basa48:

....................... you may have to take them to court to have the account declared unenforceable and have the court demand removal of the markers, ..................

I know I posted the above, but I have been reviewing my notes for a possible action against a catalogue (and reading Rankine!!).

How DOES a debtor get an agreement declared unenforceable??

CCA 1974 127 Enforcement orders in case of infringement and 142 Power to declare rights of parties do not seem to fit!!

No one is seeking an enforcement order. Which legislation does a debtor use???

To be a compliant and executed credit agreement there MUST be all the prescribed terms on the same sheet of paper that bears your signature (even if it is on the reverse side). The prescribed terms are given in Consumer Credit (Agreements) Regulation 1983. Basically it should contain the credit limit or amount of credit, the interest rate for the credit and timing and amount of repayments.

The CCC will always tell you they have complied with s.78. That is not really the argument here. Your dispute is that the creditor doesn't have a signed and executed credit agreement for the account. From what you have described, that appears to be your case.

Ignore the delay in providing the 'agreement', that is a red herring. Yes they were probably in default at the time, but the non compliant agreement is the key.

IF yours is a non compliant agreement (and from what you've said, it is) a court cannot enforce it. This means the debt will always exist, but, the creditor cannot pursue you for repayment through the courts and more importantly cannot issue late payment or default markers to your credit file. Unfortunately they almost certainly WILL issue those markers and you may have to take them to court to have the account declared unenforceable and have the court demand removal of the markers, or let them take you to court and defend the case to the same effect.

It is also possible that you could demand not only damages for the unwarranted default marker but also all interest paid to the account (after all if the interest rate wasn't shown on your signed 'agreement' how can they possibly charge it?)!

Thanks ever hopeful, there's so much info on these forums it needs tons of time to pick out the bits that are relevant to you. I am amazed at the way these organisations get away with treating people. I had a similar thing with my MBNA where my original request was made 24th Feb. No response for a while and then after the account went into dispute the phone calls started coming and plenty of them! I had a long chat with one of them and stated my case and asked where my CCA was? They looked on the system and said they couldn't see any record of my request and had ony received one of my other letters, despite telling them I had proof of delivery for all of them? They then produced what looks like a CCA and it's signed so I sent a letter 2 weeks ago asking them for the amount I needed to pay bearing in mind whilst in dispute they could not add interest or default charges. Guess what? not a sausage out of them. It seems that the only thing they respond to is non-payment then they start contacting you!

How are these big organisations able to get away with consistently breaking the rules and face no action? If we make just a little error bit they come down on you like a ton of bricks. Our mistakes last for six years on their "cartel" information systems but when they mess up it's totally ignored.

As for the Marbles letter the links they refer to are as follows. justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease170209a.htm the other one is a dead link to the news page of the citizens advice. Just wondering if anyone has experience of using a claims company? I know and ex IFA whose going around saying he's an agent but the fees he's talking about are a bit steep. I've looked online and found a few but it's easy to have a good shop front window. So if anyone has any experience of this route I'd love to hear.

If you look at the Barclaycard thread, you will soon see that this seems to be the standard response from a lot of cccs, certainly it is my experience with Barclaycard, Marks&Spencer& Capitalone. It's like they've all banded together and said'Right guys, we'll do it like this and if we all say the same thing, they won't be able to do anything!'

Barclaycard just ignore all communications about accounts being in dispute and all that goes with it, they just keep trotting out 'we have fulfilled our obligations under section 77/ 78 of consumer credit act blah, blah. and sending copies of current terms and conditions.They pass accounts onto DCA, apply interest and charges and register adverse entries on your credit file.It's all very robotic.

Much wiser heads can better advise you if they have sent you a true copy and define it better, but my understanding is that they have not.There's a lot of debate on this site about it and I wouldn't want to mislead you, but logically if they can't produce your signature how can they prove what you signed up for?But I have read opposing views to this. There's also some good stuff on CAG try Barclaycard v Bradley thread, and a few others.

Interesting that they include warnings about claim management companies, now why would that be???

I've been reading this forum with great interest and in February this year I sent out my CCA requests to my credit cards, four in total. I've had mixed results but none of them complied within the prescribed period of 12 working days plus 30 more. Three out of the four have sent what they say is the true copies and I have various issues with all of them but not to confuse things now I have a request for specific advice/clarifaction on what Marbles have sent me.

I sent my CCA request to Marbles on 24th February. They acknowledged my request on the 12th March but I had already sent my second letter on 13th March giving them a further 30 days. I then sent a letter informing them that the account was in dispute and the usual things they can't do when an account is in dispute. I then stopped making payments in April. Despite lots of calls and letters from them no CCA was forthcoming until today. I received a letter which read as follows;

In response to your request for a true copy of your consumer credit agreement under section 78 of the consumer credit act 1974 (CCA).

I have enclosed with this letter a copy of your signed agreement, a copy of your current terms and conditions and a signed statement of your current account.

The copy of the agreement enclosed with this letter complies with the requirements of the consumer credit (cancellation notices and copies of documents ) regulations 1983 (the regulations). Regulations 3(2)(b) provides that a copy can omit any signature box, signature or date of signature. In summary we are not required to produce a copy with your signature on it. By providing a copy of the agreement complying with the requirements of the regulations the agreement remains enforceable.

It goes on to say that they have satisfied their obligation to provide a copy and the agreement is fully enforceable. It states further.

We will not be entering into any further correspondence with you regarding the requirements relating to the provision of copy agreements......

It then warns me of recent press items released by Ministry of Justice and Citizens Advice Bureau warning about using claim management companies.

What they appear to have sent me is a photo copy of my original application form which does have my signature on but this doesn't seem to be my credit agreement. It is titled as "Your priority application for a marbles card" and then underneath it states " Credit agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974". This has left me a littled confused as this is a one page document and there's nothing on there about terms and conditions like APR's credit limit etc. It has the following headings, "About You" which is just my address and memorable word, "Safeguard your payments", Someone else can share your account" and then the final section is all about "use of your information" which goes on about how they will use my details, data protection stuff. Then there's the signature box which has written in it "this is a credit agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974. Sign it only if you want to be legally bound by its terms". The only other documents they enclosed was a copy of the current T&C's and a statement of account.

Can anyone help me and confirm whether they have sent me a "true copy" of my credit agreement or not?

Also where do I stand regarding the account in dispute? They didn't comply within the time allowed and so I stoppped payments, if this is a true copy they have now sent me where do I stand on the interest and default charges applied during the "dispute" period?

Much appreciated