Please help: Clueless about CCAs and SARs

redberries

Hi,

I'm really sorry if situations similar to this have been posted before but after spending a couple of hours searching the forum I couldn't find anything that really helped me out - everyone seems to be a bit further down the line than me.

Having not managed my finances appropriately after graduating I entered into a payment agreement with Abbey to pay off the student overdraft on my account and was down to the last £500.

Back in April 2007 I started the reclaiming process against Abbey for just over £1000 of bank charges whilst continuing to pay off my debt. We went through the whole reclaiming process until I finally put in an Mcol claim against them, I was waiting for my court date when the Test Case started and all claims were put on hold.

Shortly after this we moved house. I sent a letter to Abbey giving them my new address and also enclosing a letter stating that as I was claiming against them on this account and the amount I was claiming for was double the amount that I owed them I wanted to freeze my payment plan until the outcome of my case as at this time they would potentially be giving me over £1000 and they could take their money out of that and if the case was lost I would pay the outstanding amount in full. I didn't for a second think that they would go for it but anything was worth a shot.

I heard nothing from them after this but didn't worry as at least they weren't chasing me for the money. They had also been in the habit of phoning me and this also stopped so I thought maybe my letter had worked. Perhaps I should have contacted them as in hindsight it was odd to not receive a reply but to be honest I was so grateful not to have them chasing me that I just went with it.

Now, over a year later I have received a telephone call from Westcot debt collection services telling me that they are retrieving the debt on Abbey's behalf. I am astounded that it has taken over a year for someone to try and contact me about this but am also dumbfounded that instead of calling my mobile number which I have given to Abbey a number of times they called my mum's house as that was the number I gave on my original application, so now not only do I have a debt collector after me and a default on my credit file but my mother is panicking about my monetary situation.

I agreed a payment plan with the agent on the phone as I was panicking about the prospect of being taken to court but having looked at a couple of the threads on here I don't know if maybe I have done the wrong thing. Should I be asking for a CCA or an SAR and is this technically in dispute as I had said that I felt I shouldn't have to pay it while my case was on hold?

Westcot are saying that they have my old address on the file so is this Abbey's fault for not updating my file properly?

I usually pride myself on being quite savvy and together but am totally stumped on this and would be most grateful for any help people could offer.

Sorry for the really long post.

Thanks

RAS

Start by asking for the CCA, although this may well exist.

redberries

Thanks RAS

After spending more time on the forum this morning I am confused as to whether this debt will be covered by the Consumer Credit Act as it is in relation to an overdraft. Do the regulations apply to overdrafts and if not does it not matter as it has now been passed to a DCA?

Thanks

RAS

Thanks for that

ODs are not covered by the CCA, so you are right there.

Technically, you should pay your debt and then collect the unfair fees from Abbey. But if Abbey pay back the fees, they usually reduce the outstanding debt by the appropriate amount, so you could lose out.

Have you tried speaking to the OFT about the situation?