When is an account in dispute

king100

Recently I have had an altercation with Lloyds TSB.

I took them to court over unfair charges on my credit card account. Thus filing a claim in court I assumed that this therefore meant that the account was in dispute.

But the FSA seem to differ stating that I cannot put an account in dispute, or at least but it in dispute the way I have.

Surely taking them to court is putting in dispute.

Also I am trying to have my credit file put right. I closed the account in Oct 2007 and paid off in full the balance from the out of court settlement. Yet they updated my file until Feb 2008 stating missed payments and then eventually closed account in 2009.

What can they get fined per incorrect entry and I will take this all the way.

chattychappy

If you are litigating, I'd certainly agree that the relevant account is in dispute. If you settled out of court, then that would end the dispute. How they mark you account really depends on what happened or what was agreed to have happened.

In theory, fines can be unlimited: s206(1) Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 "If the Authority considers that an authorised person has contravened a requirement imposed on him by or under this Act, it may impose on him a penalty, in respect of the contravention, of such amount as it considers appropriate.". They could even send Margaret Cole around...

But its very unlikely anybody would be interested in fining them unless they there had been a real break down in their systems and controls. You might be entitled to something if you've suffered a tangible loss because of an error they made.

king100

I basacially got my statements and asked them to return the unfair charges, they denied, I took them to court and they settled out of court.

I didnt pay off any balance as amount owed was in dispute, thus according to banking code they shouldent update my credit file. As soon as cheque was cash I paid off full balance and told them to foxtrot oscar.

chattychappy

Yes, whilst something is in dispute, the bank shouldn't take prejudicial action. But at the end of the dispute they are entitled to report based on the outcome of the dispute.

Eg £1000 appears on statement - customer disputes. Pays nothing. Bank shouldn't report. 3 months later the dispute is resolved - the transaction was genuine. Bank can report that the cardholder was late for two months.

In your case, it seems you stopped paying anything. If you had only withheld the amount disputed - and in the settlement this amount was agreed to have been wrongly charged, then I think they shouldn't report anything. But in the end, the non-wrong amounts were paid late - so I think the bank has acted reasonably.

If you want to complain, then I think the argument you have to run is that you stopped paying because you couldn't reasonably determine what was due and what wasn't. Once the dispute was settled you showed good faith by paying immediately so that the bank was acting unfairly by reporting you. If the bank agreed not to report you as part of the settlement, then of course you can argue that too.