Massive debts

gargrave50

Any comments on my letter? - too late I suppose I just sent it!

Verbatim

Go Gargrave, you're doing so well. Letter's good but not sure about the not holding breath comment, esp if sending a copy to the ombudsman. might come across as a bit flippant.

how long will your praeceptorship (sp?) take? Will you get food and utilities as a job lot with your accomodation or do you have to budget for that?

gargrave50

Hi Verbatim, I realise that only too late. I sent it rather hastily yesterday:mad:. The preceptorship covers your first year in practice. If I had a post in Glasgow i'd start on £20,710 for the first year. In London I am starting on £24885 + 15% HCLA for London which brings it to around £28,880. I also get around 1/3 on top in the way of shift allowance as we work 12.5 hour days, nights and weekends. The difference should pay for my accommodation and some travel home. The accommodation is £386.05 per calendar month including utilities and council tax. I only have to feed myself in addition to this. Hoping to batch cook when home and taken down enough meals to do so I just have to make my own lunch and breakfast. Hoping that I shouldn't be much worse off than working at home overall:D.

gargrave50

Well all, an update after the postie just made my day.:j

2 letters from Lowell Financial who are managing my Choice catalogue account. I CCA'd them and have received an acknowledgement stating they have made the request to shop direct and are awaiting a response - they say they will keep me updated, but make no mention of a stop to collection proceedings in the meantime:mad:. I offered them reduced payments and requested bank details to commence said payments - they still haven't provided this information despite 4 written requests. The other letter from them was an I&E form. I sent my own version with the original offer - think I will fill theirs in just to make them feel better:rolleyes:. Should I do this before the CCA thing is sorted?

The other letter was from HBoS (bad HBoS bad:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:). They are acknowledging my financial hardship (no !!!!!!), and offering £560. However, the acceptance form refers to this as below:

I/we confirm that I/we accept a total amount of £560 in settlement of my/our unarranged overdraft bank fees complaint.

Well I/we don't.

Given our finances I am happy to accept this as partial settlement, the remainder pending the outcome of the test case. I will need to trawl MSE to see whether there is a suitable letter to send as a reply. The total claim is for around £3100, so this is definately not acceptable as a F&F. What do you all think?

gargrave50

Formulated a response as below:

Without prejudice

Thank you for your letter of 31st July 2009, received today. I note that you acknowledge we are experiencing financial hardship, however I am disappointed to note you decline to admit liability. My complaint does concern the level, fairness or lawfulness of the fees levied by the bank, and I do not believe the fees applied reflect the true cost to Bank of Scotland.

I note your offer of a “goodwill gesture”, and accept £560 as partial settlement; not full or final settlement, of our claim. I intend to continue with my claim, including referral to the Ombudsman and court proceedings if necessary. As you have acknowledged we are experiencing financial hardship, and have made changes to reduce our expenditure. In addition to our expenditure being greater than our income currently, we have experienced a reduction in our income of £666 per month, as my wife’s student bursary has now finished and she is unable to commence employment, pending receipt of her registration from the Nursing & Midwifery Council which is due in October. She continues to seek permanent employment in an alternative field at present, but to date has been unable to secure such. Furthermore, we have ongoing priority arrears in excess of £3000, including £1987.34 due to Glasgow City Council in respect of Council Tax arrears. Our other priority arrears include Scottish Power for gas and electricity of £115 and a tax bill due to Inland Revenue.
Under the Financial Services Authority hardship waiver I reserve the right to continue claiming the remainder of the charges due as detailed in our original claim (copy enclosed). The FSA waiver clearly states "if the outcome of the test case produces a result that is more favourable to the complainant, the firm must take all reasonable steps to pay any difference in the amount of compensation actually received by the complainant and that that the complainant would have been entitled if his claim has not been settled by the firm then".
It is unlikely that without full settlement of this claim we can clear our priority debts, given that our income has reduced by 25%. These debts together with further non-priority debts continue to accrue charges, costs and interest, and are contributing to increasing our overall debt. The total amount of our claim was £3174. Taking into account your partial settlement of £560 this leaves a balance of £2614. We would be willing to accept a full and final settlement of £3000 which would allow us to repay our priority debt arrears and relieve us from our present financial hardship. We would continue to have other debts which we have approached a debt management company (CCCS) for advice, on how to best manage these. However, they are unable to assist us until we are able to repay our priority debt arrears. We have not asked for 8% interest which we are able to apply to this balance should we proceed to court, and would respectfully request that you reconsider our claim for the remaining balance at your earliest opportunity given our present circumstances.
Yours sincerely,


Any comments gratefully received, I hope this is along the lines that will get me somewhere. Nonetheless the £560 will go someway to making a F&F on Next hopefully!:D

Tixy

Hi Gargrave

I liked yesterdays letter to hbos, although didn't see it til today - wonder if this one wil do the trick. Regarding todays bank charge letter - I'd say it looks reasonable but really can't say I know enough about how these financial hardship situations work to give a knowledgeable response.

Glad to see you are tackling it all head on, best way to deal with debts and creditors.

gargrave50

Thanks Tixy, I am in full on letter writing mode. Now what goodies will the postie bring today:rolleyes:

gargrave50

Well, I am waiting patiently for my postman.......:whistle:

Tixy

Perhaps he's late cos he's bringing you a big bouquet of flowers as an apology from hbos :D

Or maybe he has nothing for you today as they've all decided to stop hounding you?

gargrave50

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

You know I'm expecting a big bouquet from HBoS...............

And it's also very likely that sharp tongued and witty letters have beat them all into submission and they have stopped hounding me of course:D

But I do hope he has something........... I'm expecting my ipoints vouchers:D