Credit cards and Computer issued summons

Rincewindwiz

Hi,

I seem to recall a recent newspaper story about a summons for alleged non-payment of a credit card debt which resulted in a visit to the courts.

IIRC the story was that the summons had been issued in error by the credit card company's computer (no idea of the reason) and the credit card company apologised.

it also transpired that there was no manual check of the information before the summons was issued and had there been a manual check, the error would have been clear.

The magistrate admonished the credit card company for wasting the court's time and suggested that in future a manual check might save everyone time and effort.

HOWEVER, I can no longer find this article. Does anyone else remember this/can provide a reference?

Thanks

agrinnall

The only relevant search result I can find is this thread. Do you have any more to go on, such as when it was or what newspaper you might have seen it in?

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

IANAL but I'm pretty sure a credit card provider can't issue a court summons.

Rincewindwiz

Artilce probably within last two months. Paper probably torygraph. But I couldn't find anything either - hence the post!!
Thanks for your efforts.

agrinnall

Rincewindwiz wrote: »

Artilce probably within last two months. Paper probably torygraph. But I couldn't find anything either - hence the post!!
Thanks for your efforts.

Maybe it's one of those results that Google has been requested to remove. Although as F&NC says a CC issuer is not in a position to create it's own court summonses, that's a function of the court, so you may have misremembered that part of it.

Rincewindwiz

Not, I think, misremembered; just sloppy English.

IIRC, to take someone to court you fill in a form quoting the relevant facts and send it to the court who then issue a summons (at least thats what I remember form various small claims efforts).

In this case, the CC provider's computer generated the form and sent it to the court from which the issue of a summons followed automatically.

Local councils have a similar process with rent and council tax arrears.

SnowTiger

Rincewindwiz wrote: »

I seem to recall a recent newspaper story about a summons for alleged non-payment of a credit card debt which resulted in a visit to the courts.

Dunno, but I found this amusing story about a credit card company not reading a contract with a customer before signing it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/creditcards/10231556/Man-who-created-own-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-sticking-to-terms.html:

When Dmitry Argarkov was sent a letter offering him a credit card, he found the rates not to his liking.

But he didn't throw the contract away or shred it. Instead, the 42-year-old from Voronezh, Russia, scanned it into his computer, altered the terms and sent it back to Tinkoff Credit Systems.

[...]

Tinkoff apparently failed to read the amendments, signed the contract and sent Mr Argakov a credit card.