Hi All
Sorry to be a pain, I'm hoping for some guidance on the reply I received today from my CCC regarding my CCA.
My original letter requesting a copy of my CCA was sent recorded on 19th March.
This was followed by a second letter on 8th May as follows:
I refer to my letter dated 19th March 2009, which was delivered via Recorded Delivery to your offices on 20th March 2009, in which I made a formal request for a copy of the signed, executed credit agreement for the above account under Section 77(1) and Section 78(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 enclosing the required fee of £1.00 in the form of a Postal Order. In addition to this a full statement of my account should also have been sent to me detailing all debits and credits to the account, along with all other documents mentioned in the credit agreement.
You are reminded that you were obliged to supply these documents as defined under Section 189 of the CCA 1974 and have failed to do so or even acknowledge this request. The documents should be readily available as proof of your legal right to collect this account.
The Consumer Credit Act allowed 12 working days for this request to be carried out before your company entered into a default situation. If the request is then not satisfied after a further 30 calendar days, your company are deemed to be committing an offence. These time limits expired on the 2nd April 2009 and 2nd May 2009 respectively.
As you are no doubt aware, Section 78(6) states:
If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1) -
(a) He is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement; and
(b) If the default continues for one month he commits an offence.
Therefore on the 2nd May 2009 this account became unenforceable at law and no further payment will be made by myself to the account, as you have failed to comply with a request for a true signed copy of the said agreement, and other relevant documents mentioned in it, and also failed to send a full statement of the account, under the relevant sections of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Further, I do not acknowledge any debt to CCC.
I require the following action from CCC:
1. All payments made to date to CCC for this account should be refunded in full, including interest at the rate of 8% per annum.
2. Removal of all defaults entered by CCC. Note this is to be a complete deletion and not merely an amendment.
3. I look forward to compensation under Section 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to be offered for the processing of my data in the manner it has been done over the past number of years.
4. After a full refund of all payments with interest and compensation are received by myself, you will be required under Section 10 and Section 12 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to cease and desist all manual and automatic processing of my data within your company and any other company within your group.
If you do not respond positively to my request, court action will be taken under Section 14 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to force CCC or any other company within the group to comply with the refund of all monies paid, removal of all defaults maintained and compensation for damage and distress as a result of unlawful data processing. I may also pass the matter to the relevant enforcement authorities including, but not limited to, the OFT, the Information Commissioners Office, Trading Standards, the CSA, the FOS and my local MP.
Data Protection Act (Data Protection Act 199
Furthermore, under the Data Protection Act (D10), you are also denied the authority to pass on any of my personal data. To do so in the circumstances is I understand a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998, and also the OFT guidelines, and should you ignore my request it would again result in you being further reported to the relevant authorities.
I look forward to your reply within 14 days to resolve the matter amicably.
The third letter was sent on the 11th June as follows:
I refer to my letters dated 19th March and 15th May 2009 (copies enclosed), which were delivered via Recorded Delivery to your offices on 20th March and 16th May 2009 respectively.
My request under s77/78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for a copy of my properly executed Consumer Credit Agreement remains outstanding and I am yet to receive any kind of acknowledgement to the above mentioned letters!
The Act demands that I be supplied with a true copy of any properly executed credit agreement that exists in relation to the above account. I may ask for this on demand providing that a fee of £1.00 is paid. This fee was sent with my original letter 19Th March 2009. Upon receipt of the original request the specified account legally entered into a disputed status.
As you will know, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a judge is not permitted to make any enforcement order unless the creditor can provide a true signed copy of the original credit agreement. This means that unless you can produce such an agreement, this alleged debt is not enforceable in law.
You had until 31st March 2009 to provide me with the true copy I requested. After that date you entered into default of my request. Whilst the account is in dispute, you are not permitted to ask for any payment, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. Furthermore, whilst the dispute remains, you are not entitled to charge any interest on the account, nor make any further charges to the account. Additionally, you are not entitled to register any information on this account with any credit reference agencies (or any third party). Please be aware that you have now contravened all of the above requirements!
To register information with a credit reference agency, you must have written consent from the data subject to collate and share such information. This consent is given in the form of a signed credit agreement, so until you produce such an agreement, you may not do this.
The requirement for consent to share data is a clear requirement of the Data Protection Act 1998. Any such attempts to share my data without my consent will be met with a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office.
The time limits, which are laid down in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 are clear. You must supply an executed credit agreement within 12 working days of a proper CCA request. If you fail to comply with a legitimate request the account enters a default situation and if you fail to comply after a further 30 days you commit an offence. You entered into a default on 31st March 2009 and subsequently committed a criminal offence on 19th April2009.
Therefore you have 7 days from receiving this letter to contact me with your intentions to resolve this matter which is now a formal complaint, otherwise your conduct will be reported to the Office of Fair Trading, the Financial Ombudsman and Trading Standards. Any investigation undertaken by them may affect your ability to hold a consumer credit license in the future.
Take further note that continued telephone calls after the receipt of a request not to call may constitute a criminal offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
Communicate in writing and ONLY in writing, your telephone calls will NOT be answered.
To sum up, I will not be making any further payments to you until you provide me with the document I have requested. Should you not have any signed credit agreement in relation to this alleged debt, please confirm this in writing to me.
I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.
Today, 89 days after my initial letter I have received the following:
I write in response to your letter dated 15th May 2009 and firstly please allow me to apologise for the delay in responding.
According to our records we supplied a signed statement of account, copies of the terms and conditions in place at the time the account was opened and those currently in place. By providing you with these copies, we satisfied our obligation under section 78.
Although there is no requirement under section 78 to provide you with a copy of the original signed agreement, I now enclose a copy of this for your records. I can confirm the reverse of the agreement contained the prescribed terms required under the CCA and this can be proved by the documents we sent you previously. We will not be providing any other documentation, as we have fulfilled our obligation under section 78.
The regulations define what is required of a "copy". Whilst regulation 3 provides "every copy" of an executed agreement..."shall be a true copy". Regulation 3(2)(b) provides that a copy can omit any signature box, signature or date of signature.
I must remind you that failure to make payments under this agreement will result in collection activities and any default may also be reported to credit reference agencies. As the agreement is enforceable we will not be returning any payments to you.
I am also declining your request to remove any detrimental information held on your credit file in relation to this CCA. In signing the CCA, you did give your agreement and consent to the processing of your information. It is clear that by signing the agreement, the customer agrees to their data being used as set out. This is also in compliance with the data protection act. Unfortunately, as a credit file is a true reflection of the conduct of an account. i am unable to amend this information.
Also, the 30 day limit for a response which led to a criminal offence was repealed on the 26th May 2008.
We hope this clarifies our position on this matter.
The copy of the CCA is signed and dated by myself, though there is no signature or date in the "on behalf of" box - just the credit card number. There is neither a credit limit or interest rate on the agreement.
Do I have any leg to stand on here? Any advice would be appreciated.
Regards.