Credit Card reclaiming, hit an obstacle help needed please!!

earl876

Hi all,
I recently followed Martins re-claiming guide for my credit card charges with egg banking plc. I had got as far as going through the court process but my egg made me an offer to which I accepted.
Here is where my problems begun. On accepting the offer I was sent a Tomlin order to sign which said that the defendant (egg) would pay me the agreed sum within 14 days of receipt of the signed & sealed Tomlin Order from their solicitors. The approx date of that would have been 15th Jan. By the end of Jan I'd heard nothing from egg & received no payment yet had a letter from court sayin case is now closed. I contacted eggs solicitors & the short of it was that egg had deducted this amount from my outstanding credit card balance. Now to me this was totally unacceptable as I had signed an order through the court that said the defendant would pay ME within 14 days NOT deduct the amount from my credit card balance.
To date I have had several emails from thier solicitors (Speechly Birchman) saying that they are going to contact egg to raise a cheque, yet it is now 2mths down the line & I feel I'm just being totally fobbed off! What can I do? Surely they have broke the terms of the Tomlin Order by not doing wahta was clearly outlined in the letter & pay ME personally within 14 days! I would seriously appreciate any help or advice from a legal stand-point with this. Kind regards rob.

Premier_2

earl876 wrote: »

...d. I contacted eggs solicitors & the short of it was that egg had deducted this amount from my outstanding credit card balance. Now to me this was totally unacceptable as I had signed an order through the court that said the defendant would pay ME within 14 days NOT deduct the amount from my credit card balance....

It may seem unacceptable to you, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that they have deducted the amount they agreed to refund you from the greater amount you owe them.

earl876

Thanks for your reply & I see what you are saying & morally u have a point so let me put it differently & just deal with the facts then.
It went through the court process, the Tomlin Order I was issued to sign said that the defendant would pay TO ME the settlement figure that they had offered me as to not persue the full amount of my claim any further in court.
Nowhere was there any mention of deducting this settlement figure from my outstanding credit card balance.
Surely if I have signed an official document that clearly states the defendant shall pay me this figure within 14 days then that is what should happen, NOT for egg to decide for me what I do with that money & take it upon themselves to deduct it from my credit card.
If the terms in the tomlin order have not been adhered to surely I have the right to either a.) Send the bailiffs in via moneyclaim as I have not received payment within the due date or b.) The order is null & void & I persue back throught the court for the full amount!??
Does any1 from a legal standpoint know what rights I have??

esmerellda

Can you type out the wording of the tomlin order pls.

earl876 wrote: »

Hi all,
I recently followed Martins re-claiming guide for my credit card charges with egg banking plc. I had got as far as going through the court process but my egg made me an offer to which I accepted.
Here is where my problems begun. On accepting the offer I was sent a Tomlin order to sign which said that the defendant (egg) would pay me the agreed sum within 14 days of receipt of the signed & sealed Tomlin Order from their solicitors. The approx date of that would have been 15th Jan. By the end of Jan I'd heard nothing from egg & received no payment yet had a letter from court sayin case is now closed. I contacted eggs solicitors & the short of it was that egg had deducted this amount from my outstanding credit card balance. Now to me this was totally unacceptable as I had signed an order through the court that said the defendant would pay ME within 14 days NOT deduct the amount from my credit card balance.
To date I have had several emails from thier solicitors (Speechly Birchman) saying that they are going to contact egg to raise a cheque, yet it is now 2mths down the line & I feel I'm just being totally fobbed off! What can I do? Surely they have broke the terms of the Tomlin Order by not doing wahta was clearly outlined in the letter & pay ME personally within 14 days! I would seriously appreciate any help or advice from a legal stand-point with this. Kind regards rob.

earl876

The Tomlin Order states as follows-

'Without any admission of liability and on a purely commercial and ex gratia basis our client will within 14 days of our receipt of the sealed Tomlin Order from the court refund you with the sum of £178.32.
You and Egg agree that the provisions above are in full and final settlement of the proceedings in Northampton County Court Bulk Centre under claim number...... and of all claims, rights, actions, and causes of action (including claims for interests and costs) either party may have against the other arising out of or in connection with any issue raised in this case.'

This is the only reference made to the refund, There is absolutely no other mention of the refund & certainly not of it being deducted from my outstanding balance.

Today I had an email from their solicitors saying this-

Dear Mr Earl,

Further to our email correspondence and telephone conversations on this matter and also your email below of this morning, I am now in a position to confirm our client's response to the situation which is as follows.
In your letter to our client of 24 September 2009, you offered to accept £250.00 by cheque in settlement of your default charges complaint, failing which you would issue a claim. Our client did not accept your offer and you issued a county court claim on 10 November 2009 for £583.56 plus court fee. Issuing the new claim effectively caused all previous offers of settlement to fall away.
On 11 December 2009 we made you a settlement offer of £178.32, which you accepted by signing and returning the Tomlin Order. We had not had sight of your letter, and our client was under no obligation to make us aware of your letter as it was in connection with your earlier default charges complaint and did not relate to your claim. It was unreasonable of you to assume that we had seen your letter and that we would be acting in accordance with it. Upon receipt of your signed Tomlin Order we requested your refund from our client, whose refund policy is to credit the account with the refund sum if the customer has an existing balance in order to offset this debt against our client in the first instance. As you had an existing balance, our client applied the refund to your Egg card account on or around 4 January 2009, which was well within the time frame specified in the schedule to the Tomlin Order which was to refund the claimant within 14 days of receipt of the Sealed Order by the defendant's solicitors.
Our client acted in accordance with the terms of the Tomlin Order and the refund reached your account before the deadline imposed by the Tomlin Order. Our client is therefore not in breach of the terms of the Tomlin Order and is under no obligation to issue a cheque in payment of your refund. Should you choose to issue a new claim against our client, our client will make a costs application against you for the costs which would be incurred in defending the claim.

earl876

My response....
Dear Mrs Monaghan,

Thank you for your response on behalf of egg banking plc.
As I am a Firefighter & not a Solicitor & having not sought legal aid thus far, I am yet to establish my exact legal standpoint with regards to this claim. However what I do know is this-
I am 100% certain that I have signed an order saying that I would receive from the defendant payment of the said amount as settlement in this claim.
I have the order in front of me & nowhere does it state that this settlement offer would infact be used to deduct from a credit card balance.
Nowhere on this order does it state eggs policy regarding this & at no point was I made aware of or did it say that this was the case.
Therefor the order on which I have signed is factually incorrect & false as what I have signed to agree to & what egg has infact done are two completely different things.
Here I have stated just facts & it is these facts that now lead me to believe I have been lured to sign a court order under false pretences.
I shall now use this information to instruct Thompsons Solicitors to file a new claim based on this.
I find it disappointing that a major credit card company cannot act more proffessionally & it is of my opinion that it will be to eggs detriment as I will not be satisfied until this is settled in court.
Thankyou for your communication & as we have been unable to settle this matter in an informal manner, I shall now instruct Thompsons to act on my behalf.
Regards Mr R. Earl

Orford

Unfortunately the key word in the Tomlin Order is 'refund'. Have they refunded you? Yes, just not in the way you assumed. Therefore they have discharged their obligation and it is unlikely that Thompsons will agree to file a new claim on your behalf.

earl876

Hmm seems like the general consensus is that I do not have a case then. I get free legal aid with thompsons through work so may see wat they say but get the feeling im flogging a dead horse now!
Thanks for all ur replies guys it is much appreciated

esmerellda

sorry Earl, I agree completly with Orford. the Tomlin order you signed only obliges them to refund you. The most likely place to refund you is back to the card the charges were added to in the first place. A court would see the Tomlin as having been fulfilled correctly so no you have no case, pretty certain your solicitors will confirm that as being the case too.

earl876

Thanks for your helpful advice I'l leave this one be & not waste my time.
Regards rob