liandconsmum's UE Diary

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Okay. Brief update on where I am and what I am planning to do with each account at the moment. The main question is regarding Halifax, really. The rest is just updates on where I am at this point.

TESCO loan - account has been placed on hold while new DCA requests CCA from Tesco. Again. LOL We'll see what happens this time.

Yep, see what happens

Virgin - yes, I procrastinated horribly with this one and put off the PPI request as I was dealing with other priority problems instead and couldn't cope with this on top of it. But now am feeling strong enough to take on the financial stuff again. So I am working on the PPI letter today plus the worksheet, to have it all ready to post. As we recently got another demand letter (from solicitors through DCA, but is one of those standard threatening letters), I will be sending this in ASAP to the DCA. ETA - on reading again, also note that this letter states that correspondence will be through the DCA still, not the solicitors, so will simply suffice to send PPI info to get that reclaimed and then wait it out again. (ETA - done!)

Ermmm, reclaims go to the lender NOT the DCA! You may find they return it or ignore it.... send another copy to the actual lender; in this case MBNA

Halifax - DCA has sent it to solicitors, despite it being clearly UE. So was planning on sending a letter to solicitors saying "account in dispute - FYI - please see attached copy" however on reading the solicitor's letter again, it clearly states "Please note we are instructed NOT to enter into correspondence with you at this stage but to refer the matter to our client... please contact them directly to avoid the necessity of such action." So is there a point in sending the letter to the solicitor's at all? The last letter I sent to Halifax simply reiterated that this account was UE and stating I would not be corresponding with them again until they sent a correct copy of requested CCA paperwork (as per template). Would I be better simply waiting it out at this point?

I would send a copy of the last letter you sent HBOS and warn the solicitor to tread carefully as they are liable if they act on a disputed debt, knowing that you're disputing the legibility and enforceability of the account..... just send a quick one liner, saying return this to HBOS and leave me alone - with a copy of what you last sent them.... No harm in doing that is there?

Paypal Santander - making reduced monthly payments. Got a very weird letter from them recently saying "oh, by the way, you're over your credit limit, please don't use your card" which struck me as a bit odd. LOL Was going to do PPI reimbursement request, but on looking over the old statements, we didn't get the PPI on it. Don't I feel incredibly stupid? LOL But at least one less thing to do. Once I get the budget rehashed, I may send them a "update" letter and hopefully be able to bump up what we're paying them and ask them to stop interest and fees.

Oh, you need it to be defaulted already - is it not? If not then you may be best to cease payments until its defaulted, remember that they cannot enforce a debt without a default/termination first so you won't suddenly end up in court - don't worry about that!

OD - due to having to take time to contact Santander regarding the status of OD (bank cancelled account, cancelling our payment agreement without any warning, then sent it to DCA again without warning) and to verify that the account was indeed in the hands of a DCA, we have received a couple letters from the DCA. I sent them an email recently (yeah, I know, emails ... sigh) just advising them that we would be contacting them shortly but that we were awaiting confirming of the account's status from the bank. Apparently, this wasn't enough for the DCA and they're getting rather shirty. So a letter going out to them tomorrow with copy of the bank's response, to verify for them that yes, I prefer to make sure what's going on before I agree to send someone money. Muppets! And then same letter will advise them that I will be following up with a proposed payment plan within 10-14 days of this letter. That gives me a bit of time to sort through the above PPI stuff and then move on to the payment proposal. Mainly because our finances are slightly up in the air right now, with some possible changes coming up. If it goes according to plan, we may be in a position to offer them a F&F regarding the OD and get it sorted in one hit. Fingers crossed. (ETA - letter completed, including token amount cheque so they know we are not trying to get out of paying it. Will post tomorrow.)

Have you been defaulted yet? if not, pay nothing until you have been. This stops added charges being added and also allows you to haggle more, plus it means the entry will drop off your credit file in 6yrs whether paid or not

So, anyway. That's where I'm at right now. Hope that's not confusing. Any other accounts not listed are either paid off or UE (mostly UE). The UE ones are either sending statements here and there or not even contacting us at all. Which is certainly fine by me.

Nice one, best of luck - keep us updated

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Ermmm, reclaims go to the lender NOT the DCA! You may find they return it or ignore it.... send another copy to the actual lender; in this case MBNA

Yup, sorry. And because I'm obviously not firing on all cylinders, I put DCA. But I did actually send it to MBNA.

I would send a copy of the last letter you sent HBOS and warn the solicitor to tread carefully as they are liable if they act on a disputed debt, knowing that you're disputing the legibility and enforceability of the account..... just send a quick one liner, saying return this to HBOS and leave me alone - with a copy of what you last sent them.... No harm in doing that is there?

No harm at all. Thanks. I will get that put together this weekend and post it on Monday. (ETA: done)

Oh, you need it to be defaulted already - is it not? If not then you may be best to cease payments until its defaulted, remember that they cannot enforce a debt without a default/termination first so you won't suddenly end up in court - don't worry about that!

Ah. Another moment for me, I see. Feeling a bit silly now that I didn't think about that. It's had interest adding up every month which means all that we've paid has been for nothing so far. We will stop payments so it defaults and go from there.

Have you been defaulted yet? if not, pay nothing until you have been. This stops added charges being added and also allows you to haggle more, plus it means the entry will drop off your credit file in 6yrs whether paid or not

On this one, I think it has actually, but I'll dig through the paperwork and verify it. If not, will wait and let it get that far. Although so far, since it's gone to the DCA, they haven't added anything yet.

Thanks again Niddy for all the advice! Will get right to work on it all tomorrow morning.

Have a good weekend!

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Okay. Upon reading through the Paypal Santander debt, it is completely puzzling. This is basically what's happened with it:

Nov 2009 - sent them letter stating in financial difficulty with £1 token payment
Dec 2009 - sent them follow up letter again stating financial difficulty with £1 token payment
Dec 2009 - received default notice from them
Jan 2010 - June 2010 - paid them by standing order approx £7 per month, including sending them incomings/outgoings letter which they quibbled about as they said they wanted proof of everything (bank statement, statements of other debts, proof of income, everything basically and we refused).
April 2010 - they "transferred" our debt to Viking Collections (which I suspect is their in-house DCA) - we got 2 letters from them, then never heard from Viking again
July 2010 - received another default notice from them
July 2010 - requested CCA (and stopped monthly payments)
August 2010 - received CCA from them, enforceable per Niddy, began paying them £14 per month by standing order.
October 2010 - received ANOTHER default notice from them (this is now the third we've received from them)

After looking through the actual statements, it appears they have only been charging us interest each month. For some reason, since December 2010, they are suddenly charging us this monthly:
£12.00 over limit fee
£20.04 transf balance int charge
£12.00 late payment fee
£61.69 interest

So...I'm baffled why suddenly we are being charged the extra interest (the £20.04 transf balance int charge) and the fees (the over limit and late payment fees) when for over a year they didn't charge us for them. And not sure what to do about it, as I don't understand how they can now incorporate these fees and extra interest when they weren't charging them for the last year. Is there any way to address this and have the extra interest and fees removed and stopped?

And why 3 default notices?? I've noticed that on any of our Santander accounts, they seem to send numerous default notices at varying times (one Santander account had over 15 default notices sent to us!). I thought they could only do it once. I have noticed the defaults technically seem to state the arrears amount. Does that mean that they can put more than one default on the account if it's just covering arrears? sigh. So confused now. (Have I mentioned that I hate Santander? They are the ONLY creditors that do this - all others have been very straight forward.)

I'm thinking I may have to request our credit report and see what it says on there, although I'm actually afraid to look. LOL


And regarding the OD, I checked the paperwork and the default was in September 2010, although it's Santander, so god knows how many defaults they'll do for this one!

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Hiya

You can only have one default per account - they've messed up. Idiots.

I'd quit paying and hope they attempt legal action, cos you'll win hands down - I mean, tell me how is it possible to remedy a breach when you've had 3 versions of the breach? Its a disavantage to you - ie you'd win!

Can you confirm, just for clarity - the amounts and dates on each of the 3 defaults, as the example below format - thanks...

Default Amount: £
Default Date (of letter):
Date to remedy default by:
Date you received the DN (I hope you have the envelope/kept note of the date received)....

Thanks

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Oh, I didn't keep the envelope or the date received, sorry. Hope that's not a huge issue. I was making note of those things before, but stopped (no good reason, just overwhelmed and focused on other things, I suppose). I will start making sure I note date received on things again.

I will get all the paperwork out and post the DN info later tonight. Thanks.

ETA: Have posted all the DN info on the next post.

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Ok. here are the DNs.

First:
Default Amount: £ 136.95
Default Date (of letter): 21/12/2009
Date to remedy default by: "within 14 days from receipt of this notice"
Date you received the DN: (don't have receipt date)
ACTUAL BALANCE OF STATEMENT: £no total balance listed, just arrears of £136.95


Second:
Default Amount: £ 973.57
Default Date (of letter): 13/07/2010
Date to remedy default by: "within 14 days from receipt of this notice"
Date you received the DN: (don't have receipt date)
ACTUAL BALANCE OF STATEMENT: £no total balance listed, just arrears of £973.57


Third:
Default Amount: £ 1351.00
Default Date (of letter): 15/10/2010
Date to remedy default by: "within 14 days from receipt of this notice"
Date you received the DN: (don't have receipt date)
ACTUAL BALANCE OF STATEMENT: £no total balance listed, just arrears of £1351.00

Each says "DEFAULT NOTICE Served under Section 87(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974" in red across top and in body of letter all say "We are required by law to send this notice to you before we can take action to recover the outstanding balance on your account" etc etc

As usual, Santander handles things oddly, as we received a letter from them before the first DN, dated 18/12/2009 saying "before we consider a temporary arrangement, we require you to complete the income and expenditure form on the reverse of this letter in full and return to us in 10 days"... and yet they didn't even wait the ten days, just fired off the DN.

And the amounts overdue were actually different than the amounts listed in the DNs. For example:
first DN - dated 21/12/09 for £136.95, but statement of 06/12/09 shows overdue amount is £259.09
WHAT IS THE ACTUAL BALANCE SHOWING ON THE STATEMENT: £4137.95

second DN - dated 13/07/10 for £973.57 but statement of 06/07/09 shows overdue amount is £1592.65
WHAT IS THE ACTUAL BALANCE SHOWING ON THE STATEMENT: £4604.78

third DN - dated 15/10/10 for £1351.00 but statement of 06/10/10 shows overdue amount of £2166.74.
WHAT IS THE ACTUAL BALANCE SHOWING ON THE STATEMENT: £4801.44

So no idea where they were getting the amounts from. Just seems no rhyme or reason to it all...

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Can you confirm the actual true balance of the account? I am confused by it all as well....

You have provided the arrears at the date of default, thanks for this, but what was the statement balances on the dates used above?

Please edit the post above with additional info - (see the red font) thanks!

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Niddy - I've updated the info in the post above. The DNs do not have a total balance listed anywhere on them, only the amount they have listed as "arrears", which doesn't match the statement, but I did add in the total balance from the statement in the bottom half of the post.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Niddy - I've updated the info in the post above. The DNs do not have a total balance listed anywhere on them, only the amount they have listed as "arrears", which doesn't match the statement.

Exactly - and just to clarify, these are all for the same account right? Definitely not more than one account?

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Nope. Just one account.

It's the same type of weird thing they did with a different account of ours - although on that one we got 15plus DNs with varying amounts over the course of about 45 days. It was unreal.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Nope. Just one account.

It's the same type of weird thing they did with a different account of ours - although on that one we got 15plus DNs with varying amounts over the course of about 45 days. It was unreal.

Ok, don't worry about it - if they attempt any legal action you will win - as a result of not knowing, and subsequently being disadvantaged, the actual amount required to remedy the breach.....

So with this one, ignore them and stop paying!

as for the other account with 15 DN's - whats the score on that front?

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

That's the Santander credit card that they sent us a "status of account" letter along with the CCA stating twice on the page that we had a zero balance. So we took them at their word on that one and stopped payments. The only thing we've gotten from them since July was a "statement of account" a couple months ago showing that they put the money from the CCA request towards the balance due showing on the statement of account. It's hanging in mid-air right now basically. We decided that if they start hassling us, we'll send them a copy of the letter that states "£xx amount paid on account, balance £0, balance still owed £0" and let them stew over that for a bit. I think the balance was actually about £2000.

The DNs from that one were literally daily post we received over about 45 days - it alternated between statements, letters from the same "collection person" and DNs. It was ridiculous really, so I kept them all in case I needed them.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

That's the Santander credit card that they sent us a "status of account" letter along with the CCA stating twice on the page that we had a zero balance. So we took them at their word on that one and stopped payments. The only thing we've gotten from them since July was a "statement of account" a couple months ago showing that they put the money from the CCA request towards the balance due showing on the statement of account. It's hanging in mid-air right now basically. We decided that if they start hassling us, we'll send them a copy of the letter that states "£xx amount paid on account, balance £0, balance still owed £0" and let them stew over that for a bit. I think the balance was actually about £2000.

The DNs from that one were literally daily post we received over about 45 days - it alternated between statements, letters from the same "collection person" and DNs. It was ridiculous really, so I kept them all in case I needed them.

Ok thanks for clearing this up - seems these are your lucky provider lol, they messed up a little too much me thinks

Keep the info for this safe, you may need it later!

[liandconsmum]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Yeh. Waiting to see how badly they mess up the OD now. LOL

Thanks for the help on this. I will simply ignore them for now.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: liandconsmum's UE Diary

Thanks for the help on this. I will simply ignore them for now.

No worries, best of luck - keep us updated, don't panic if things start to develop - just post details and hold fire...