Creation Financial Services bashing

[Lady London]

@JerrySignfield i really think it’s a bad idea saying the card fee pays for benefits. I said why, in more than one post including yesterday. Your spend is what pays for these benefits and the card fee was an advance payment to have the card available for your use for 1 year (just like other feepaying cards in the market)^

[JDB]

@Blindman67 for what it’s worth, my comments re FOS/MCOL would apply to any financial services appeal, not just Creation. I have been through both processes many times and know how it goes. I do expect a ‘first’ quite soon on a specific case – an FOS oral hearing.

[JerrySignfield]

Lady London wrote:

@JerrySignfield i really think it’s a bad idea saying the card fee pays for benefits. I said why, in more than one post including yesterday. Your spend is what pays for these benefits and the card fee was an advance payment to have the card available for your use for 1 year (just like other feepaying cards in the market)^

Yes Good point

[toddy]

Some of you will remember that Creation told me that they would be upholding my complaint on the free night cert because i was told by an agent that I would receive it.

Their complaint response letter had no detail no ‘what happens next’, so I asked for some clarity I.e. when / how would I receive the cert? In the normal way? Etc

Creation have since emailed back saying that although they are upholding my complaint, they are still refusing to give me the certificate.

What an absolute farce.

[NorthernLass]

I’m starting to think Boris is penning their responses!

[Lady London]

toddy wrote:

Some of you will remember that Creation told me that they would be upholding my complaint on the free night cert because i was told by an agent that I would receive it.

Their complaint response letter had no detail no ‘what happens next’, so I asked for some clarity I.e. when / how would I receive the cert? In the normal way? Etc

Creation have since emailed back saying that although they are upholding my complaint, they are still refusing to give me the certificate.

What an absolute farce.

I was about to use the c**** word about Creation @toddy based on your experience. But I’m a lady.

Go after them for everything you can. Do it for England. (Jean de B. identified the nasty management at Creation that is driving these disproportionate and unfair actions against customers, yesterday, as French 🙂 )

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[toddy]

Oh I will. I’m taking a career break so will have plenty of time.

[JDB]

toddy wrote:

Oh I will. I’m taking a career break so will have plenty of time.

Your case on the estoppel is a far stronger one than your underlying complaint…

[toddy]

JDB wrote:

toddy wrote:

Oh I will. I’m taking a career break so will have plenty of time.

Your case on the estoppel is a far stronger one than your underlying complaint…

Can I make a complaint about the complaint? 🙂

[JDB]

toddy wrote:

Your case on the estoppel is a far stronger one than your underlying complaint…

Can I make a complaint about the complaint? 🙂

In principle, yes! I would make the complaint to the FOS, that the firm has failed to honour its complaint response confirming you would get the voucher which itself was based on an admitted representation that you would get the voucher. [Backup, in same submission = the original complaint, but as I recall your anniversary is post 3 Dec, so potentially quite weak.] That should be very quick and easy for the FOS to decide without much reading which might be quite appealing.

It may make sense however, first for completeness and to shortcut everything, to write to Creation in the form of a letter before claim, asking them to provide the voucher within 14 days failing which you will issue a claim in the County Court asking for summary judgment on the basis of the documents attached; put in one PDF with index/chronology on the front and paginate. State specifically in the text that the letter is a letter before claim, sent in accordance with the Civil Procedure Rules pre-action protocol Practice Direction and that you will rely upon the letter on any question of costs. There is a risk though! It would be remarkable if they even attempted to defend the case, but if they did and somehow got away with it, you would be at risk of costs.

[Lady London]

No costs awarded either way at MCOL unless anyone is being really out of order.

[toddy]

Cheers JDB.
Off to Tenerife for a few days of sunshine tomorrow, so I’ll do that when I return.

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

No costs awarded either way at MCOL unless anyone is being really out of order.

Yes, but this is not an MCOL claim, so usual cost rules will apply.

[Lady London]

JDB wrote:

Lady London wrote:

No costs awarded either way at MCOL unless anyone is being really out of order.

Yes, but this is not an MCOL claim, so usual cost rules will apply.

Why would anyone take it to a higher more expensive court with risk for costs if it can be done on Small Claims Track ie MCOL?

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

Why would anyone take it to a higher more expensive court with risk for costs if it can be done on Small Claims Track ie MCOL?

The County Court is not “a higher more expensive court” – that is where MCOL claims are heard. However, @Toddy’s claim is not a ‘money’ claim (the M of MCOL) – he is seeking enforcement of the firm’s representations, so not a money claim. I don’t think he will actually need to issue a claim.

In order to use MCOL, you need to specify an “exact” sum of money (or if you don’t know the exact sum, it needs to be on paper) which is one of the reasons why, for those seeking the voucher/points it is questionable whether you can use MCOL at all when it is really a loss of chance claim that the court would need to assess the value of. This, combined with not complying with the PAP (by not going to FOS first), makes the recommendation of some on here to go directly to MCOL questionable. It may work and may not risk costs, but you are trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

[JDB]

That was a dupe of yesterday’s!

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Lady London]

Interesting JDB but the simplicity and protection from costs are highly attractive – Small Claims Court where our MCOLs will generally land as under £10k value claim is definitely where I would start.

Cost-wise higher tracks are much more onerous and it’s harder for someone to represent themselves there.

I think all Creation claims are simple enough for the individual to put a logical value on thus making the usual MCOL route still fine. If the judge disagrees I’m sure he’ll say so.

[Jonathans]

So an interesting twist to the creation saga. Not transferring the missing points of November and December caused me not to renew my spire status and loss of the additional 20k points that brings plus the loss of the 20% reward email sent yesterday. Can I add that to my complaint as consequential loss?

[Rui N.]

25k 🙂

[memesweeper]

Jonathans wrote:

So an interesting twist to the creation saga. Not transferring the missing points of November and December caused me not to renew my spire status and loss of the additional 20k points that brings plus the loss of the 20% reward email sent yesterday. Can I add that to my complaint as consequential loss?

If that had happened to me, I would. And you need to value the status itself. The likely bonuses on paid stays can be ascribed a value. Upgrades are harder to value and less likely to happen, but if you’ve lost out on free drinks vouchers I would claim a few quid for those too.

I’m not sure you’d win on all these issues, but personally I’d be claiming everything as it makes defending more complex and expensive for Creation — and thus further incentivises them to settle out of court.

[Lady London]

Jonathans wrote:

So an interesting twist to the creation saga. Not transferring the missing points of November and December caused me not to renew my spire status and loss of the additional 20k points that brings plus the loss of the 20% reward email sent yesterday. Can I add that to my complaint as consequential loss?

As @memesweeper says it can all be worked out to a value *just be reasonable*. I’d have ready a note of what you’ve decided not to put a value on – such as uogrades. But free drinks voucher for consistent average number of stays past 3 years etc…

However defo don’t expect it necessarily to be awarded as you’re getting further and further away from a direct breach of promise to 2 levels of consequence…But absolutely put it in, as even Creation might not be aware of how useful points and free nights are and all the valuable uses someone may be putting them to regularly, or hoping to.

[NorthernLass]

Just received the formal response from Creation. Usual garbage about not upholding my complaint because nothing will be awarded after the account was closed. Next step will be FOS.
Interesting point – they are offering to refund my £99 fee and are asking for bacs details to transfer it to me! I will not be supplying these as it may be construed as agreeing to give up the points and free nights accrued. However – I will check but I’m fairly sure that the fee was never actually charged after my October renewal date. That said, Creation have been shown to be so incompetent on this thread that this is all perfectly possibly!

Just re-reading, they are saying the £99 fee was refunded in November (though my account is showing £0 balance) AND they are asking for bank details to transfer it. So they seem to be offering me 2 refunds. But this is Creation …

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[NorthernLass]

Creation also cited S6 of the Ts and Cs, implying that the decision not to award points and free nights had come from IHG. It will be interesting to see whether they try and rely on this in any dealings with the FOS.

It also says I have 6 months to contact the Ombudsman – I thought it was longer than that?

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Lady London]

You are correct.
Creation is definitely trying to muddy the waters with this fee refund offer. They’re hoping the judge will see it as not just refunding the annual fee which they should not be able to take as it’s an advance payment for the use of the card for 1 year and they’ve terminated early. Unfair contract terms if they’re allowed to do that and especially if it’s not particularly drawn to a consumer’s attention at signup and in any publicity that Creation could do this under the terms.

Creation is probably also hoping they’ll get away with not paying out all IHG points earned, all IHG free nights earned, and IMV the value of any partially earned nights as at the date of closure.

Do not let Creation muddy the waters. Tell them you want a full settlement of all of annual fee return of available time to use the card that was prepaid they deprived you of -from the advance payment, all outstanding IHG points earned up to date of closure (reasonable value if the d1rty b*5t**ds failed to give due notice of 60 days with all benefits still accruing), all fully earned free nights and (IMV) pro rata value to you of partially earned free nights.

Tell them they need to settle all of the above and you are not accepting a partial settlement.

Remember the card fee is only to make the card available for your use for the next 12 months. They have to settle the other things too and can’t try it on’ by trying to get away with even a slight overpayment of that – they.need to pay out the other items earned too.

I’d send them an LBA and give them 30 days to pay the full list of things owed otherwise you will take formal action. You can vary it for mcol or ombudsman but personally the ombudsman is a different matter than MCOL and I don’t see them as needing to be sequential or mutually exclusive. Otherwise we wouldn’t have all the successes at MCOL when BA denies EU261 rights as very few people are CEDRing preferring the certainty of the law to a more unpredictable arbitration. Put a value on the missing points (eg IHG standard selling price) on your mcol and a value that you can explain or ideally prove as reasonable for the free nights.

[JDB]

@Lady London CEDR and FOS are not the same thing at all. CEDR is a voluntary dispute resolution scheme whose decisions BA has agreed to comply with to meet its CAA consumer obligations. CEDR has no powers per se. The FOS is a specialist statutory body set up to resolve consumer financial services disputes at no cost to the consumer. Its operation and powers are enshrined in law.

MCOL/FOS are not mutually exclusive but if, for example, you failed at MCOL and then decided to try FOS, they might well not accept your case because it had already been decided by a competent body. Equally, if you failed at the FOS and decided to go to MCOL (very unusual for a small matter) you would need to have a very good reason to persuade the Court it wasn’t effectively res judicata/trying to have a second bite of the cherry. It could work if you could demonstrate that the decision was irrational or wrong on a point of law.

Realistically, people need to decide which route they will follow (and if MCOL, read the protocols fully). If I’m wrong about all that, I don’t think you are correct in suggesting that if you choose both, they don’t need to be sequential.