David Brown v Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services (1st Defendant) and Trading Post Appliances Ltd (2nd Defendant)

28/08/08 Slough County Court

Claim:

David Brown ordered a cooker hood extractor from Trading Post Appliances in February 2008 for £614.50 using his Nationwide Building Society Visa Credit Card. Because of repeated delays Mr Brown cancelled the order and asked for a refund. Trading Post appliances confirmed on the phone and by email that a full refund would be made. The refund was not made despite more phone calls and threats of legal action were ignored. Mr Brown reported the dispute to Nationwide and a dispute form was eventually sent to Mr Brown. This was returned immediately to Nationwide completed together with copies of the email evidence. Nationwide did not refund or suspend the disputed transaction and continued to charge interest on it (£17.40 in April 08 and £57.82 in May). Several phone calls were made to Nationwide but each time Mr Brown called Nationwide the person he spoke to either refused, or were unable to help him or put him through to anybody that could help. Assurances that somebody would ring him back were probably just ploys to get rid of him even though Mr Brown informed members of Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services staff that if nobody rang him back he would have no alternative than to start legal action.

Mr Brown started legal action against both defendants and the day Trading Post Appliances Ltd received the claim form they immediately refunded the £614.50 but did not paid the legal costs or interest. They also defended the claim with the defence that they had paid the claim even though that defence can only be made if the payment was made before the claim was issued.

Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services also disputed the claim.

Nationwide stated in their defence that they had no evidence to substantiate Mr Brown's claim, even though each time Mr Brown spoke to Nationwide staff they each confirmed that they knew about the dispute. They also denied that they were jointly liable with Trading Post Appliances and further stated that they wanted to rely on an indemnity provided to them by Trading Post Appliances to add to their defence. They further denied that they ignored phone calls and said told the court that they wanted Mr Brown to prove that the phone calls were made and to provide evidence that the phone calls were made, the dates of the calls, the names of everybody he spoke to and copies of his phone bills. They also denied that they were liable for any money, which included court costs and the interest they kept charging Mr Brown. They ended their defence stating that they believed the facts of their defence were true.

Unfortunately for Nationwide Building Society Mr Brown had kept records of all the phone calls he made after the first calls were ignored. Mr Brown was able to provide dates, times, and the names of the people he spoke to even though Nationwide telephone staff often refused to identify themselves when first asked.

After Nationwide BS Credit Card Services were provided with the proof they offered to pay the balance of Mr Brown's claim of £143.97 in full. Mr Brown refused saying that because of all the lies and other reasons he wanted to go to trial. Trading Post Appliances Ltd did not reply to any further court papers and even failed to attend court on the day of the hearing.

Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services legal department said they were "not aware of any lies" in their defence and said Mr Brown's "interpretation of events may well be different to the facts" and added that when Mr Brown made calls they were "probably busy". They then suggested that they didn't want to go to court and offered to resolve the matter. Mr Brown stated that if they admitted that his version of events was true, paid his outstanding claim in full, and apologised, he would be satisfied.

Shortly before the hearing date Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services offered Mr Brown more than £750.00 to avoid going to court but without admitting any liability. Mr Brown refused.

On the day of the hearing Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services sent a solicitor to represent them instead of turning up themselves. The solicitor said he hadn't been fully briefed so the interest that Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services charged was ordered to be removed from Mr Brown's statements. It was also decided that an order for the legal fees be made against Trading Post Appliances Ltd who had to pay Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services. Mr Brown didn't receive as much as he could have but he did succeed in getting court orders against two organisations that he thinks are crooks and their behaviour should be noted.

However that was after Nationwide BS Credit Card Services's solicitor tried to have the case turned against Mr Brown. Mr Brown is not a lawyer and didn't know that by Nationwide offering him more than the amount in his claim, if he refused, Nationwide could try to use the letter of the law to ask the judge for their months of legal fees and costs against Mr Brown. Mr Brown was terrified by what he considered an obvious trick, and saw it as the "bullying" he had earlier predicted would happen. Luckily for Mr Brown the case was tried in The Small Claims Court and the friendly judge pointed out to the solicitor that his claim could only succeed if Mr Brown had behaved "unreasonably". He said that Mr Brown had not behaved unreasonably and the Nationwide claim was dismissed and the order was made.

Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services credited the interest they had charged but Mr Brown is fearful of the future. He said: "Having seen the well documented cases on the internet of how Nationwide Building Society Credit Card Services treats some of it's customers, and suspecting that they will not take kindly to this case being publicised, for anybody to quote, it wouldn't surprise me if I am contacted by their bullying legal team in the future, once this website is drawn to their attention."

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