Lloyds don't have my agreement, can I go any further?

pikanibbles

I had a credit agreement with Lloyds (actually two, a loan and a credit card) taken out in January 2004. In mid-2006 I lost my job and failed to maintain payment on these accounts. In late 2006 Lloyds successfully filed for CCJs against me. According to my credit file, the accounts were closed in 2006 but I am maintaining payments on the CCJs and have all but for a couple of months paid them back entirely.

Hearing of other peoples success with claiming back PPI, I thought I'd give it a try. Since I no longer have copies of the credit agreements, I wrote a letter to Lloyds requesting a copy of my original agreements (I included the account numbers) but all I got back was a letter saying "At the moment we are not able to supply a copy of the original credit agreement."

Can I go any further with this? Is it worth sending a SAR? Or am I dead in the water?

I also made a similar request to Alliance & Leicester, but they didn't even bother to reply!

dazza12

An SAR will cost £10. It's up to you if you want to spend this. Use the template letter in the stickies, this should be sufficient for them to supply what you need. You don't necessarily need the original agreement to make a PPI complaint, just the account numbers but as much data as they hold can be useful to you.

Although the general guideline is 6 years of data, for money laundering regulations banks have to maintain details of loan/credit card accounts for at least 5 years after the relationship ended. In practice Lloyds tend to retain data for at least 10 years, sometimes more.

Bear in mind that Lloyds may use any redress to pay of what's remaining on the loan, if they still own the account.

For Alliance and Leicester, did you send a SAR to Santander? In my experience Santander were poor at complying with my SAR, I have a Santander current account, an Alliance and Leicester savings account and several former GE Capital and 1st Personal accounts now held by them. I got back a very poorly photocopied credit agreement for 2 GE accounts, but nothing at all for the 2 active (A&L and Santander) accounts. After 90 days of asking where the data for the currently operated accounts is, they've still not supplied it!

-taff

You don't need to send a SAR if you know the account numbers. You need those and complaint reason. However, as Dazza says, if they wrote any amounts off your debt, they can use any redess against that first.

pikanibbles

Thanks for the replies.

No money has been written off, I have been slowly paying off the outstanding amounts and I'm nearly there now. Any PPI claim would be used to clear outstanding balances anyway, so I don't mind them knocking it directly off.

I will send them a SAR. Do they have to comply with this by law?

dazza12

Yes, it's a right under the Data Protection Act, anybody that holds information on you has to supply this when presented with a valid request.

See http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/personal_information

Use the SAR template found in the stickies at the top of the forum, this is tailored to this use rather than the generic one on the ICO site.

-taff

Yes they do. Actually, Lloyds are pretty good when it comes to supplying a SAR info.
If they do not for any reason, you can complain to the ICO.

They don't have to provide proof they have destroyed your records though, leave that part out.
If you know the account numbers, the only reason to send a SAR is to find out how much you actually paid in PPI, so don't expect them to send credit agreements [which you don't need]

[Deleted User]

pikanibbles wrote: »

I will send them a SAR. Do they have to comply with this by law?

You don't need the agreement to make a PPI complaint, all you need are the account numbers and valid mis-selling reasons. As you are still paying off the outstanding debt, the details you need should be easily available to you simply by contacting the Bank.

If it's simply that you don't know whether you had PPI, then again it should be a simple matter for the Bank to provide this information if you ask.

Do be aware that if the accounts were closed in 2006 then any PPI attached to them would be similarly truncated.

Also be aware that the County Court Judgements you are paying may well have had some or all interest written off.

You haven't mentioned any complaint reason, do realise that it needs to have been mis-sold to you in order for it to be refunded.

StuC75

If you lost your job in 2006 why wasnt a PPI claim made back then?

-taff

Because they may not have been made redundant....