Credit Cards Write them off!

Unenforceable Credit Card Agreements? Truth or Scam?

Whether it’s to spread the cost of an expensive purchase over several months, treat ourselves or to gain points towards a reward item, UK consumers are using credit cards more than ever – and owing close to £180 billion as a result. The balance has historically been heavily weighted in favour of the lenders who have been allowed to increase interest rates at will, charge any amount of fees they choose and increase credit limits without having us sign new agreements. A recent report by the Citizens Advice Bureau ‘Daylight Robbery’ looks at the extent of the problem of ‘extortionate credit’ and has as one of its conclusions:-

“This report argues that the existing legislation on extortionate credit is neither effective nor accessible to consumers. The current ‘test’ that determines whether a credit agreement is extortionate is heavily weighted in favour of lenders. Moreover, the test can only be invoked if a borrower is prepared to risk heavy legal costs in taking the initiative and making an application to the court.” This is no longer the case! You don’t have to risk heavy legal costs in taking the initiative. Its no-win-no-fee! And you certainly won’t have to go to court. Most lenders do not go to court and even if they do your solicitor will attend for you. If your credit card was taken out before 7Th April 2007 it is regulated by the Consumer Credit Act of 1974. This law requires ‘proper execution’ of the finance agreement you signed. It is not properly executed if it does not contain all the prescribed terms and conform to the regulations made under section 60 (1) of the act. It is in breach of the act. There is a long list of prescribed terms and regulations which credit finance agreement must adhere to – see below. Crucially you must have signed a document containing ALL the prescribed terms as described in the 1974 Act. If not your finance agreement is not enforceable without an order of the court and section 127 (3) requires the court to dismiss the application for the enforcement order. It may be considered ‘irredeemably unenforceable’. The Act was so complex and difficult that many lenders were caught out by its detail or simply chose to ignore the requirements of the law.

The Process

1.You need the account number of the cards you are claiming for. If doesn’t matter if you don’t have the agreement as your claims manager will request this from your lender.

2. Sign a request called a Section 77/78 which gives authority for your claims manager to request the information your lender holds on the account together with your original credit finance agreement.

3. Write a cheque for £10 payable to your lender so that your claims manager can request your credit finance agreement and account file.

4. NOW YOU WAIT! Your lender, under the Data Protection Act has 16 days to comply then is given a seven day warning – then another 28 day warning. In total 51 days! So be patient. At this point some lenders employ ‘dirty tricks’ in an attempt to delay matters. It is important to keep a record of the time scales involved and it may be quicker if YOU also request a copy of the agreement you signed. Keep checking with your claims manager to see if the information they need from your lender has been supplied.

5. When the lender sends back your account details claims manager will then be in a position to ‘audit’ the agreement. Some claims managers use ‘in house’ solicitors belonging to the company; some use a ‘panel’ solicitor who works for several claims companies and some use ‘auditors’ trained in assessing finance agreements. The audit of a credit finance agreement is straightforward. It is checked against a list of prescribed terms and regulations and scores as a ‘breach’ or ‘compliance’. You must have signed an agreement showing for example;-the annual simple and compound interest rates for purchases, balance transfers and cash advances together with the APR. It is not acceptable for these to have been supplied in a separate document. Your audit should show exactly why your agreement is non compliant.

6. If your agreement is unenforceable it will be allocated to a solicitor who will be responsible for your case. If you wish to keep a clean credit history it is best to continue making payments as although the agreement is unenforceable and therefore you cannot be required to make anymore payments, lenders put default marks on your file anyway. Some claims management companies claim to have any adverse credit marks removed and some do not. This is a grey area at the moment and it is important to discuss it with your solicitor first. If you want to keep your credit file clean keep on making your monthly repayments. Although you will possibly not get these back.

7. You sign a ‘conditional fee agreement’ with the solicitor who lodges a breach of the 1974 consumer credit act with your lender and prepares the case for court. You will not pay any costs than the intial fees.

8. It is unlikely that the lender will go to court. You may be made offers of ‘substantial reductions’ such as 60% off your balance. You must inform your solicitor of any correspondence with the lender and take advice. If you do accept an offer without consulting your solicitor and taking his or her advice you will become eligible to pay your solicitors fees. This is because the solicitors’ costs are funded by claiming against your credit card lender. If you receive an offer of a reduction in the balance rest assured it is a matter of time until the lender writes of your debt!

Unfair Credit Finance Agreements

If you have borrowed money in the past through a credit card, or consolidation loan, you may be eligible for receiving a refund. If it is found that you have been charged money unlawfully because the lender has not complied with the credit act of 1974 you are entitled to the refund of your money. Of course this is not going to be done on a voluntary basis; you must apply for this action. If a debt is found to be unenforceble it can be reduced or completely discharged.

Unfair and Unenforceable Loan Agreements.

For many the current state of the economy is causing sleepless nights with endless amounts of worry as countless numbers of people struggle with the huge amounts of credit card debt. Often incurring thousand of pounds in interest and late fees as many people have trouble just keeping up with the minimum monthly payment. While this may seem like a hopeless situation there is way for you to legally wipe out your credit card debt easily.

Just six months ago Jo Townsend was in a similar kind of situation his business had gone under as a result of the tough economic conditions and he was burdened with mountains of credit card debt that he simply could not afford. After having many sleepless nights he found a way to legally wipe out all of his credit card debt.

It does not involve debt management, IVA or bankruptcy. Instead, you can legally use the 1974 Consumer Credit Act as a tool to help you wipe out all of your unwanted credit card debt. According to the act it states that certain terms and conditions must be written on the credit card agreement that you sign. If any of these terms and conditions are not on the agreement it is in violation of the act and the debt is simply unenforceable. In most cases the balances can be written off and you seek compensation from the credit card companies for violating the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. To qualify for this program means that you must have been approved for your credit card before April 2007. The way it works is a solicitor will evaluate your case on no win no fee contingency basis. This means that if they don’t wipe out your credit card debt then there is no fee. The solicitor will ask your lender for a copy of the terms and conditions of your credit card agreement. Many of the agreements are determined to be unenforceable. Your solicitor will handle everything from contacting the lender to helping you get the entire balance wiped out without any hidden fees and you could be entitled to compensation as well.

Put an end to the sleepless night and endless hours of worry for good. That way you can start living a debt free, enjoyable lifestyle.

What are you waiting for; you have this one opportunity to wipe out your credit card debt for good. Don’t let it pass you by!

Unenforceable Credit Agreements? How do you Know If you Have Them?

Some very important straightforward information about unenforceable credit agreements. If you have any unenforceable credit agreements you could reclaim thousand of pounds!

1. There is a good chance that some of your loans or credit cards are unenforceable credit agreements and so cannot be enforced by your lender. Even your mortgage agreement could be unenforceable
2. More and more people every day are finding they have debts they don’t don’t have to pay back, as more and more unenforceable credit agreement claims prove to be successful
3. There is a right way and a wrong way to approach your lenders in order to establish if you have unenforceable credit agreements
4. Many new claims management companies have started up in business offering to approach the lenders on behalf of people just like you. They do two things: establish if you have unenforceable credit agreements; take care of all the complex paperwork if you do have a case to make a claim
5. However, some of these claims management companies deliver a better level of service than others – the industry is so new that the most reputable companies have not been identified yet – issues such as speed of service, responsiveness, cost and most importantly, success rate will determine the best companies to appoint as your agent
6. You have the power to choose which company you use, but it can be very confusing as there are so many of them.
7. Unenforceable agreement Comparison sites offer you FREE, unbiased information to guide you – suggestions as to what to look for and which questions you should ask your credit claims management company.

What Can YOU Claim For As Potential Unenforceable Agreements?

The type of lending that could be unenforceable credit agreements and are open to what might be called “Financial Claims Compensation” is shown below.
Credit Cards
Car Finance Loans
Secured and unsecured loans
Store Cards
Payment Protection Insurance (PPI)
Mortgages

It should be pointed out that this is NOT the same as any of the following: debt management, an IVA or bankruptcy. Your credit finance agreements are audited to see if they comply with the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. There are a number of reasons why they might not comply and therefore qualify as unenforceable credit agreements. It is a little bit like the idea of mis-sold endowments, which hit the headlines a few years ago, but there is more to it than just mis-selling. Your credit cards and loans could be completely written off!

Financial Agreement Claims – Help for Families During the Credit Crunch.

Are you feeling the pinch during the credit crunch? Help may be at hand in the form of a new finance claim. This new and fast growing financial claims allows customers to audit any finance agreement taken out since April 2007 to assess whether it has issues which could make it unenforceable. All agreement must follow the rules laid down in the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. Many agreements fail to do this. This means you may be able to wipe out your credit card and loan balances. It doesn’t matter if you are in arrears or following a debt management plan or IVA. You can still claim.

The types of agreements which are potentially unenforceable are;-

* credit card agreements
* store card agreements
* car finance agreements
* hire purchase agreements
* unsecured loans
* consolidation loans

You need to find a reputable financial claims management company to act on your behalf. How do you find one from the ever increasing number? And what do you look for?

Up front fees

This is a sore point for some people who wonder why ‘upfront fees’ are charged at all. The vast majority of financial claims managers charge fees in order to carry out a full and detailed audit. These range from around £195 to £495. Basically this is to look at your agreement in detail and assess it for breaches. There is a great deal of work involved. The process takes up to a year at the moment. The rational behind this is that the companies need some form of liquidity as every business does. The fees are refunded if your agreement is found not to be unenforceable. Some companies take a small administration fee.

Call 0845 475 5435 for a FREE audit with NO back end fees at all!

Auditing – Don’t be mislead

Your agreement must be obtained from your lender before you have a definitive answer as to whether you have an unenforceable contract or not and this will cost you £10 usually. Some companies offer this free and some request £1.00 which is the minimum fee stipulated under the data protection act. It is only after a full audit that you will know if you have a claim or not. Some companies mislead clients by saying they offer a free audit when in reality they ask the same preliminary telephone questions that all companies ask to establish if it is worth considering a full audit or not. For example was the agreement taken out prior to April 2007? What is the balance? Different companies claim for different balance amounts. Who is the lender? Some have more of a reputation for writing unenforceable agreements than others. This is not a full audit. As far as I know there is no company out there yet which offers a solicitors audit – free.

Successful Claims

The majority of companies have been in business for over a year now. Some will be ‘introducers’ for other main companies. They should be able to tell you how many successful claims they have achieved and the length of time it took to achieve the results.

Back end fees

Some companies charge fees at the completion stage of your claim. Be sure to ask if this is the case for you. Some charge 30% while some charge a fix amount of £1000. Most companies don’t charge any fees.

Other fee structures

I have come across some peculiar fee structure whereby some companies offer to handle your claim for you paying them six months credit card repayments. Others offer to take over your debt for you and leave you debt free in six weeks. I would not take these seriously. There are plenty of straightforward ways to clear your cards for a reasonable fee, no misleading promises of a free audit and certainly no back end fees.

Time scales

The process is a long one relying on the co-operation of your lender which of course is not likely to be forthcoming. The legal to and fro-ing will take up to a year. There is no way to avoid this so claims of speedy conclusions, at the moment, are false. The lenders use all sorts of tactics to delay matter for example refusing to send the copy of the agreement to your claims manager but only dealing with you and completely ignoring the requests made by your solicitor.

Unfair Finance Agreements. Can you have them written off?

Do you have credit card and loan debt? Is it causing you problems? You have probably heard about the way some people are challenging the validity of their credit finance agreements; taking their lenders to court and having their unfair agreements loans and credit cards written off. You may be thinking it is a scam! But it is most definitely not.

There is a NEW financial claim which is set to sweep across the UK! It has been discovered that many finance and credit agreements signed before April 2007 have been written in such a way that they breach the terms of the 1974 Consumer Credit Act and this makes them unfair and unenforceable agreements. Although it is a new type of claims industry there are more and more successes every day. It is possible to have any agreement you have ‘audited’ by a solicitor to check the contract to see if it complies with the 1974 Act or whether it is, in fact an unfair agreement. If is does not you can apply to your lender to have the whole balance cleared I have done it and I know it works! So how is it possible?

Do you have any credit cards, store cards, car finance, hire purchase, personal loans, a mortgage and any type of payment protection insurance, (PPI) taken out before April 2007? Under the terms and conditions of the Consumer Credit Act of 1974 in order for the agreements to be valid they must contain certain pieces of information to do with interest rates for example and any calculations of APRs must be accurate. If this is not the case they do not comply with the act, the agreement is in breach of the act and is therefore unfair and unenforceable. It is thought that the majority of agreements taken out before April 2007 will be found to be unenforceable. Why not have your agreements looked at. The process is straightforward. A legal expert will, with your written permission request a copy of your credit agreement from your lender and then audit it carefully to check if it complies. If not and it is deemed an unfair agreement, they will write to your lender and state your claim to wipe out the balance. Very few lenders choose to go to court and your solicitor will handle everything for you saving you the stress of having to deal with the lender yourself. You will receive all the balance and any compensation with NO back end fees to pay.

It is not debt management, IVA or Bankruptcy but a perfectly legal process whereby you are able to challenge the validity of the agreement you made with your lenders. It is a straightforward process taking about nine months. Then you could be debt free and able to get on with your life without the worry of debt.

Five ways the banks fleece us

From The Sunday Times January 20, 2008

Customers face higher current account fees as banks prepare to unveil bumper profits. Britain’s high-street banks have sneakily raised the cost of their current accounts this year, despite a High Court showdown with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), in an effort to squeeze more profits from customers.

The news comes as banks are expected to announce bumper results in the coming weeks. The “Big Five” – Barclays, Halifax Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest – will report staggering profits of £39.05 billion for 2007, up from £37.5 billion the previous year, according to Brewin Dolphin, a stockbroker. In a time of global market turmoil this demonstrates how much the banks milk customers.

As the banks defended their overdraft charges in a High Court action brought by the OFT last week, new research revealed that they were already clawing back the potential costs of any clampdown on their fees.

Nationwide, HSBC, Smile and Intelligent Finance have all quietly introduced current-account charges that will net them an estimated £173m in extra revenue over the next 12 months, according to research by Moneysupermarket, a comparison site.

Smile, the internet bank, has caused outrage among customers by raising its authorised overdraft rate by 4 percentage points to 15.9%, while the rate if you are in credit has been chopped by a quarter point to 2.75 per cent. The cost of unauthorised borrowing has fallen 9 percentage points but the unauthorised overdraft fee has increased from £15 to £20.

Meanwhile, HSBC subsidiary HFC was fined £1m for mis-selling loan protection insurance last week, in what has been branded an even bigger scandal than bank charges. We highlight the five worst rip-offs and show how you can get back at the banks.

Useless loan insurance

Loan insurance, which is supposed to cover your mortgage, credit card or loan repayments if you are unable to work, is one of the biggest money spinners for banks, yet many customers don’t even realise they have it – or know how much it is costing them.

Payment protection insurance (PPI) is routinely sold alongside mortgages by brokers and can add £72 a month to the cost of a £200,000 home loan – or £21,600 over a 25-year term – though analysts estimate nearly three-quarters of people won’t need it.

Institutions sell between 6.5m and 7.5m policies each year and rake in an estimated £5.1 billion annually in premiums, according to the OFT – more than from current-account, mortgage and credit-card fees put together. In the worst cases, self-employed workers and housewives were sold the policies even though you must generally be in full-time employment to be able to claim.

The good news is that millions of people who have been mis-sold policies can claim a refund. There are about 20m PPI policies in Britain, and if 70 per cent have been mis-sold, as analysts believe, 14m could be in line for a refund, averaging £1,500. This means a potential bill for providers of £21 billion.

Mike Naylor at Uswitch, a comparison site, said: “This is potentially a massive scandal and you should fight for a refund.”

Current account charges

Banks make about £3.5 billion a year by charging us up to £39 when we exceed authorised overdraft limits – even by just a few pence. The OFT believes the fees should cover only the admin costs – roughly £4 – and is taking eight firms to court over the issue.

But there are already signs the banks will not take the challenge lying down, so prepare for an increase in the cost of your current account.

Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, for example, hiked authorised overdraft rates 3.31 percentage points to 12.95% earlier this month, though their rates if you are in credit went down by a quarter point. Kevin Mountford at Moneysupermarket said: “These recent changes highlight just how easy it is for banks to recover their costs.”

Sky-high mortgage fees

A homebuyer purchasing the typical detached property in the southeast, worth about £500,000, according to Halifax, could now pay £17,500 just to arrange a mortgage as lenders hike their charges to offset the credit crunch. This figure is based on Northern Rock’s two-year fix at 5.59 per cent with a 3.5 per cent fee. Nearly one in ten lenders now offers uncapped fees in a bid to boost profits. Two years ago, borrowers paid an average of £450 to set up a mortgage. Today, the average is about £1,000, netting lenders an extra £1.1 billion a year in revenue, according to research from L&C Mortgages.

Opaque savings accounts

Savings accounts have never been more confusing, according to analysts, with banks luring customers with attractive headline rates, only to slash the interest if you don’t fulfill certain onerous conditions. The tactic costs savers an estimated £860m a year in lost interest according to Moneysupermarket research. A&L’s Esaver is an easy access account that promises to pay 6.5 per cent – but you could earn just 4.28 per cent in certain circumstances.

You earn no interest in any month you make a withdrawal (expect July) and the rate includes a 12-month bonus of 0.35 percentage points. You would earn just 4.28 per cent if you made five withdrawals a year, including one in July, according to adviser AWD Chase de Vere. If you had £25,000 in your account and withdrew £1,000 each time, you would earn £490 less over the year.

Credit card tricks

In 2006, the OFT ruled that card firms could charge customers no more than £12 if they were late making a payment, or if they exceeded their credit limit. However, card providers have simply increased a raft of other fees and hiked interest rates to recoup the lost revenue. Recent changes are thought to be netting them about £30m extra a year.

Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, now charges some customers if they fail to inform it they have moved house. Annual fees are also creeping back – Lloyds TSB is charging £35 a year if you don’t use their card often.

Moneyfacts found that 125 changes had been made to credit-card rates and fees between September and November last year, including higher charges for foreign usage and higher balance-transfer fees.

MBNA’s Reward American Express uses a common trick. It offers a 12-month interest-free period on balance transfers and you receive reward points every time you spend on the card. But purchases incur interest at 15.9 per cent after the first three months.