Following a success reclaiming from a few High Street Banks I decided to set the ball rolling on an inaccurately defaulted credit card with Capital One Bank (Europe) Plc.

I requested copies of my credit card statement information as well as all other personal data that Capital One held on me by sending them a Subject Access Request (SAR) under the Data Protection Act 1998.

This came through quite quickly (within two weeks) considering the have a statutory 40 days to provide all personal data they held on me as a data subject. I sifted through the statements and worked out that they had levied (charged me) £820 in unlawful penalty charges which they stated were for Late Payment Fees and also Over Limit Fees. I knew full well they were purely a way for the Bank to profit from me as a consumer and this made me more determined to reclaim them back.

I started to prepare my arguments and research how to remove inaccurate data from my credit file and spent a considerable amount of time searching for information to support my case on a variety of internet forums. Following an initial preliminary request for a refund giving them 14 days to refund the charges and also remove the default from all the three main Credit Reference Agencies (CRA’s) Experian, Equifax and Callcredit, they refused to refund all of the charges and made an insulting offer of £328 which they said was a ‘gesture of good will’ (GOGW). They also declined to remove the default notice and stated it had been applied correctly.

However I was not giving in on this so I sent them a Letter Before Action (LBA) suggesting that they had a re-think about their offer. Their response to this was similar and was most definitely not to my satisfaction, therefore I filed a claim using Money Claim Online (MCOL) for a refund of charges, plus statutory interest in line with Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984. This allowed me to add interest at 8% to each of the charges from the date they were levied to my account. My case was transferred to my local County Court and not long after I was sent a letter from Capital One offering a full refund of all the charges, plus interest and my court fee. However they were still refusing to remove the default from my credit files and continued to claim it was added correctly. As they were using Debitas (their in house Debt Collection Agency), they contacted them to say the balance they had previously been trying to get me to pay was now cancelled and also stated they would be sending me a cheque for the remaining amount.

I wrote back to them and stated that the amount they had defaulted me was inaccurate due to it containing a large proportion of unlawful charges therefore they had placed incorrect information on my credit file. I also told them that I was not in a position to stop them from refunding money to the account, however that due to the fact my claim was in two parts and that they were intrinsically linked, any cheque I received would be returned to them due to the fact I was not accepting this offer until the default was removed. True to my word, when the cheque arrived it was speedily sent back and I wrote to the court to inform them that an offer was made but it was declined.

It was then a waiting game until quite near to the court date for the hearing, when a letter arrived on my door mat from Capital One. When I opened it I was happy to see they had seen sense and they offered to remove the default notice from all of the CRA’s, as well as re-send the cheque to me which they had previously sent. However I was still not happy as they had forgot to add the daily rate of interest which had been accruing from the date I filed my claim up until the date they had settled. Therefore I wrote them another letter requesting this as well as the £1 fee I had sent them for a Copy of my original Credit Agreement (which they could not supply either). They agreed to do this, and when the cheques had all arrived and had all cleared in my bank account and after I had requested copies of my credit files from all the CRA’s to check the default had been removed, I then wrote to the court to cancel my claim.

If you believe you may have been charged penalties or had an incorrect default filed on your credit records, then why not join our community forum, where you can discuss your own claim and gain the support and assistance of others who have already successfully been through the process.

Registration and assistance in our community forum is completely free, there are no subscriptions, or any need to make donations from your refund.

If you would like free help in reclaiming your PPI, you can visit our community registration page here