Within a month of joining this board, the council had taken the debt back and rmani was allowed to continue her payments directly to the council. This was a result straight away as rmani was now free from bailiffs and out of the "viscous circle" as she quite rightly described it. Anything else was a bonus she said, which although it was the right attitude to have, this woman had been seriously shafted by these scumbags to the tune of over a grand.
Anyone who reads my posts will know that I'm no lover of councils & I don't trust them. That said, it became apparent that the recovery manager involved in this case was a decent woman, given the complexity of the case and the fact that I felt I could trust the recovery manager, I agreed to accompany rmani to a meeting at the council offices. This was at the end of May and it was then that we finally got a breakdown of fees from Rossendales. They had charged 9 x 1st visit fees (when it should have been 1) and then on a separate occasion, 9 x levy fees & 9 x WP fees. They agreed to refund 8 of these fees, which meant a refund of £412, leaving 1 legitimate levy & WP fee in place. Then the scumbags replaced the 8 credited fees with 8 x 2nd visit fees, bringing the refund down to £268. In addition, there was a single head H fee and a random £8.04 fee credited, making a total of £300.04 owed to rmani.
A single complaint to the LGO at this point would have guaranteed a minimum of 8 x 1st visit fees & 8 x 2nd visit fees also refunded (total £340) In addition there would have been the card transaction charges to be refunded. This would have been guaranteed without having to do anything more. In addition there were subsequent levy & van fees that were very debatable. The whole action from Rossendales over the 6 year period had been to stick 2 fingers up to the law and the council and just aim for maximum proit-The same goods were levied upon although they were already part of another levy, one levy saw a micro wave & a toaster levied upon for a £800+ debt. A "dining table" was levied upon which was actually a wooden chopping board on wheels. The whole thing was criminal.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, rmani stopped communicating with me. I don't know if this was because she had just got fed up with the fight or because she had been contacted by agents of Rossendales. What is certain is that she was owed £100's more in refunds. I believe that Rossendales paid her off with a sweetener of less than £200, meaning she was refunded just under £500 in total. Still a nice amount but less than half what was really owed to her. Rossendales final response is absolutely hilarious-I cannot post it as it is not addressed to me but an example of their stupidity (or perhaps arrogance) is their claim that they can charge a van fee in 2009 for an account that had a WP arrangement set up in 2010 (this means they collected on a default 12 months before the agreement was signed or any payments had begun). Their reason for this is because they had held the account since 2008.
The LGO would have had a field day with this drivel.To summarise, we got the bailiffs off the case very quickly which helped rmani and we also got her almost £500 refunded. It feels like a shallow victory because rmani only got back about half of what she should have. The original thread:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1576
