The Moral Dilemma? Banks not following Laws set in place for the consumer.

kilasuit

The Moral Dilemma of you borrowed it so pay it back is an arguement that we see here every day every thread and almost every post.

The law states quite clearly how the banks MUST operate when it comes to Consumer Credit Agreements and how these must be expressed in written form.

It is not my fault that a bank that employs lawyers to set agreements out that follow these laws has done so incorrectly HOWEVER it is my right as a consumer and a UK taxpaying citizen (not that paying tax actually matters in this respect) to take the banks to court when they have failed to do something as simple as draft an agreement that follows the law.

I find it highly discerning that the amount of people on these forums take the Moral Highground though this Moral Highground lies with the consumer that is not getting steamrollered by the banks and is fighting them for what is right. Correct drafted agreements that should have been in place originally.

Maybe those of you that wish to preach this Moral Highground of paying back what you owe even when the agreements are unlawful should look at things in a completely different light. If it had happened to you then you would and should want to tell the banks that they screwed up and that no court should enforce an agreement that doesnt follow the laws that they should have drafted the agreement based on.

Then again your all better than everyone that has faced redundancy and threats of DCAs that once again have no legal right to even contact the debtors

izools

kilasuit wrote: »

Then again your all better than everyone that has faced redundancy and threats of DCAs that once again have no legal right to even contact the debtors

I must say I am 100% behind you on this one.

Any time I have ever received a letter from a DCA my staple response has been to point out to them that, first off, it is a breach of S40(1) of the Administration of Justice act to falsely represent that court proceedings lie for failure to pay for an unsubstantiated debt.

I recently received a letter from a DCA acting on behalf of BT, because BT failed to advise me of any terms of contract, length of agreement, etc. They simply agreed to connect a line over the phone. Never received any paperwork, never had a chance to read or agree / disagree with any terms, etc. They then tried to lump a cancellation fee on me for moving away from them claiming I had entered into a term contract etc.

They werent unable to substantiate this and passed the "debt" to a DCA. I sent the DCA this:

To Whom It May Concern:

I, today, received a letter of a threatening nature from your company.

You claim I owe British Telecommunications PLC £125.32. I do not. I do not recognise this debt or account.

Ensure to cease and desist sending me letters misrepresenting your ability to obtain judgement until such a point that you are able to show proof that the balance is owed. So far you are just threatening me without any form of proof.

To misrepresent your ability to pursue judgement against me is a breach of S.40(1) of the Administration of Justice Act. Please cease and desist doing so with immediate effect to prevent action being brought against you under this act.

If you are unable to provide evidence to back up your claim to have legal right to my money I (and the law) consider the matter closed.

I trust this is the last time I will hear from you.

I am not willing to enter into protracted, unnecessary correspondence or conversation about the matter.


Yours Faithfully,

I haven't heard from them since.

Speaking of BT, my lordy are they suckers for breach of contract. I had to help a friend of mine with a letter to them about slamming his line:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to you in regard to the service delivered on this account at XX XXXXX Road, XXXXX, XXX XXX.

I placed the order with you in April. I was emailed two days after placing the order to say that the order had Failed and therefore been Cancelled. I contacted yourselves at the time, toward the end of April, and your colleague also confirmed verbally that the order had failed and been cancelled. I wanted to ensure that the order had indeed been cancelled; I was re-assured that it had been.

I was then notified in May by my current landline provider that someone else was trying to take over the line – as I had been told by you – and asked you – to cancel the order; I told my current landline provider that I do not provide consent for the line to be taken over. My landline provider cancelled your order to take over the line; you tried to take it over on 17th May.

It transpires that you had placed several orders against the line in the month of May, without notifying me, and after I asked you to cancel the order, and after you told me the order was cancelled. It would seem that you took careful and specific actions when placing the orders to take over the line, which would prevent the existing provider from stopping the transfer. Despite BE Unlimited telling Openreach to cancel the initial two orders against the line you proceeded to repeatedly place orders without my consent or instruction and against both my will, and against what you had advised me re: the order being cancelled.

As a result, I have been disconnected from my current broadband provider, lost my landline number, and been charged a termination fee from them, all because you poached / slammed my line.

I raised a verbal complaint about this matter with you about ten days ago. Your colleague advised me that she would a) email me the following morning and b) call me the following morning. This did not happen.

To settle my complaint, I require that you, within 14 days:

· Disconnect the line that you shouldn’t have taken over in the first place – at XX XXXXX Road, XXXXX, XXX XXX


· Refund me the £120.00 taken as advance line rental, less any calls made since you poached the line from BE Unlimited. You are not to subtract any line rental fees from the refund as I cancelled the order and rescinded permission for BT to charge me line rental during my phone call with you in April.

· You are also to refund, atop the £120 (less cost of calls) the reasonable cost incurred in slamming my line – as you are directly responsible for a disconnection fee charged by BE Unlimited. This is in the region of £120. You are to offer a suitable figure around this amount.

I expect the £120 (less call charges) to be refunded by cheque within five days. I expect an additional offer to be made to cover the fees you incurred by slamming my line within fourteen days of the date of this letter.


Failure to comply with these reasonable and lawful requests within the timeframes prescribed will result in full and immediate action being sought against you via your regulator and dispute resolution ombudsman.


Yours Faithfully,

I'm not gonna let anyone, financial institution, telecommunications provider, anyone, screw with me or my friends :beer:

kilasuit

izools wrote: »

I must say I am 100% behind you on this one.

Any time I have ever received a letter from a DCA my staple response has been to point out to them that, first off, it is a breach of S40(1) of the Administration of Justice act to falsely represent that court proceedings lie for failure to pay for an unsubstantiated debt.

I recently received a letter from a DCA acting on behalf of BT, because BT failed to advise me of any terms of contract, length of agreement, etc. They simply agreed to connect a line over the phone. Never received any paperwork, never had a chance to read or agree / disagree with any terms, etc. They then tried to lump a cancellation fee on me for moving away from them claiming I had entered into a term contract etc.

They werent unable to substantiate this and passed the "debt" to a DCA. I sent the DCA this:



I haven't heard from them since.

Speaking of BT, my lordy are they suckers for breach of contract. I had to help a friend of mine with a letter to them about slamming his line:






I'm not gonna let anyone, financial institution, telecommunications provider, anyone, screw with me or my friends :beer:

Too right theres laws in place for a reason. Not our fault that big companys cant follow the law.

Hanky_Panky

A quick question for you:

If you are unhappy with the original contract why do you take the money on offer in the first place ?

izools

Hanky_Panky wrote: »

A quick question for you:

If you are unhappy with the original contract why do you take the money on offer in the first place ?

This I also agree with.

I do however feel kilasuit has a very valid point in terms of companies being non compliant with the law in their activities and breaching their own contracts.

I have to say I haven't had many problems with high street banks except the occasional breach of DPA in terms of incorrect credit file data, by far the worst are telecommunications providers and debt collection agencies.

They blatantly and routinely break the laws they are bound to follow, break their own terms and conditions, and go against regulations set in place by their regulators.

As per my above two example with BT, this is just what I've encountered in the last month. Virgin Media are no better in terms of imposing inflated cancellation fees much greater than what they agreed with OfCom, and claiming a contract has been increased by six months when it hasn't.

In case anyone wants some more reading here's the letter I had to send to VM recently... still waiting on a reply:

FORMAL COMPLAINT

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to you today in regard to the cable services delivered to Flat X, XX Xxxxxx Road, Xxxxx, XXX XXX.

I have had to vacate this property as the owner is selling up. I am therefore moving back in with parents briefly whilst I wait for another suitable property to arrive on the market. As my parents already have a telephone and internet service – which they are in contract with and not interested in switching – I am left with no choice but to cancel my Virgin Media services.

I have, however, found out that you are trying to grossly inflate the cancellation fee I am liable to pay. This, I have found, is due to two errors on your part.

1. You believe that I agreed to an 18 month contract. This is incorrect. Whilst ordering the services on your website last November, I spoke with “Emma”, your internet-chat assistant that pops up when browsing your website, and she advised me that the services are delivered on a 12 month contract.

2. You believe that you have the right to charge me £20 per month for each month Broadband service remains and £4 per month for each month Telephony services remain on my contract. However, you told OfCom that you charge customers £9 per month for Cable Broadband and £4 per month for Cable Telephone disconnection fees from date of disconnection to the end date of their contract.

Therefore, I have been mis-sold (either Emma lied about my ordering a 12 month service, or your systems are erroneously recording the number of months left on my contract); and you are not complying with the information you provided to OfCom in regard to cancellation fees last June.

I have liaised with OfCom twice about this now and both times they confirmed; that you agreed to charge your customers £9 PCM Cable Broadband and £4 PCM Cable Telephone early termination fees. The fees for National services are lower, £6.53 for each month remaining, but this is not relevant to my complaint. OfCom have confirmed this £9 PCM fee applies to any cable broadband service – OfCom were not advised of different fees for different service levels despite what your colleague claimed when I spoke with him.

In order to resolve my complaint, I require you to:

Reduce my cancellation fee to £65. This reflects the facts that a) I have five months left of the 12 month term I agreed to and was sold and b) the £9 PCM Cable Broadband and £4 PCM Cable Telephone Early Termination Fee you agreed with OfCom last June

Refrain from reporting any information regarding the status of my account whilst this dispute and complaint remains open, to any credit reference agency. As the £180 termination fee is in FORMAL DISPUTE you are to, at most, report that the account status is “QUERY”. To report that the account is in ARREARS prior to the complaint being resolved will result in extra action being sought through the Information Commissioner and reparation sought therein

Please ensure my bill is adjusted accordingly within five working days of the incorrect £180 fee being applied and confirm this amendment has been made, in writing, to my new address. Failure to do so will result in full and immediate action being sought through your regulator and / or complaint resolution ombudsman.


Yours Faithfully,

Like I say, aint' no one gonna get me over a barrel!

Oh, and this one to HSBC for a friend due to breach of Data protection act:

To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for your letter dated 31st May, the contents of which I note.

Unfortunately it appears that the concern I raised with you was not addressed and the point, missed. Therefore I urge you to read this complaint carefully and thoroughly to avoid making the same mistake.

I had raised two complaints with you in May. The first of which related to the type of credit search performed against my Experian credit file when I applied for a credit card limit increase in March.

You recorded an application type “Credit Card” against my Experian file. I do not dispute that you were entitled to perform a search, but I do dispute the type of search you made. To perform a “Credit Card” type search tells third party creditors that I applied for a new credit card account. I did not. Therefore the type of search is misrepresentative.

Please note the search I am referring to, as taken from my Experian credit file:

I have confirmed with Experian that this suggests to third party creditors, I applied for a new credit card account. As you can see from your records, I did not. The correct type of search to perform when reviewing a customer’s existing accounts is an “Enquiry” or “Unrecorded Enquiry” - like this:

Or this:

These types of searches tell third party creditors that a bank has looked at my credit file, in relation to an application other than that for a new credit product.

Please note – on the 22nd March 2011 you performed the correct type of search with Equifax. Please note this excerpt from my Equifax credit file:

The second complaint relates to the quality of data you are sending in relation to my accounts to Experian and Equifax. Please note that I obtained fresh copies of my Experian and Equifax files today, to ensure that I am viewing, and showing you, the most up to date data they hold. Please, at this point, check my credit card balance and limit. Now, this is the current data Experian and Equifax hold in regard to my Credit Card:




Please also note that, despite having known my new (current) address for nearly four months, you have reported my Credit Card and Current Account as being held my OLD address on my Equifax credit file –

The following errors exist in regard to the Credit Card data you have reported to Experian:

· Incorrect Balance
· Incorrect Limit
· Incorrect Repayment Amount




The following errors exist in regard to the Credit Card data you have reported to Equifax:

· Incorrect Address
· Incorrect Limit
· Incorrect Balance
· Balance in contradiction with the balance you reported to Experian

The following errors exist in regard to the Current Account data you have reported to Equifax:

· Incorrect Address


It is now clear to me that there are severe issues with the system you employ to communicate customer account data to the credit reference agencies. The data reported is inaccurate, out of date, and inconsistent. Not only this, but your staff are poorly trained in dealing with matters of this nature and unable to resolve queries relating to credit data quality.

There is grave concern surrounding the quality of your data not only due to the fact it is wrong, but in my instance, is adversely affecting my credit worthiness and leaving me open to identity theft. Please consider this – someone uses my details to apply for credit at my old address. If the creditor they apply to sees that I have active accounts at that address, they aren’t going to ask questions. Conversely, if I apply for credit at my current address, the creditor will ask questions as they will see that my current account and credit card are active at an address other than that which I provided on the application form – leaving me open to identity theft – and adversely affecting my chances of obtaining credit at my correct and current address.

Due to this I have had to take out identity theft protection and subscriptions with Experian an Equifax to ensure that no one is taking advantage of your leaving my accounts reported at my old address on Equifax.

Finally I would like you to note that your staff have been trained with incorrect information with regard to how long it takes credit reference agencies to update data. I have been told various incorrect timeframes, ranging from 30 days to three months. These are all wrong. The only reason Experian and Equifax hold incorrect and out of data is because you haven’t corrected them. It takes the UK’s three credit reference agencies 24-72 hours to update data once they are instructed to do so by a financial institution. Please call them, they will confirm this.


In resolution to this complaint I require you to:

· Remove the incorrect search dated 22/03/2011 from my Experian credit file
· Update Experian with the correct balance and limit data relating to my Credit Card account
· Update Equifax with the correct balance and limit data relating to my Credit Card account
· Update Equifax with the correct address relating to my Credit Card and Current accounts
· Issue a sum of compensation to cover costs incurred by your inaccurate data reporting
· Ensure that measures are put in place to remove the inadequacies in your credit data reporting systems

I provide you with 14 days from the date of this letter to resolve all queries mentioned save my referring this matter to the ICO and FOS. This means you must provide Experian, Equifax and Call Credit with the new data post haste. They will reflect the update you provide them on my credit files within 24-72 hours of your giving it to them.


Yours Faithfully,

(I omitted the pictures for obvious reasons but you get the gist)


Don't let these companies break the law to your deficit