SARS, Charges, Default Date

SherrieT

Hello to everyone and I thank you in advance for any help you can give me. I am very new to the World of claiming charges/ensuring companies have done things correctly etc so would like so advice. I do hope I have started this in the right area of this site also!Firstly, the debt was with a Natwest credit card back when I was a student and so I was pretty broke and they then defaulted me after 6 months of non-payment (fair enough). The limit on the card was £500.
In October 2013 I issued Natwest with a SARS. They replied on the 40th day saying they required more information to be sure of my identity. I sent another letter including the information and I have received the Credit Card info but not the Current account, whereby another 40 days will have passed on 12th Feb. I know I am going off subject for this, but I wondered whether the 40 days was most certainly already up and what the next course of action would be?
From the SARS this is the information I have got:
15th October 2010 Default Notice stating I had 17 days from the date after the letter was dated to bring payments within the credit limit. If I do not comply with the Default Notice, I will no longer be covered by any Credit Card Protection I may have etc etc.
2nd November 2010 presumably they had Defaulted me since I did not pay.
5th November 2010 Letter stating default charges on my account of 1/11/2010 £12 late payment fee and 05/11/2010 £12 Overlimit Fee.
8th November 2010 Letter stating Account Termination (This is the last letter until I contact them in 2012 regarding payments).
On my Equifax Credit Report they have Defaulted me on 07/12/2010
Am I in a position to ask for the particulars of the Default since one would assume from the Default Notice that I would be Defaulted on 2nd Nov 2010 but instead was Defaulted according to my Credit File on 7th Dec 2010?
From my statements I have:
05/11/2010 2 lots of interest
05/11/210 Overlimit Fee
03/12/2010 2 lots of interest
Can I claim back these charges as technically in accordance with the Default Notice they should have already Defaulted me and thus cannot add charges after my presumed Default Date? They have sent no information in my SARS relating to an actual date of Default so surely I could be correct in believing it would be in accordance with the Default Notice they have sent me? Or am I just being optimistic? J
I also would like information about the charges I have received. I am aware the OFT ruled that charges over £12 are excessive but all the charges I have received from Natwest are £12. However the first month I stopped paying the minimin payment was July 2010 when the balance was £459.08. September 2010 was the first month I went over the limit due to the late payment fee plus interest so I began also paying overlimit fees also. Therefore by 5th November 2010 the balance was £580.91 which is a difference of £121.83 just purely in charges alone. Can I reclaim any of this back?
I know this is all very long so I do apologise, I have tried to put as much information as possible.


Once again, thank you to anyone who can help me at all.
Sherrie

[Deleted User]

SherrieT wrote: »

Hello to everyone and I thank you in advance for any help you can give me. I am very new to the World of claiming charges/ensuring companies have done things correctly etc so would like so advice. I do hope I have started this in the right area of this site also!Firstly, the debt was with a Natwest credit card back when I was a student and so I was pretty broke and they then defaulted me after 6 months of non-payment (fair enough). The limit on the card was £500.
In October 2013 I issued Natwest with a SARS. They replied on the 40th day saying they required more information to be sure of my identity. I sent another letter including the information and I have received the Credit Card info but not the Current account, whereby another 40 days will have passed on 12th Feb. I know I am going off subject for this, but I wondered whether the 40 days was most certainly already up and what the next course of action would be?
From the SARS this is the information I have got:
15th October 2010 Default Notice stating I had 17 days from the date after the letter was dated to bring payments within the credit limit. If I do not comply with the Default Notice, I will no longer be covered by any Credit Card Protection I may have etc etc.
2nd November 2010 presumably they had Defaulted me since I did not pay.
5th November 2010 Letter stating default charges on my account of 1/11/2010 £12 late payment fee and 05/11/2010 £12 Overlimit Fee.
8th November 2010 Letter stating Account Termination (This is the last letter until I contact them in 2012 regarding payments).
On my Equifax Credit Report they have Defaulted me on 07/12/2010
Am I in a position to ask for the particulars of the Default since one would assume from the Default Notice that I would be Defaulted on 2nd Nov 2010 but instead was Defaulted according to my Credit File on 7th Dec 2010?
From my statements I have:
05/11/2010 2 lots of interest
05/11/210 Overlimit Fee
03/12/2010 2 lots of interest
Can I claim back these charges as technically in accordance with the Default Notice they should have already Defaulted me and thus cannot add charges after my presumed Default Date? They have sent no information in my SARS relating to an actual date of Default so surely I could be correct in believing it would be in accordance with the Default Notice they have sent me? Or am I just being optimistic? J
I also would like information about the charges I have received. I am aware the OFT ruled that charges over £12 are excessive but all the charges I have received from Natwest are £12. However the first month I stopped paying the minimin payment was July 2010 when the balance was £459.08. September 2010 was the first month I went over the limit due to the late payment fee plus interest so I began also paying overlimit fees also. Therefore by 5th November 2010 the balance was £580.91 which is a difference of £121.83 just purely in charges alone. Can I reclaim any of this back?
I know this is all very long so I do apologise, I have tried to put as much information as possible.


Once again, thank you to anyone who can help me at all.
Sherrie

As I understand it, the charges are applied as per the terms you agreed to. If I am wrong, then there may be a basis to ask them to be refunded.

In regards to your other question, as the charges were £12, you would need to prove the charges are unfair. I doubt the credit card company will willingly give you any refund, and the FOS can't deal with such allegations; only a court can give the ultimate decision.

Are you prepared to take matters that far?

SherrieT

As a follow on from this question (as I have been thinking about this a lot!). From the SAR they have sent nothing relating to the actual default date so if I hadn't looked at my credit file I wouldn't know if they had or the date etc. Surely they have to provide at least something relating to the Default date otherwise how would they themselves know I was defaulted by them if there is nothing on their system to say such a thing? Should I write a letter asking for EVERYTHING relating to me as in notes/screens of my account as this must be on their system?


Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks

meer53

Banks and credit card issuers only report information to the CRA's monthly.

Why do you need details of the default date ?

What exactly are you hoping for ?

SherrieT

Because I want a true chronological order of my account and how it was conducted by them. I thought a SAR would give me all the information for this but from this I only have a Default Notice and a Termination of Account letter with no actual default date. So would they not have any information relating to when they defaulted me on their system? Not even in the notes of the account or anything? I thought they would have to include the date somewhere so they knew I was defaulted otherwise surely it could be overlooked by them as human error does occur.

meer53

SherrieT wrote: »

Because I want a true chronological order of my account and how it was conducted by them. I thought a SAR would give me all the information for this but from this I only have a Default Notice and a Termination of Account letter with no actual default date. So would they not have any information relating to when they defaulted me on their system? Not even in the notes of the account or anything? I thought they would have to include the date somewhere so they knew I was defaulted otherwise surely it could be overlooked by them as human error does occur.

You admitted that you stopped paying. This will automatically result in a default. It's not human error. Your credit file shows your default date, why is it important for you to know ?

If you're going to make a complaint about charges, a period of a month isn't going to make much difference.

If the charges applied were £12 then any request for refunds will probably be rejected anyway.

SherrieT

I don’t think I explained that point particularly well. I fully accept the Default, it was my own stupid fault. I know the Default was not human error, I was stating that if it is not practice to put a note on an account to say they have Defaulted someone, then how will others within the same bank know? If a note was not made and thus others in the bank will not know whether you have been defaulted or not, then surely some people who should have been Defaulted won’t have been. I hope that makes more sense regarding the point about human error.


I am not going to make a flat out complaint about charges as they were all £12 and as someone above stated, I agreed to this so fair enough, I accept those charges. But what I want to avoid is paying charges that I don’t think are correct. If a bank issues you with a Default Notice and then takes nearly 2 months to actually Default you, they have gained money in charges and interest which they would not be able to charge you with had they defaulted you when they stated they would.


I am going to claim for a few overlimit charges since I paid twice the minimum payment to avoid staying over the limit and yet they still gave me the charge when it was their practice from previous months to charge once you had gone over and thus in effect I had paid twice to go over the limit once. Therefore I may want to also claim for the charges regarding the Default date also since a month of charges does make the difference to me.

meer53

As i said previously, banks only report to the CRA's once a month. A default isn't applied as soon as you miss a payment, different banks will have different procedures. Where i work, we allow 2 missed payments then default on the third. We might default earlier if there are other issues with accounts.

For a month i wouldn't worry about it.

SherrieT

The last payment I made was on 23rd May 2010, which was only partial payment of the minimum payment and they defaulted me in December 2010.


26 Feb 2010 made minimum payment
30 March 2010 missed payment
28 April 2010 partial payment so late payment fee added
23 May 2010 partial payment so late payment fee added.


Since a late fee was added I am assuming these partial payments are classed as non payment? Thus the actual last full payment was in Feb 2010 and then I was defaulted in December. So this was far more many months then 2 or 3 and more like 10 or 11 where charges and interest were continually applied.


Unfortunately a months worth of charges adds up to £30 which, to me, is something to worry about.

meer53

The time to request a refund of charges was in 2010. If you didn't let them know you were struggling then, it's not much use trying to claim now. It just looks as though you're jumping on the claims bandwagon now. Why didn't you contact them at the time ?


What happened in June, July, Aug and Sept ?


As you were making partial payments, i can see why they didn't default sooner. Making partial payments will definately be classed as missed payments.

What were you hoping to do with the current account statements ? Since the banks won the court case in 2009, the chance of any historic charges refunds is slim to nil. Charges complaints can still be made but these need to be recent charges and you need to be able to prove that you're in financial hardship at the moment.