the relevant statutory authorities, therefore if I do not receive evidence that I owe your company any monies by 26th of March 2011, I will have no hesitation in passing your details to the Office of Fair Trading.
As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued.
Take note at this stage, that any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested.
ACCOUNT NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I do not acknowledge ANY debt to your company.I require you to supply the following documentation before I will correspond further on this matter.
1. You must supply me with a true copy of the alleged agreement you refer to. This is my right under your obligation to supply a copy of the agreement under the legislation contained within s.78 (1) Consumer Credit Act 1974 (s.77 (1) for fixed sum credit) - your obligation also extends to providing a statement of account. I enclose £1 in payment of the statutory fee (postal order serial no: 000010 088002 6495171)
2. A signed true copy of the deed of assignment of the above referenced agreement that you allege exists.
(a) The state of the account, and
(b) the amount, if any, currently payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor, and
(c) the amounts and due dates of any payments which, if the debtor does not draw further on the account, will later become payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor.
With regards to the section above can you please supply me with a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my account with your organisation. Alternatively, a complete set of statements for that period will be acceptable.
Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my banking business with you.
If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.
3.You are notified that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not under S189 of the CCA 1974.
4. I would also like to point out that under the Limitation Act 1980 Section 5 “an action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued’’
Non-compliance with my request is a criminal offence under the above Act and will result in a report being submitted to the relevant statutory authorities, therefore if I do not receive evidence that I owe your company any monies by 26th of March 2011, I will have no hesitation in passing your details to the Office of Fair Trading.
As you are aware, a credit agreement that is not properly documented and signed by the customer is totally unenforceable under the CCA and therefore is a complete defence to any court claim that is issued.
Take note at this stage, that any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested.
I sent them this as a reply :
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to you in respect of your letter dated 28th March 2011 (received 30th of March), your reference :CAT/S78
I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT TO YOURSELVES.
You have failed to acknowledge this request by not supplying the requested documents. The documents I requested should be readily available as proof of your legal right to collect this account, and this account remains in serious dispute.
The prescribed terms specified in Sch 6 of Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 1983 SI1553 require more information than you provide in your letter as evidence of an agreement, and I make the point that what you do provide is legally unenforceable.
You are reminded that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not, as defined under Section 189 of the CCA 1974.
The Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for this request to be carried out before your company enter into a default situation. If the request is not satisfied after a further 30 calendar days, your company commit an offence. These time limits expired on 26/03/2011 and 25/04/2011 respectively.
As you are no doubt aware, Section 78(6) states:
If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1) -
(a) He is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement; and
(b) If the default continues for one month he commits an offence.
The statutory time period allowed has elapsed and you are in default in relation to CCA 1974. Whilst your default continues, you are not entitled to enforce any part of this alleged agreement.
This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• You may not demand any payment on this alleged account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.
• You may not add any further interest or charges to this account.
• You may not pass this alleged account to any third party.
• You may not register any information in respect of this alleged account with any of the credit reference agencies.
• You may not issue a default notice related to this account.
Please also note that to register information with the credit reference agencies, or to issue a default notice, would also be in breach of Section 13.6 of The Banking Code, which stipulates that you can only register such information if the amount owed is not in dispute.
As you are aware while my Consumer Credit Act request remains in default enforcement action is NOT permitted, under s127 this constitutes a complete defence at law.
My CCA request revolves around one simple issue: on 28th July 2010 I provided you with a new address for correspondence, which you ignored. I have therefore – until I notified you again, by telephone in March 2010 - received only sporadic account updates that have been forwarded to me, meaning that I have been unaware of account activity until then. Therefore, I consider this account in dispute since July 2010, as you have failed to notify me of account activity, as per your terms and conditions.
I require the following action from you :
1. An explanation of how the address error occurred in the first place.
2. A copy of the signed Consumer Credit Agreement
3. All payments made to date to Vanquis for this account should be refunded in full, including interest at the rate of 8% per annum.
4. Removal of all defaults entered by Vanquis on to any and all credit reference agencies. Note this is to be a complete deletion and not merely an amendment.
5. I look forward to compensation under Section 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to be offered for the processing of my data in the manner it has been done over the past number of years.
6. After a full refund of all payments with interest and compensation are received by myself, you will be required under Section 10 and Section 12 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to cease and desist all manual and automatic processing of my data within your company and any other company within your group.
If you do not respond positively to my request, court action may be taken under Section 14 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to force Vanquis or any other company within the group to comply with the refund of all monies paid, removal of all defaults maintained and compensation for damage and distress as a result of unlawful data processing. I may also pass the matter to the relevant enforcement authorities including, but not limited to, the OFT, the Information Commissioners Office, Trading Standards, the CSA, the FOS and my local MP.
Please note, that as you are in default, I do not recognise any debt and no payments will be made to this account until all errors are corrected, including the appropriate adjustments to all information supplied to the relevant credit agencies.
Legal action will be considered if you do not adhere to these requests. I am fully aware of my rights regarding the law and handling of credit accounts. All correspondence is sent by recorded delivery and details kept on file.
I look forward to hearing from you within 10 working days.
I am writing to you in respect of your letter dated 28th March 2011 (received 30th of March), your reference :CAT/S78
I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT TO YOURSELVES.
You have failed to acknowledge this request by not supplying the requested documents. The documents I requested should be readily available as proof of your legal right to collect this account, and this account remains in serious dispute.
The prescribed terms specified in Sch 6 of Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulations 1983 SI1553 require more information than you provide in your letter as evidence of an agreement, and I make the point that what you do provide is legally unenforceable.
You are reminded that you are obliged to supply these documents, whether you are the original creditor or not, as defined under Section 189 of the CCA 1974.
The Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for this request to be carried out before your company enter into a default situation. If the request is not satisfied after a further 30 calendar days, your company commit an offence. These time limits expired on 26/03/2011 and 25/04/2011 respectively.
As you are no doubt aware, Section 78(6) states:
If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1) -
(a) He is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement; and
(b) If the default continues for one month he commits an offence.
The statutory time period allowed has elapsed and you are in default in relation to CCA 1974. Whilst your default continues, you are not entitled to enforce any part of this alleged agreement.
This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• You may not demand any payment on this alleged account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.
• You may not add any further interest or charges to this account.
• You may not pass this alleged account to any third party.
• You may not register any information in respect of this alleged account with any of the credit reference agencies.
• You may not issue a default notice related to this account.
Please also note that to register information with the credit reference agencies, or to issue a default notice, would also be in breach of Section 13.6 of The Banking Code, which stipulates that you can only register such information if the amount owed is not in dispute.
As you are aware while my Consumer Credit Act request remains in default enforcement action is NOT permitted, under s127 this constitutes a complete defence at law.
My CCA request revolves around one simple issue: on 28th July 2010 I provided you with a new address for correspondence, which you ignored. I have therefore – until I notified you again, by telephone in March 2010 - received only sporadic account updates that have been forwarded to me, meaning that I have been unaware of account activity until then. Therefore, I consider this account in dispute since July 2010, as you have failed to notify me of account activity, as per your terms and conditions.
I require the following action from you :
1. An explanation of how the address error occurred in the first place.
2. A copy of the signed Consumer Credit Agreement
3. All payments made to date to Vanquis for this account should be refunded in full, including interest at the rate of 8% per annum.
4. Removal of all defaults entered by Vanquis on to any and all credit reference agencies. Note this is to be a complete deletion and not merely an amendment.
5. I look forward to compensation under Section 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to be offered for the processing of my data in the manner it has been done over the past number of years.
6. After a full refund of all payments with interest and compensation are received by myself, you will be required under Section 10 and Section 12 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to cease and desist all manual and automatic processing of my data within your company and any other company within your group.
If you do not respond positively to my request, court action may be taken under Section 14 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to force Vanquis or any other company within the group to comply with the refund of all monies paid, removal of all defaults maintained and compensation for damage and distress as a result of unlawful data processing. I may also pass the matter to the relevant enforcement authorities including, but not limited to, the OFT, the Information Commissioners Office, Trading Standards, the CSA, the FOS and my local MP.
Please note, that as you are in default, I do not recognise any debt and no payments will be made to this account until all errors are corrected, including the appropriate adjustments to all information supplied to the relevant credit agencies.
Legal action will be considered if you do not adhere to these requests. I am fully aware of my rights regarding the law and handling of credit accounts. All correspondence is sent by recorded delivery and details kept on file.
I look forward to hearing from you within 10 working days.
Dear Sir
I am writing to you with regards to the truly awful service that I have received from one of the companies in your group, the Vanquis Bank.
I have been a customer of Vanquis Banks since 2007 and up until August 2010 I considered the service I recieved to be of a satisfactory standard. However, since August I have had nothing but appalling service from your team and have been made to feel like a second class citizen on more than one occasion. In the last 2 months I have been sent 14 letters and had 117 calls from your company and not even one of your team have attempted to resolve my issues, they are simply demanding payment which in my opinion amounts to harassment.
This situation is made even worse by the fact that no one in Vanquis have acknowledged letters and requests I have placed to the company despite having a legal right to do so. I have now given up on trying to contact anyone in Vanquis and I would like to take this opportunity to outline my problem to you as a last resort, however as a result of the service I had from Vanquis I am also sending this letter as a way of lodging a formal complaint with the Financial Ombudsman service.
The problems I am experiencing started at the end of July 2010 when I sent a letter to Vanquis advising the company that I am changing my address. I was hoping that this will be enough notification to arrange the relevant changes to your systems. However by the end of December I became suspicious that I still had not received any statements for my account with Vanquis, unfortunately due to personal circumstances I was not able to sort this matter out until February 2011. In September 2010 I also requested a Direct Debit be set up, however because of the problem I had with the address not being changed it meant that I didn’t realise until March 2011 how much the mistake made by your company has cost me.
The Direct Debit was not set up on the date I requested which meant that my payments were going out on the 1st of every month but my Vanquis statement was produced on the 6th of every month. This meant that whenever a payment was made through the Direct Debit within 5 days I was over my limit due to the interest being added etc. Just as an example, between 15/01/2011 and 01/03/2011 I have paid over £600 pounds to Vanquis, on the 6th of March 2011 my account was £200 over the limit. What I did not know at the time was the fact that my APR has changed, this was a direct result of the fact that my address was not updated by Vanquis. The fact that I was not made aware of the changes did not give me an opportunity to query this change, you have failed to give me the required 30 days notice meaning that Vanquis was in breach of its own terms and conditions, this means that the account has entered a default.
In March 2011 I sent a CCA request to Vanquis outlining the information that I would like to have provided to me in order to investigate the irregularities on my account. I gave your company 12 days to reply to this request. It took them over 16 days to provide a reply with about 80% of the information requested missing. The original letter is attached as Appendix 1.
Due to a lot of information missing from the response to my request I sent another letter outlining the details. The second letter is attached as Appendix 2. This letter I later found out was not acknowledged by your company and it was claimed that it was never received, I am however in a position to prove that it was sent via Special Delivery and was received by Vanquis.
In my opinion, and from information I have obtained from advisory services, the information that I requested is not something that a company of this size would have to go ‘’out of their way’’ to provide. The requests are simple, do not require attention from more than one person and the reply could have been provided much quicker. Why the second letter was ignored is a complete mystery to me, it has however had an impact on my account, my credit history and my trust in the competence and skills of your organization.
Further to the above I have also sent 2 separate letters, one requesting a refund of all the monies paid for ‘’Repayment Option Plan’’ which is just another way of naming the PPI. This letter was sent on 14/03/2011 and I did not receive a reply until 08/05/2011. The letter I have received must have been a standard ‘’copy/paste’’ as the details were incorrect, one of them being the fact that the letter referred to a telephone conversation which never happened. The letter refers to the original conversation where apparently I have ‘’agreed’’ to take out this ‘’plan’’. I suspect that if I were to request the original recording to be sent to me I would be met with a refusal due to Data Protection etc, anything to make me ‘’go away’’. Funnily enough one of the reasons I requested a refund of all the monies paid for this ‘’plan’’ was because it was sold to me, yet no one explained that I would not be able to use it. When I unfortunately had then need to use this “protection plan” having been made redundant I was given an unresounding “NO” to my request even though I had been paying for this protection for over a year.
The second letter I sent was relating to the default, late payment and overlimit charges applied to my account. A majority of those charges were applied as a result of another charge being applied. There were instances where as result of incompetency of the Vanquis Bank to set up my Direct Debit correctly a late payment charge was applied to my account which then made the account over the limit, which then meant I incurred an overlimit charge, which then resulted in a default charge being applied. This was all very confusing as £36 penalty for a mistake on your side is completely unfair and is in fact the fault of your own company. This makes sense seeing as Vanquis profit was £26.7 million for 2010, that would equate to all of your customers being charged the combination I had of £36 plus, some of them on more than one occasion.
At the moment there are 2 letters that your company did not acknowledge, this means your company is in breach of the Data Protection act because you have not taken due care of my personal details, as far as I’m concerned anyone can get hold of this letter and use those details in aid of fraudulent activity. Again all of this is a direct result of incompetent staff and lack of clear policies.
On one occasion I have chosen to speak to one of your ‘’advisors’’ whose name is Sam Sweeney. The conversation I had with him lasted for 8 minutes and in this time absolutely nothing that he said to me could be considered as ‘’advice’’. I would consider it being patronising, rude and as unhelpful as one can be. During the conversation I asked more than once why have my letters had not been acknowledged and he could not provide me with an answer, instead he was only demanding immediate payment from me, when I said to him that I’m not willing to pay until I have answers to my requests he said that it’s not his problem. To be fair it might not be his problem but the ultimate fault is with your company.
Since that conversation I have also received a statement of my account, after closer investigation I have found 2 very significant irregularities. When I received a reply to my original CCA request I was provided with T&C’s leaflet, it was not the terms and conditions that I signed up to so I do not expect anyone in Vanquis to be able to provide me with any credible information. I would like to raise it to your attention that your company is in breach of its own contract, if you look at the section highlighted in red on the appendix 3 it explains that the APR is set at certain tiers. Comparing that information to the APR shown on my statement ( Appendix 4 highlighted in red ) you can see that I’m not in any of the tiers and my annual interest rate for cash purchases is 5% higher than the highest you quote in your company’s terms and conditions. This constitutes a breach of contract and it places Vanquis in default.
I do not deny that I have a debt with Vanquis that needs to be paid off and neither am I seeking to have this debt ‘’written off’’. All I am asking for is that my account is restored to what it should be if Vanquis would have not made all the mistakes they have and refund all of the money that I have requested. To recap this repayment would include :
- All the monies paid for the ‘’Repayment Option Plan’’ that I was mis-sold and subsequently not able to use.
- All the monies paid by me in way of ‘’charges’’ which includes all late payments fees, over limit fees and default fees. This should to be backdated to August 2010.
- Complete recalculation of interest to what it should have been if your company had not breached the terms and conditions, again this should be back dated to August 2010 and my APR to be put to the same level it was on 6th of August 2010.
- Some form of compensation for the fact that I have been nothing but harassed and treated unfairly by Vanquis.
- Explanation to what has happened regarding the letters that I sent and the reason why my personal details were not processed correctly.
- Removal of any ‘’unfounded’’ information placed with credit reference agencies, this should be a full removal and not merely a ‘’note’’
It is very stressful to be in that kind of situation especially seeing the statements that Vanquis produces like :
‘’We have a closer relationship with customers than would normally be expected of a card-based lender’’
Or
‘’ Whilst we endeavour to maintain a high level of service for all of our customers, above and beyond this we rolled out our gold card service during 2010. This is proving very popular, but is only available to our very best customers. They get priority support, with a dedicated call centre number. They are also sent account updates by SMS text’’
I am a ‘’Gold Card’’ member but it looks like I have not been treated like one of your very best customers...
I look forward to your prompt reply within 10 working days of receipt of this letter and I hope that you can resolve this situation with me personally before I will have to resort to using the regulatory bodies.
I am writing to you with regards to the truly awful service that I have received from one of the companies in your group, the Vanquis Bank.
I have been a customer of Vanquis Banks since 2007 and up until August 2010 I considered the service I recieved to be of a satisfactory standard. However, since August I have had nothing but appalling service from your team and have been made to feel like a second class citizen on more than one occasion. In the last 2 months I have been sent 14 letters and had 117 calls from your company and not even one of your team have attempted to resolve my issues, they are simply demanding payment which in my opinion amounts to harassment.
This situation is made even worse by the fact that no one in Vanquis have acknowledged letters and requests I have placed to the company despite having a legal right to do so. I have now given up on trying to contact anyone in Vanquis and I would like to take this opportunity to outline my problem to you as a last resort, however as a result of the service I had from Vanquis I am also sending this letter as a way of lodging a formal complaint with the Financial Ombudsman service.
The problems I am experiencing started at the end of July 2010 when I sent a letter to Vanquis advising the company that I am changing my address. I was hoping that this will be enough notification to arrange the relevant changes to your systems. However by the end of December I became suspicious that I still had not received any statements for my account with Vanquis, unfortunately due to personal circumstances I was not able to sort this matter out until February 2011. In September 2010 I also requested a Direct Debit be set up, however because of the problem I had with the address not being changed it meant that I didn’t realise until March 2011 how much the mistake made by your company has cost me.
The Direct Debit was not set up on the date I requested which meant that my payments were going out on the 1st of every month but my Vanquis statement was produced on the 6th of every month. This meant that whenever a payment was made through the Direct Debit within 5 days I was over my limit due to the interest being added etc. Just as an example, between 15/01/2011 and 01/03/2011 I have paid over £600 pounds to Vanquis, on the 6th of March 2011 my account was £200 over the limit. What I did not know at the time was the fact that my APR has changed, this was a direct result of the fact that my address was not updated by Vanquis. The fact that I was not made aware of the changes did not give me an opportunity to query this change, you have failed to give me the required 30 days notice meaning that Vanquis was in breach of its own terms and conditions, this means that the account has entered a default.
In March 2011 I sent a CCA request to Vanquis outlining the information that I would like to have provided to me in order to investigate the irregularities on my account. I gave your company 12 days to reply to this request. It took them over 16 days to provide a reply with about 80% of the information requested missing. The original letter is attached as Appendix 1.
Due to a lot of information missing from the response to my request I sent another letter outlining the details. The second letter is attached as Appendix 2. This letter I later found out was not acknowledged by your company and it was claimed that it was never received, I am however in a position to prove that it was sent via Special Delivery and was received by Vanquis.
In my opinion, and from information I have obtained from advisory services, the information that I requested is not something that a company of this size would have to go ‘’out of their way’’ to provide. The requests are simple, do not require attention from more than one person and the reply could have been provided much quicker. Why the second letter was ignored is a complete mystery to me, it has however had an impact on my account, my credit history and my trust in the competence and skills of your organization.
Further to the above I have also sent 2 separate letters, one requesting a refund of all the monies paid for ‘’Repayment Option Plan’’ which is just another way of naming the PPI. This letter was sent on 14/03/2011 and I did not receive a reply until 08/05/2011. The letter I have received must have been a standard ‘’copy/paste’’ as the details were incorrect, one of them being the fact that the letter referred to a telephone conversation which never happened. The letter refers to the original conversation where apparently I have ‘’agreed’’ to take out this ‘’plan’’. I suspect that if I were to request the original recording to be sent to me I would be met with a refusal due to Data Protection etc, anything to make me ‘’go away’’. Funnily enough one of the reasons I requested a refund of all the monies paid for this ‘’plan’’ was because it was sold to me, yet no one explained that I would not be able to use it. When I unfortunately had then need to use this “protection plan” having been made redundant I was given an unresounding “NO” to my request even though I had been paying for this protection for over a year.
The second letter I sent was relating to the default, late payment and overlimit charges applied to my account. A majority of those charges were applied as a result of another charge being applied. There were instances where as result of incompetency of the Vanquis Bank to set up my Direct Debit correctly a late payment charge was applied to my account which then made the account over the limit, which then meant I incurred an overlimit charge, which then resulted in a default charge being applied. This was all very confusing as £36 penalty for a mistake on your side is completely unfair and is in fact the fault of your own company. This makes sense seeing as Vanquis profit was £26.7 million for 2010, that would equate to all of your customers being charged the combination I had of £36 plus, some of them on more than one occasion.
At the moment there are 2 letters that your company did not acknowledge, this means your company is in breach of the Data Protection act because you have not taken due care of my personal details, as far as I’m concerned anyone can get hold of this letter and use those details in aid of fraudulent activity. Again all of this is a direct result of incompetent staff and lack of clear policies.
On one occasion I have chosen to speak to one of your ‘’advisors’’ whose name is Sam Sweeney. The conversation I had with him lasted for 8 minutes and in this time absolutely nothing that he said to me could be considered as ‘’advice’’. I would consider it being patronising, rude and as unhelpful as one can be. During the conversation I asked more than once why have my letters had not been acknowledged and he could not provide me with an answer, instead he was only demanding immediate payment from me, when I said to him that I’m not willing to pay until I have answers to my requests he said that it’s not his problem. To be fair it might not be his problem but the ultimate fault is with your company.
Since that conversation I have also received a statement of my account, after closer investigation I have found 2 very significant irregularities. When I received a reply to my original CCA request I was provided with T&C’s leaflet, it was not the terms and conditions that I signed up to so I do not expect anyone in Vanquis to be able to provide me with any credible information. I would like to raise it to your attention that your company is in breach of its own contract, if you look at the section highlighted in red on the appendix 3 it explains that the APR is set at certain tiers. Comparing that information to the APR shown on my statement ( Appendix 4 highlighted in red ) you can see that I’m not in any of the tiers and my annual interest rate for cash purchases is 5% higher than the highest you quote in your company’s terms and conditions. This constitutes a breach of contract and it places Vanquis in default.
I do not deny that I have a debt with Vanquis that needs to be paid off and neither am I seeking to have this debt ‘’written off’’. All I am asking for is that my account is restored to what it should be if Vanquis would have not made all the mistakes they have and refund all of the money that I have requested. To recap this repayment would include :
- All the monies paid for the ‘’Repayment Option Plan’’ that I was mis-sold and subsequently not able to use.
- All the monies paid by me in way of ‘’charges’’ which includes all late payments fees, over limit fees and default fees. This should to be backdated to August 2010.
- Complete recalculation of interest to what it should have been if your company had not breached the terms and conditions, again this should be back dated to August 2010 and my APR to be put to the same level it was on 6th of August 2010.
- Some form of compensation for the fact that I have been nothing but harassed and treated unfairly by Vanquis.
- Explanation to what has happened regarding the letters that I sent and the reason why my personal details were not processed correctly.
- Removal of any ‘’unfounded’’ information placed with credit reference agencies, this should be a full removal and not merely a ‘’note’’
It is very stressful to be in that kind of situation especially seeing the statements that Vanquis produces like :
‘’We have a closer relationship with customers than would normally be expected of a card-based lender’’
Or
‘’ Whilst we endeavour to maintain a high level of service for all of our customers, above and beyond this we rolled out our gold card service during 2010. This is proving very popular, but is only available to our very best customers. They get priority support, with a dedicated call centre number. They are also sent account updates by SMS text’’
I am a ‘’Gold Card’’ member but it looks like I have not been treated like one of your very best customers...
I look forward to your prompt reply within 10 working days of receipt of this letter and I hope that you can resolve this situation with me personally before I will have to resort to using the regulatory bodies.
Any help kindly appreciated.
Cheers
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