Credit card borrower tortured by lender, says judge

Credit card borrower tortured by lender, says judge

www.bbc.co.uk

The MBNA bank has been accused by a High Court judge of "torturing" a customer with repeated phone calls demanding he repay his credit card.

Keith Harrison had his debt of £20,270 written off by the judge, Nicholas Chambers QC, at Mold in North Wales.

The judge said MBNA had failed to give Mr Harrison the terms and conditions for the card, when he took it out.

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IMO this could be a landmark case and hopefully many others will come to learn of this and avoid these tactics that the credit card (and the like) companies use in order to ensure a re-payment.

I like the way that the judge has looked at this case.. with MBNA using untraceable phone numbers to menace people into paying any debts, this is a case of "do as we say...or else''

The judge was scathing about the non-traceable phone calls which both MBNA and Link Financial - who bought the debt in 2008 - had used to try to recover the debt.

"It seems to me that such conduct has no proper function in the recovery of consumer debt," Mr Justice Chambers said.

This next bit is important for both sides too;

In court he argued that, contrary to the explicit requirements of the Consumer Credit Regulations 1983, the bank had failed to send him the necessary terms and conditions for his card, either when he applied for the card or when it was issued to him by post.

MBNA said it would have done so. But the bank could not prove to the court that this had occurred.

So many of us may not have to pay back debts if said documents were not issued to begin with.. seemingly a law that nobody knows much about.. except for Mr. Harrison that is

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Extralien


One win for the civilian.

Good for us.


Sad but so many other would have paid the debt.

I am still fighting the IRS regarding things which I legally claimed and I have the reciets for.

I sent them back and forth to the irs and have issued them a final response that I will be willing to take them to court over non payment.

hell, if he owed me 20 big ones i'd also be knocking on his door,
showing up on pay day, asking his wife why he screwed me,
wasting time and money on legal action etc.....etc........
really, at what point is the guy responsible for the debt he accumulates??

idiots burying themselves in debt is a huge part of every ones economic woes.

but generally, yes, this whole mess is so rediculous that nobody understands the fine print.
that is the idea.

Originally posted by rubbertramp
hell, if he owed me 20 big ones i'd also be knocking on his door,
showing up on pay day, asking his wife why he screwed me,
wasting time and money on legal action etc.....etc........
really, at what point is the guy responsible for the debt he accumulates??

idiots burying themselves in debt is a huge part of every ones economic woes.

but generally, yes, this whole mess is so rediculous that nobody understands the fine print.
that is the idea.

edit on 3-3-2011 by rubbertramp because: (no reason given)

Really think about this....I know that I had a secured Military Star credit card (used only at the base exchange or shoppette gas station) that had a $2000 limit, and through losing a job and moving across the country it got lost. Never was I traced to be notified until 5 years later when they said through compounding interest and late penalties that I owed close to $10,000 and now have my federal taxes taken every year to repay the debt. But the amount that I get in taxes of $1200 goes towards the $1400 in annual interest and late penalties. Tell me how now that I could only get a minimum wage job (that barely pays my rent and utilities) due to the job market, I'm supposed to pay that off? Most would say "well you shouldn't have racked up the $2000 limit". Well I did not, I had maybe $300 on it, but again the late penalties are what pushed it up along with the interest. When I called them on this, I was told that even if I made regular payments of $100 a month, they would still take my taxes as it is in collections status and I would continue to to gain late penalties and interest on a closed account.
So even while trying to correct the problem, I'll be penalized...how is this fair?

reply to post by Extralien


Interesting but i think a very rare thing, i know every time i have gotten any card the terms and conditions had to be signed and returned. Maybe the guy just got lucky, but definitely worth everyone investigating.

reply to post by FleetAdmiral


i'm not trying to say it's fair.
but, if you sat down with someone fluent in legaleze[lawyer] and paid attention/understood all the fine print,
would you of paid more attention regarding the usage of your card?

just because credit card bank says he owed 20000 pound does not mean thats what he owed. an ex girlfriend took out a card in my name with a 500 dollar limit on it . i found out and reported it as identity theft and got card killed but not before she maxed it out at 500 dollars. she took card out in 1996 i recently got a letter from a collection agency for 12000 dollars. since i don't use credit at all contacted them to find out what the hell they were going on about they reminded me i took out said card in 1996 and with interestes and penatalties it haD REACHED THAT AMOUNT. i informed them it was a case of id theft and that since it was last used in 96 and it was currently 2010 they could get bent and they better not file it on my credit report being it was way past statute of limitations 10 year limit. so he probably charged a grand or 2 and rest is interest and bs charges.

Whether all the 20k is actually money he borrowed or is mostly just interest is he not responsible to pay back what he has borrowed either way?

Sure i see the sickening behaviour that the MBNA and the other firm is responsible for but in this case i say that both parties are being selfish.
If most of the 20K is just interest then the judge should have had him pay back the actual money he borrowed and dump any interest that is on it and then punish the credit card companies for not making sure that he had read and agreed to the T & C of the card before issuing it!

Yeah, this is no secret really.
The first thing your supposed to do when you get into that kind of situation is ask the bank for a copy of the original contract, in the hope that they will have lost or misplaced it or not filled it in properly.
Most judges however will not side with the consumer even if the contract isn't 100% as they tend to go with the "spirit" of the law i.e. you knew damn well you were borrowing money and had to pay it back, rather then the letter of the law i.e. the contract has some missing words so it's invalid.

In my opinion trying to use a legal technicality to weasel out of a loan that the bank gave you in good faith isn't good form at all

As for the phone calls things, when I was in problems with my bank I told them that their constant calls constituted harassment and that I wanted all communications to be written from now on and I never got another call from them again