I don’t like being threatened, and I don’t like threatening anyone. Unfortunately I have just been forced to do so. Before I show you the letter I have just written, let me tell you the whole story.
In March 2007 I bought a Mazda MX-5 on hire-purchase. The agreement was arranged by a broker and the finance was provided by Black Horse. I agreed to the terms of the contract they proposed, which was for 4 years with the option to return the car after paying a little more than 32 monthly payments. In December 2009, I chose to exercise this option: I paid the “little more” and the £75 collection fee. End of contract; end of it being my car; end of relationship with Black Horse. Or so I hoped.
In January 2010 I got a letter informing me that I was behind on my payments on the Mazda and that I should call them to explain how I was going to pay. I called them to establish that I did not need to pay, which they agreed. I was told that the letters were nothing to worry about, that they would stop once Black Horse had sold the car, that I should ignore that one and all those in the future, that there was no possibility that the same automated system would dispatch debt collectors or affect my credit rating.
In mid-February I received a similar letter and had a similar conversation. At this point I wrote to the OFT’s consumer credit licensing division, who regulate consumer credit in the UK, to ask whether it was appropriate for a supplier of consumer credit to act in this way. I copied Black Horse but received no reply from either.
In mid-March I received a third letter, had yet another fruitless conversation, and then wrote to Black Horse to request that they address this problem. I again received no reply to my letter. I also talked to the main OFT consumer line who passed my complaint on to Trading Standards; I have heard no more from either since then.
In the past week, I had the credit limit on one of my cards reduced dramatically. I got a letter from my card provider informing me that it was because a credit reference agency had informed them that I was in arrears on an agreement with another credit provider. It didn’t take long to put the two facts together.
I called Black Horse yet again today, again to be told that the error cannot be corrected because their system does not allow it. I pointed out to the call-centre operative that “our system can’t be corrected” is not a valid answer to a request to correct information under the data protection act and that it needed to be rectified promptly. I suggested that she should pass the request on to her manager if she could do nothing. After having a chat with him she returned to say that he can’t do anything either. At this point I asked her to record my demands in my record and ensure they got to someone who can fix the problem in their system. She didn’t fill me with confidence that this was likely to happen, and indeed when the deadline I had asked them to call me back by passed without a return call I that lack of confidence was borne out.
I was, and still am, very angry about all of this. I have complied with the contract I signed; I am disappointed that Black Horse has chosen not to uphold their side of the agreement. I am disappointed that I was lied to when I asked if the error in their systems might affect my credit rating. I am extremely disappointed that my attempts to engage with them on the telephone have been rebuffed and that my attempts to engage with them in writing have been ignored.
I have therefore sent them the following letter, as a last resort before taking to the legal system to get this rectified:
Philip Willoughby
15 April 2010
Black Horse Limited
25 Gresham Street
London
EC2V 7HNURGENT: ACTION REQUIRED TO AVOID LITIGATION
Hire Purchase Agreement Number: <agreement number redacted>
Dear Sir/Madam,
Over the previous 3 months I have contacted Black Horse (henceforth you, etc) on 6 occasions by telephone and on 2 occasions in writing to attempt to resolve the inaccuracy in your records which causes your automated systems to behave as though I am in arrears on a finance agreement. I consider that I have made every reasonable effort engage you in dialogue to rectify this error and that all of these efforts have been rebuffed or ignored.
This month your error has caused material damage to my life. Your automated system has propagated the inaccurate statement that I am in arrears to several credit reference agencies with the result that other suppliers of credit to me are reducing the amount I can borrow and/or increasing the interest rate on the money I can borrow.
Here is what you will do:
- You will correct the information in your systems to reflect that I am not now and have never been in arrears on a credit agreement with you.
- You will inform all of the credit reference agencies to whom you have propagated the inaccurate information that your previous communication was in error and that I am not now and have never been in arrears on a credit agreement with you. You will send copies of the correspondence you send to the credit reference agencies to me at this address.
- You will provide me with an affidavit confirming that as of the date it is drafted I am not and have never been in arrears on a credit agreement with you.
- You will pay my costs incurred while attempting to rectify this error in your systems, itemised as follows:
- Telephone calls: 76 minutes at 20p/minute = £15.20
- Postage costs: 41p + 41p + 41p + 74p = £1.97
- Time: 8 hours at £250/hour = £2000
- Total: £2017.17
- You will complete the above itemised requests before 18.00 on Tuesday 27 April 2010.
- You will call me on <telephone number redacted> between 18.00 and 19.00 on Tuesday 20 April 2010 to inform me that you accept the above terms.
If you comply with these requests, I will not file a claim in the county court requesting that the court order you perform items 1, 2 and 4 above. Please be aware that any such claim will include further costs incurred and interest charged at the official dealing rate of the Bank of England on 31 December 2009 + 8%.
You will pay for my time because you have known, since my first telephone call to you in 2010, that the information you hold on me is incorrect and that I must try to get you to resolve it. Your failure to resolve it in a timely manner is directly responsible for the time I have spent to date. The rate of £250 per hour is the market rate for my time: clients of my employer pay approximately £2000/day for my services or the services of those with equivalent skills and experience.
I am extremely disappointed that a well-known company such as yourselves feels that it is appropriate to deal with people in this way. It seems to me that maintaining inaccurate data for months after you have been made aware of the inaccuracy and agreed that it is inaccurate contravenes the data protection act. It also seems to me that notifying credit reference agencies that someone is in arrears when you know that to be false is defamatory.
Yours Truly,
Philip Willoughby
Ah, one of life’s little speedbumps – they’re so much fun. I was going to joke “Sue them for libel!”, but as it turns out… Still, charging £250/hour and then itemising stamps on top is quite amusing.
Pity that Trading Standards and the OFT were useless. Hopefully you’ll get this sorted out without any more fuss and bother.
Right idea in principle, obviously. However, I believe that there is a statutory rate of interest applicable to this kind of situation (and it’s a lot less than 25% per month) – you don’t get to make up your own. In my vicarious experience it’s also unlikely that a court would order reimbursement for your time, and certainly not at that rate. I guess you can ask for it, but to my reading it makes your demand somewhat less credible.
Good luck with it, in any case.
Pete
Good letter, just a couple of comments. Firstly, ISTR that statutory interest rates on disputed debts are 8% per annum, calculated daily and not compounded (assuming you’re claiming under Section 69 of the County Courts Act, if not you know more about the applicable law than I do!), e.g.
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1051.htm
25% per month compounded will either be struck out by the judge or taken as a sign you’re not serious. Also if it ever went to court the judge would expect you to justify your claim for £250/hour as based on something material at the time of claim, not some number you picked. So if you haven’t sent it yet, i’d rethink those (and certainly the interest rate)
Good luck!
Pete, Ben, thanks for your comments.
Neither the hourly rate or the 25% per-calendar-month-or-part-thereof were random numbers. I have updated the letter to show that £250/hour is a fair charge for my time. I had picked 25% per calendar month or part thereof as that is the best short-term rate generally available to those with poor credit histories, such as they have given me.
The statutory rate applies to debts between the point a CCJ is handed down and the point they are paid. I have revised the rate I am asking for down to the amount county courts typically deem reasonable in claims relating to commercial contracts where a rate was not specified in the original contract.
Phil, I know the statutory rate applies to CCJs, but it is also generally applied to the repayment of excessive fees by the banks so there’s precedent for it as a general-purpose rate. Some people have successfully claimed that it’s too low, as it’s uncompounded (i.e. based just on days-since-charge/365 * 8%) whereas the banks had the benefit of compounding – in theory damages are supposed to be restitutionary in this country. With a single registered default (especially disputed, which it should be – see below) you’d struggle to argue that Payday loans and their huge APRs are your only possible source of borrowing, so I think you’d still be best to pick the statutory rate.
Regarding the rate, there’s nothing wrong per se with what you picked, just if it does come before a judge then you may be required to justify it. Restitution again.
One other thought is that you should write to all three main credit agencies (Experian, Equifax and the other one) disputing the default – you may have done this already. The time taken should, of course, be added to your original claim. If you wanted to push it, then claiming for a subscription to one or more credit monitoring service would not be unreasonable so that you can check on the status of the default, although it’s possible that the statutory £2 report might be deemed more appropriate.
Good luck again, went through a similar hassle about a decade ago when coming off a Ford PCP…
Whoops, in the second paragraph “regarding the rate” -> “regarding the *hourly* rate”
It does annoy me something fierce when people use the excuse “our system can’t be corrected”. Just because a computer system exists, does not mean it is infallible, far from it. More over, it can not be used as justification for failure to correct information – yet it so often is.
The rank and file people available to speak to via the phone can only make corrections to the company records via the methods available in the interface they have had built for them. So it is not their fault per se, but the company is still required to have accurate data by law, particularly in these circumstances. So an engineering failure has occurred, unsuitable software. Maybe there should be some sort of minimum data amendment rules regarding handling of personal data on systems built, to ensure that companies are required to provide certain features in software systems.
I’m no fan of legislation, but this shoddy situation needs to be curtailed.
Hope it pans out for you.
“You will call me on between 18.00 and 19.00 on Tuesday 20 April 2010 to inform me that you accept the above terms.”
Do you _really_ expect them to call you back in a hugely sandboxed 1 hour timeslot?
Id like to add to this and please feel free if you can help to mail me on shambles2005 _AT_ aol.com
in 2001 i bought a car from a company via black horse and fell into difficulty after a disabling accident there insurance company refused to pay themself ut
i defaulted in 2004 and this information was recorded on credit expert
now 6 years later blackhorse have changed the default date and made credit expert change theres so im still on the default register
how is this legal?
You should be able to get that corrected under the provisions of the Data Protection Act: you have the right to ensure any data held on you is accurate. If you can send the credit-reference agencies copies of documents proving the date of default they should correct it. If you have the evidence but they do not correct their records, you can contact the Information Commissioner who has the legal power to require them to correct their records.
A second line of defense is to include an explanatory note on your credit file. All the credit-reference agencies allow a note to be attached and they are required to show it to anyone with access to the information on your file. Obviously it is better to correct the information.
Good for you!
Following repeated harassment of myself and my children with many phone calls per day, they have just taken £104 pounds out of my wife’s bank account without permission via old, superceded DD details.
I am also about to write to them.
I presume Gresham Street is the right address for all such correspondence?
Does anyone have a fax number for them?
Lawrence
I have yet to find any course of action which causes them to do anything useful in response, but good luck.