Lloyds taking ME to court over charges.

The_Offside_Rule

Hello money savers.

Here goes my first post.

Basically, Lloyds have been after me for a while because I've got charges of about £150.
They actually took money out of my authorised overdraft to pay for a previous charge.

This was a few months ago and since then, they've been charging interest on the outstanding charges.

The threat of court action came in April when they sent me a letter warning me of what will happen if I don't pay them.

I phoned them and explained that I am unemployed, but they had no sympathy at all. This really annoyed me, particularly because all this has come from unfair charges anyway.

Since then, I used the reclaiming bank charges template and explained that I was suffering from financial hardship (Which I am). I had a reply from them telling me that my claim was on hold.

Today, I had a letter from their solicitors Sechiari, Clark & Mitchell telling me to pay now basically.

This is really stressing me out to be honest with you. I am unemployed through no fault of my own, and I assure you that I am actively seeking work, so this is happening at a really bad time.
I'm on JSA but that is spent within the hour on my rent and food.

Y'know, if I spent all my money on alcohol or tobacco, or other luxuries,
I know that this would be own fault to a certain extent, but like I said, my money goes on food and rent straight away.

I'm 21 by the way and live with my mother.

Does anyone have any much appreciated advice?
Thank you all so much.

natweststaffmember

Don't stress because you will be defending and counterclaiming on the charges. How much is the charges claim and how much are they asking to pay off? If the amount you are claiming is more then you are in pretty good shape

esmerellda

Like Nattie says you can defend this if they decide to try court. For now though tell SCuM that the account is fully in dispute as its made up of unfair charges and you don't expect them to take any further action until the dispute it resolved.

An outline for a letter

Legal_Beagles wrote:

Dear Sir or Madam,

ACCOUNT NUMBER: xxxxxxxxxxx

I am writing with regards to the alleged outstanding debt owing on my account. You will be aware that I consider the debt to be in dispute as the majority/whole of this sum is made up of disputed charges and interest charged thereon.

This dispute was notified to you in a letter dated xx/xx/xxxx (copy attached) (add any other action you have taken thus far with regards your claim for charges)

In your letter dated xx/xx/xxxx you have informed me the amount outstanding on the account is £xxxx.xx . The amount I calculate you have taken in unlawful charges and interest on those charges is £xxxx.xx. In addition I am claiming from you a sum of compensatory interest equal to 8% per annum which brings the total disputed amount to £xxxx.xx .

I have no intention of reneging on any part of this account which may be legitimately incurred debt and as I understand the issues surrounding the dispute are currently pending determination in the House of Lords and with the Office of Fair Trading, as a gesture of goodwill I would like to arrange with you to keep this debt on hold until the outcome of that case. Therefore I propose that you place a hold on further charges and interest being added to the account and that you accept an interim repayment plan.

I propose I make payments to you of £xx per calendar month, the first payment is enclosed, until such time as the dispute is resolved. Once this dispute has been resolved, if in my favour, you will continue processing my complaint, and if in your favour we will review repayment arrangements for the alleged debt. To be clear I currently dispute whether this sum or any is actually owed to your company and I am simply offering a reasonable solution in the interim whilst the dispute is considered.

I would like to make you aware of The Office of Fair Trading Code of Guidance in which it states: putting pressure on debtors or third parties is considered to be oppressive This includes: Ignoring disputes about whether money is owed and refusing to freeze action if the debt is in dispute.

I therefore hope to receive your full co-operation in this matter and would like to request a written response to that effect.

Yours Sincerely



Your Name

You can remove the repayment bit if you prefer and you'll need to adjust a little for your circumstances

I don't think you would get a claim through on hardship grounds, but you have the claim in with the bank and the accounts disputed so they should refrain from taking further action.

The_Offside_Rule

Thank you both. I really appreciate you taking time out to reply. I will keep you posted. (Quite literally)

jubaxt

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