Brachers contacting me on behalf of Corporate Credit Card debt with Amex

leehardy83

Hi all. I am new to the forum so excuse me if I haven't manage to post this where I should.


I have been contacted by Brachers on behalf of AMEX. This relates to a corporate card debt. The letter is as Pre-action protocol saying I have 30 days ro respond.


The letter states that my liability arises under a written card-agreement entered between me and their client on 16/02/2016 and that a copy is available on request. I have never saw these AMEX amounts on my credit file before.


I think this is classed as a corporate charge card as i dont think there was a credit limit and I was expected to pay it back in full per month.



I dont recall getting credit checked at all which surprises me given my very poor credit history. You are supposed to pay it back in full each month I believe but my company did not keep a major track of this and the debt has now escalated to £5400. I no longer work for the company I had the corporate card with and it is cancelled.



I am trying to understand:

1. Am i solely or jointly liable?
2. What to ask for to prove that I am liable for the debt?
3. If they can default me without me having received any previous correspondence mentioning their intention to do this.

Ultimately, I would like to respond to the Pre Action Protocol in the right manner. Appreciate any advice at all on the matter.


Thank you all.

Ben8282

Avoiding for the moment the question of liability, could you please tell us
1. Does the £5400 actually correspond to the amount charged by yourself to your card?
2. Were you a director of the company or an employee?
3. Is the company still trading?
4. Who normally paid the bill for your card? You or the company directly?
5. If you, has the company reimbursed the expenses to you. If the company, could you speculate as to the reason for non payment?
6, Have you misused the card, for example used it for your personal spending?

leehardy83 wrote: »

You are supposed to pay it back in full each month I believe but my company did not keep a major track of this and the debt has now escalated to £5400.l.

Believe me Amex do keep track of these things and the card(s) would have been blocked for new spending very quickly if the company had not been paying in full and on time every month.[QUOTE=leehardy83;76463187[[*]If they can default me without me having received any previous correspondence mentioning their intention to do this.
[/QUOTE]
If this happened in Feb 2016 the account was defaulted long ago.

leehardy83 wrote: »

I think this is classed as a corporate charge card as i dont think there was a credit limit and I was expected to pay it back in full per month.

So are you saying here that YOU accept that YOU were supposed to pay it back in full every month? If so, then the obvious question is why didn't you?

born_again

leehardy83 wrote: »

This relates to a corporate card debt.
The letter states that my liability arises under a written card-agreement entered between me and their client on 16/02/2016 and that a copy is available on request. I have never saw these AMEX amounts on my credit file before.


Thank you all.

If it was a corporate card, then it would not show on your credit file...

You need to answer the above posters questions.

Terry_Towelling

born_again wrote: »

You need to answer the above posters questions.

This will be interesting...

Davy_Jones_II

Did you spend the money on the card? If so, what’s your reason for believing that you do not need to settle the bill?

oscarward

if its anything like the corporate AMEX card I had.


The company mandated that I had a card which I must use for business expenses. When I claimed the expense the company, if approved, paid AMEX direct. anything else i put on there I was liable for e.g. max food expense was £20 / night so if I spent £30 then I was on the hook for £10. Company paid AMEX £20 I paid £10 direct. It was a charge card so had to be settled in full each month.


As I had applied for the card I was personally reponsible for paying, but the company got the kick back from AMEX which is why it was mandated. Someone had to pay the CEOs millions!

Worked reasonably well as the expenses team were pretty responsive. The only annoyance was that if a single item on a claim was rejected then the whole claim was rejected which then became a scramble to get it approved before the statement was issued by AMEX. Any late payment penalty was my responsibility. I did end up in credit on the card a couple of times but it sorted itself out eventually.

leehardy83

Thanks for the reply Ben and all....


Does the £5400 actually correspond to the amount charged by yourself to your card? The balance seems higher than what I recall leaving it with but i understand there were a number of late payment charges and such like added to it. To summarise, I used to work for a major IT consultancy but had to quit the role when my mother became terminally ill and did not have my house in order with completing all my expenses before I left. I now work for a different company and im happy to settle the account as long as I know im liable and that I owe the full balance. I had wrote to them several months back to ask them to cancel the account and stop the card but didnt get a response and it looks like late payment charges continued to accrue.

2. Were you a director of the company or an employee? I was a permanent employee
3. Is the company still trading? Yes perm company are
4. Who normally paid the bill for your card? You or the company directly? I normally submitted my expenses each month to meet the amount AMEX requested.
5. If you, has the company reimbursed the expenses to you. If the company, could you speculate as to the reason for non payment? I submitted my expenses but believe a number of expenses must have not been approved before i left leaving a high balance on the card.
6, Have you misused the card, for example used it for your personal spending? There was personal spending on the card yes. This was something that people regularly did at our company but as long as the balance was cleared by the next month, AMEX didnt chase us


They have started chasing me in the past couple of months so there is no default yet.



I just want to know what documents I should ask for?
Am i solely liable ?
If i know those answers i will offer an arrangement with them before the pre-action protocol time lapses and it has to go to court.


Thank you again for your help

Ben8282

Your company provided you with a corporate charge card for which the company is obviously liable in the first instance. The company have allowed this card to go unpaid for several months which has most certainly both damaged their internal credit rating with Amex and resulted in the suspension, most probably cancellation in view of the time elapsed, of all the corporate cards as Amex would never tolerate the situation.
Your responses to the questions asked contain both irrelevant information and avoid directly answering the most important question 4.
Your situation has lost all credibility in my eyes therefore Im sorry but I cannot offer any further advice to you.

leehardy83

I thought I answered all of your questions and sorry if some of that is considered irrelevant information - having not used this site before - I was trying to provide some context.


Nonetheless, thanks for your assistance anyway.

Terry_Towelling

Hi, leehardy83.

I think what Ben8282 is driving at is the way the card debt was supposed to be paid. You have said that you were supposed to pay it in full every month. What this suggests is that you would submit an expenses claim to your ex-company and they would pay you the value of that expenses claim. You would then use that money from your company to pay the card off - using your own money to repay any personal spending that may have existed on the bill.

Is this correct, because it doesn't sound like the normal sort of arrangement for someone with a corporate card? It sounds more like a personal card that you used for work expenses. However, you also say that the company didn't keep a 'major track' of the card payments, so that suggests it was the company who would pay the card based on the amount in your expenses claim.

So, which is it?

You also need to speak with your ex-company to see exactly what happened to the expenses claim that you submitted before leaving. Did they pay its value to you, or did they pay its value off the card bill, or did they not approve the claim for some reason? Exactly how much of the last bill was your own personal spending?

As for liability for the total amount outstanding, I guess you need to understand what you signed up to with Amex and what you signed up to with your ex-company. Sadly, no one here knows this, so we can't really tell you how much you may be legally liable for, but the fact you are being chased directly suggests it may be your responsibility.

bris

This sounds like a personal card, companies do not allow personal spending on their cards.


Most companies work this way, you use a card they set up for you, give them the business receipts and they pay it.


Amex wouldn't be chasing the OP for a company debt, nor would the company not pay their own cards, they would have to chase the OP for the personal spending.


Looks like it's the personal spending that's not been paid. Head goes in the sand and before you know it late payments, fees and interest and its at 5k