About To Tackle First Trust Bank....

burkey38

Hi all

Well I've spent all night drafting up my hardship claim letter to send off tomorrow along with evidence of debts owing and such.

One debt in my name is owing to Capquest but it's on hold at the minute as I'm querying the credit agreement, I haven't heard anything from them since February.

I was about to include evidence of this debt to support my claim when I was browsing on here and noticed a thread that indicated tht Halifax bank were going to repay bank charges owed but directly back to the creditors.

So obviously I'm know thinking, can the First Trust do this to me? Surely it's up to me to deal with my creditor and not my bank?

I still feel if I leave the Capquest debt out I still have a strong case.

So what do the experts on here think?

Thanks in advance.


G

esmerellda

Halifax will sometimes pay direct to creditors esp priority debts to help with hardship. If they indicate they will do this they can only pay ARREARS amounts not just off the balance, which if in hardship should help.

have you stopped paying capquest?

burkey38

Yes

Stopped paying Capquest since February 09, after they couldn't provide me with a genuine signed credit agreement, haven't heard from them since.

So while they feel I still owe them money I'm not in arrears as such.

So as long as I'm sure First Trust can't turn round and sent money directly to Capquest on my behalf, I should include details of the alleged debts in my hardship claim then?

burkey38

Right, received a reply from First Trust Bank in relation to financial hardship/overdraft charges.

This is what it said:

We acknowledge receipt of your financial hardship complaint and your unarranged overdraft charges complaint.

Your complaint about financial hardship

The matter is receiving our attention and is currently being investigated by this Department. Should you wish to provide additional information in support of your claim please complete and return the enclosed Common Financial Statement. If we do not receive the completed Statement within 10 days our investigation will be based on the information we currently hold.

We hope to be in touch with you shortly and for information purposes we have detailed below our complaints procedure:

1. You may express your dissatisfaction eithe orally or in writing.

2. Your complaint will be recorded and you will receive a written
acknowledgement within 5 business days at most, unless your
complaint is resolved within 1 day of receipt.

3. We will investigate your complaint promptly.

4. We will write to you within 4 weeks with either the result of our
enquiries or to advise that more time is needed to complete our
enquiries.

5. As a maximum we will write to you within 8 weeks with the results of
our enquiries, which will represent our final response.

6. You may pass the matter to the Financial Ombudsman if you are not
happy with our final response or if we have failed to advise you of the
outcome of our enquiries within 8 weeks of having received your
complaint.



Under the heading of Your complaint about unarranged overdraft charges the letter goes on to advise me of the OFT and test case but there is a paragraph thus:

As previously agreed with the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Financial Services Authority, the normal timetable for dealing with customers' complaints about unarranged overdraft charges will continue to remain on hold until January 2010 or until the courts have reached a decision, which ever is sooner. The FSA agreed to this, as long as the banks meet conditions that protect your rights.


Obviously I will complete the forms they provided me with and return them alng with further proof of payments were are making. I have already provided proof of mortgage and loan arrears in my claim letter.

What does everyone think will happen now?

Seems like they're saying yes you may be in financial hardship but you're gonna have to wait till the court case is over anyway?

natweststaffmember

They don't have to pay out even if you are in financial hardship but can suspend charges and interest or increase the overdraft. There are a number of things that they can do if you are in financial hardship.

burkey38

I don't need an overdraft and I'm not incurring any further charges.

So if the banks dont have to pay out even if Im in financial hardship, and I do tick 99% of the boxes outlinded in the hardship guidelines, this is all a waste of time then?

natweststaffmember

burkey38 wrote: »

I don't need an overdraft and I'm not incurring any further charges.

So if the banks dont have to pay out even if Im in financial hardship, and I do tick 99% of the boxes outlinded in the hardship guidelines, this is all a waste of time then?

Do you have priority debt arrears(mortgage.rent, council tax, utilities)?
Are any of the arrears being paid off?

If you have no charges now are you incurring them on a monthly basis or not all now?

burkey38

We have mortgage and electricity arrears, not incurring any charges at moment but have clocked up thousands over the last six years(don't ask)

Plenty of other outgoings as well as pending criminal proceedings against wife for theft, oh and of course she's unemployed(see, told you we ticked a lot of boxes)

natweststaffmember

burkey38 wrote: »

We have mortgage and electricity arrears, not incurring any charges at moment but have clocked up thousands over the last six years(don't ask)

Plenty of other outgoings as well as pending criminal proceedings against wife for theft, oh and of course she's unemployed(see, told you we ticked a lot of boxes)

You need to go back to July 2001 to present and not just 6 years.
Are the arrears being paid off?

burkey38

We've just got a meter in and the electricity company have agreed to take £8.00 from every £20.00 to offset the arrears.

No agreement on the mortgage arrears as yet.

natweststaffmember

burkey38 wrote: »

We've just got a meter in and the electricity company have agreed to take £8.00 from every £20.00 to offset the arrears.

No agreement on the mortgage arrears as yet.

At the moment, the paying off of arrears on the electricity kinda takes that out of the equation but the mortgage arrears are good(so to speak).
Did you have to send in an income and expenditure form to First Trust?