Offering a F&F to Barclaycard if no CCA exists

mary_mungo_+_midge

Hi!

I wonder if anyone can help. I recently had great success with JD Williams when negotiating a very low F&F because of no CCA, and so have now turned my attention to other creditors who do not have a valid CCA.

I requested the CCA from Barclaycard a few months ago but have continued paying £60 a month on approx £4000 still owing. I have hit a stalemate with Barclaycard refunding the PPI ( I am self employed so it should never have been sold to me) so have decided to point out the lack of CCA and see if they will accept a low F&F. Can someone have a read through of the following letter and see if it makes enough sense...


Your Letter Reference : xxxxxx
Account No : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 - Account now in dispute

Thank you for your recent letter dated 13.06.08, the contents of which are noted. I appreciate your quick response to my original letter. However, I have now been advised by a debt charity who are helping me with my debts that the reply received by me does not fulfil your requirements under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

The Act demands that I be supplied with a true copy of any properly executed credit agreement that exists in relation to the above account. I may ask for this on demand providing that a fee of £1.00 is paid. This fee was sent with my original letter.

My request remains outstanding. An unsigned credit agreement without my details printed onto it, like the one you sent in your reply, does not constitute a true copy of any credit agreement that may or may not have been signed by me on the opening of this account. A blank agreement neither confirms that I am liable for any alleged debt to you, nor gives me any chance to evaluate whether any original agreement was ‘properly executed’.

I still require you to send me a true copy of the original credit agreement that you allege exists. As you will know, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a judge is not permitted to make any enforcement order unless the creditor can provide a true signed copy of the original credit agreement. This means that unless you can produce such an agreement, this alleged debt is not enforceable in law.

The Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for this request to be carried out before your company enters into a default situation. This occurred on 05.06.08. If the request is not satisfied after a further calendar month, your company commits an offence. Therefore on 05.07.08 this time limit expired.

You had until 5th July 2008 to provide me with the true copy I requested. You are now in default of my request. Any account I hold with you is now in legal dispute. Whilst the account remains in dispute, you are not permitted to ask for any payment, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. Furthermore, whilst the dispute remains, you are not entitled to charge any interest on the account, nor make any further charges to the account.
However, I can raise £750, via a gift from my parents which they have offered on condition of full and final settlement of a debt, and I want to offer this as an ex-gratia payment in full and final settlement of the account. This offer is made on the clear understanding that, if accepted, neither you nor any associate company will take any other action to enforce or pursue this debt in any way whatsoever and that we will be released for any liability.

I also request that, if accepted, you will make an entry on a credit reference agency file relating to the above account as "satisfied" in full.

A payment was due at the beginning of February and this has been made. If you accept the offer, the final payment of £750 will be made asap and no further payment from myself will be made

Please provide written agreement of this offer and method of payment.


I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Does this sound ok, or have I made any very big mistakes!!
many thanks x

GeorgeUK

There is no longer an offence after the 30 days.

If you accept the offer, agreeing that the payment is in full and final settlement, the final payment will be made within 1 month of your written agreement.

Did you receive any copy of a CCA from them?
There was an amendment in 1983 that meant that signatures could be removed from an executed copy and that this was still a true copy.

mary_mungo_+_midge

Thanks for your reply. No I all I got was a blank credit agreement, not filled in, no signatures etc, and in the enclosed letter it stated when the account was opened ( 1990) and my current credit limit. Does that make any difference? Thanks again x

10past6

mary_mungo_+_midge wrote: »

I have now been advised by a debt charity the reply received by me does not fulfil your requirements under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

I would remove the above comment.

Most debt charities Payplan / CCCS will not become involved in a disputed CCA.

mary_mungo_+_midge

Ok, thanks everyone for your comments, I've now taken out the bits mentioned and will post it recorded on Monday. My next monthly payment of £60 is due on 6th March, do you think I'll have heard one way or the other from then by then?

Its now almost exactly a year to the day since LBM and I'm having a real 'blitz' on trying to clear some of these debts, especially the ones that have no CCA's and therefore may accept low F&F's. I've stuck religiously to my self administered DMP for the last year but by selling stuff on ebay and working as many extra hours as poss have managed to build up savings of approx 2k.
First time in my life I've ever had savings lol!
Originally my debt was 72k:eek: this time last year but a combination of DMP payments, some PPI refunds and the refund of some charges have brought it down to 51K. Originally it was going to take 10 years to pay it off, but my new target is 2012 as thats when my mortgage is paid off and I aim to be totally debt free by then.

I have a small debt with Studio Cards for £150 ( currently pay £5 a month) and Freemans of £100 ( currently pay £3 a month). Neither have CCA's. Has anyone any experience of offering f&f's to either of these creditors?

Thanks again everyone for comments today and support over last 12 months, couldn't have done any of it without you, or even survived last year x

Deep_In_Debt

Hi and welcome

Can't offer much advise other than to second (or third!) what's been said above and to say well done for keeping motivated and doing so well with clearing your debts. It can become frustrating at times.

I'm on a dmp with CCCS at the moment and when I took it out last year, I was told it would take me 9 years to clear my debts. I'm due to pay off my mortgage in 5 years come April so want to be debt free by then. I've already managed to reduce my debt free date to 6 years so there is hope!!

Good luck on your journey.

marshallka

GeorgeUK wrote: »

There is no longer an offence after the 30 days.

If you accept the offer, agreeing that the payment is in full and final settlement, the final payment will be made within 1 month of your written agreement.

Did you receive any copy of a CCA from them?
There was an amendment in 1983 that meant that signatures could be removed from an executed copy and that this was still a true copy.

Can I just ask for your knowledge here.

Can you use the CCA request for a settled debt? If you just wanted a copy of your agreement. Would they still have to comply with this as it states in the CCA.

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to—
(a) an agreement under which no sum is, or will or may become, payable by the
debtor

mary_mungo_+_midge

Hi again, maybe someone with more experience of these things can advise me on this.

If I have a creditor who does not have a CCA am I better sending the 12 + 2 letter and stopping payments, and then negotiating a F & F at a later date, or carrying on paying my normal DMP payments, pointing out the lack of a CCA and asking for a F&F. I'm not hoping to use a lack of CCA to try and get out of paying, and want to settle everything by f&f's sometime in next 18 months or so, but don't know what order to do it all in, if that makes sense.

I've been paying my monthly DMP payments for last year and strongly suspect that most of my creditors don't actually have an enforcable CCA as most have been running for last 20 years. Some have sent copies of application forms, some just say they haven't got anything. Its only been last 2 years that I've had money problems.

Thanks x

Deep_In_Debt

Hi
I actually carried on paying the creditors without a valid CCA as I found I got a much better settlement deal as I reminded them that the debt was unenforceable so it would be in their interests to accept.

Just my experience though.

GeorgeUK

Marshallka, I believe as the agreement has ended, they are not obliged to provide a copy of the CCA. It may however be possible to send them a subject access request (SAR - cost £10) and this should have a copy of all the information and correspondence they hold on you. There's no guarantee that the CCA will be there though.

MMM, copies of application forms or T&C are not the same as a CCA. Just stick to your guns. Most DCA's when accepting F&F require full payment in a lump sum. Don't forget to take into account any charges or PPI that you could claim back when coming up with a settlement figure. (DCA's 25%-50%)

mary_mungo_+_midge

Thanks for the info on working out how much to offer as F&F's.

I've saved about 2k and was hoping to work through my creditors this year offering a F&F to each as a lump sum, but deal with each creditor one at a time, if that makes sense? Then out of the money I will save on paying that particular creditor each month, I would put the extra into my savings pot to put towards paying off the next one.

You mentioned that I should take off charges, PPI and then offer a percentage on whats left. Should I show my workings out etc in the letter, ie balance £5000 - £500 charges & £1000 ppi = £3500 and then offer a percentage of the new total?

Getting quite into the idea of actually getting rid of some of these creditors now, hoping to use the half term break from school runs etc next week to list a load more stuff on ebay to put towards my F&F fund.

Thanks again x