Panorama: Can't Pay, Won't Pay

~Brock~

Seeing as though NID brought up our old friends the Rankines earlier, it may be of interest to see what Mr Francis Bennion (the person that actually wrote the Consumer Credit Act) thinks about them and the unenforceability bandwagon that they 'claim' to have pioneered.

"When drafting the Consumer Credit Act 1974 I did not foresee one curious outcome. It was made known in a 2008 case before His Honour Judge Simon Brown QC, sitting as a Judge of the High Court. The case was on five related claims concerning a Mr and Mrs Rankine and their financial affairs.

His Judgment makes clear that at the hearing Judge Brown was sorely tried by the conduct of the Rankines. The Judgment says they represented themselves, and were granted the usual indulgences to litigants in person by the court and the advocates appearing for the financial institutions. However the Rankines misused those indulgences . . . by producing blizzards of lengthy, argumentative and incoherent pleadings and witness statements‘. In their evidence they were perversely and deliberately untruthful‘.

They used arguments that were pure sophistry‘ and made submissions totally without factual or legal merit‘. In a blast at Mrs Rankine Judge Mason says: In my judgment, Mrs Rankine was deliberately seeking to be perverse and untruthful in seeking to avoid a substantial debt despite having all the benefits of equipment she expects the credit company to pay for on her behalf. Her behaviour in Court was perverse, argumentative and obstructive.‘

That was not all. Many litigants in person plague the courts in the manner described.

What was new to me was the final allegation that Judge Mason levels at Mr Rankine. Recently eight (I believe) claims arrived in various courts in the Birmingham Civil Justice Centre about the Rankines‘ financial affairs. These are just five of them and an undisputed schedule of debts amounts to £20,231.50 and £17,334.80 in the cases of Mr and Mrs Rankine respectively. During evidence. Mr Rankine boasted to the Court that they had managed to wriggle out of a further £65,000 of similar debts by raising Consumer Credit Act legal technicalities, leaving the financial institutions to write them off as bad debts rather than take the trouble and expense of litigating for dubious reward by enforcement against two individuals who are apparently on income support and exempt from paying court fees.

It also emerged during evidence that Mr Rankine was seeking to make a business out of this by offering his services to others for percentage reward as a credit card buster with a website and publicity generated in the media about his ―victory‖ in the Court of Appeal in one of his cases against MNBA.‘

This sort of thing was not what was intended by those responsible for the enactment of the CCA. As Judge Mason points out, the Act was introduced to protect the individual who is unsophisticated in financial affairs and contracts with unscrupulous and sophisticated financial institutions. It was not designed to help individuals in the financial services business make money out of financial institutions through exploiting its undoubted technicalities.‘ Well that was rather what I thought too, having I fear created many of the said technicalities.

I am much more minded to listen to the views of this man than some of the self appointed 'experts' on the subject that inhabit forums such as this. The sooner common sense returns to this ridiculous subject the better.

With the clearly misleading activities of many CMC's and the increasingly terse statements being put out by the MoJ, OFT and SRA I hope we won't be waiting too long......

Question: If the lawmakers really felt that there was a risk of consumer detriment from incorrectly executed agreements then why did they remove automatic unenforceability as part of the 2006 revisions? The only mistake they made was not to backdate it. Any wins produced by the court system will, I suspect, be more from sympathetic judges caught up in the current bad press against charging orders, PPI etc (note that the much lauded 'win' in Chester recently was not brought about by someone looking to wriggle out of his debt, but someone looking to prevent his house being repossessed - and fair play to him and his representatives)

duggie1982

Many more cases. Like in this thread alone people not having to pay their credit agreements!

Why not? In fact don’t answer because we have heard it all......If I can legally 'void' a debt then why the f_ck not??? The fact is people do this every day and banks etc should then sort them self's out to stop this as they are the one's lending!

Dont really care about when morally correct or not when it comes to financial associations as many of us have been screwed. PPI, bank charges other loan protection ‘schemes.

So as I am concerned the more people successful at claiming their bank charges, not paying their loan OR credit agreements then fantastic!

Even though I and many other people in the future ‘MAY’ have to pay more APR etc. Then I think it’s worth it.

And Thanks to NID I have had loads of advice from him, not just advice about repaying my debts but he is also far the best person on here to give advice about debts and other situations!

coachandy

I work for a financial organisation that just do loans. Compliance is a big issue. When a customer defaults on the loan (long period of non payment) the first thing our solicitors office does is check the documents for accuracy - if they are not accurate then they will not proceed with any court action.

I am not condoning it, but if anyone is in financial hardship, it maybe worth looking at copies of the agreements and pointing these out to the lender to see if they will accept any liability and write the debt off. Alteratons to the document and putting an X where the signature goes are two of the most common. We are taught/told in our induction training that a customer who was taken to court claimed that his signature didnt begin with an X so he was not responsible for the debt. Truth or myth....I dont know. But we actually deduct commission (fine) staff who persistantly submit non-compliant documents.

PROLIANT

The Rankines - A pair of shysters, con-artists and spineless little toads, wouldn't !!!! on them if they were on fire - same goes for certain Walter Mitty characters on this forum.

ceridwen

moggylover wrote: »

I have to say, that having watched the programme, I was very torn.

Whilst I do not condone some of the tactics used by the companies attempting to get payment of loans I was equally disgusted that people would want to "get out" of the debts that they have incurred rather than negotiate and make payments to clear them.

I agree totally with what was pointed out: those that take this route leave the rest of us to pick up the cost. Whilst there may be those out there that have ended up with such debts due to their businesses going bust or some such there also appear to be a whole mass of people who have: "had their fun, but do not want to pay for it".

Whew....just come across this thread and must admit I didnt have QUITE so polite a phrase in my mind Moggylover as the one you used - ie "had their fun, but do not want to pay for it"....:cool:. "Seeking to wilfully shirk their responsibilities at everyone else's expense" about summed mine up - politely....

StuTheDon

never-in-doubt wrote: »

Already answered several pages back - obviously my response didn't register due to you being a little slow.... i'll give you a clue, its 3 pages back :j ( #141)



You are desperate - you've changed the whole thread into a farce - lol. Get sensible fool... Sit back, read what you've wrote and you'll see i've answered everything you ever asked. Maybe a little too intelligent for you but i'm sure with help you'll find my answers....



:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Here is one post, two defaults removed. As I said - you go find the proof if you want to discredit me you fool......

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22085395&postcount=355

Nid - sorry - still not seeing your case proof that someone was forced to take money from a bank. Would love to though.

In fact, are you an MP? It would explain your inability to answer a straight question and also why you make such a big deal of never needing a loan - you probably just expense it!

I'll maybe give you an example here - I earn a good salary, circa £80k per year and my wife and I don't have any debt other than a mortgage (which by the way is a loan contrary to your belief). We overpay our mortgage and pay off our credit card every month. This is not due to luck, it is because I worked hard, got qualified and then worked damn hard to move up through the company. I think that if I ever need to get a loan, I should be able to go and get a fairly priced product.

But, because Mr Jones down the street has decided he wanted a new car, flash holiday and nice retaurants he is now starting to default because he enjoyed the good life without having the means to service it. Now you can argue the point of law all you like, but if his agreements are deemed unenforceable (because he gets lured in by people like you) then he should be made to return the capital borrowed be that by selling the car, or selling goods to the value.

What do you think happens when the loans are deemed unenforceable? They just disappear? Yes, the banks have tax write offs etc but someone ends up paying making products more expensive for everyone.

Obviously you are only in life for what you can get out of it yourself, I just hope that if (or rather when) your circumstances change that you dont feel the need to complain about expensive products in the market.

woody01

never-in-doubt wrote: »

And on that note N-i-D rests his case victorious in adversity as always!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: :eek::eek::eek: :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Victorious?
I think its more a case of making yourself look an enormous idiot.

You truly have zero credibility.

~Brock~

I can't help but wonder what some of our resident 'experts' did before the invention of Wikipedia.

duggie1982

Well if you earn about 80k a year then you don’t need to worry about your loan rate if you get one as you will probably find that your APR will be a lot better due to your circumstances.

Anyway this is the last I’m going to say on the matter as some of us on a lower salary actually use our work time doing....... You guessed it, work.

Nice speaking to y'all

never-in-doubt

~Brock~ wrote: »

I can't help but wonder what some of our resident 'experts' did before the invention of Wikipedia.

Ask Martin! He, is the Expert after all, and he probably done the same as the rest of us - read up on it!