Creation Financial Services bashing

[Carlos]

Gone are the days where closing a credit card (irrespective of how long) affects your credit history and mortgage
You can simply explain the reason to the mortgage company and they will take it into consideration.
I dont see anyone succeeding in this long winded process of complaining and getting much compensation back

Can you prove that the credit history had a negative impact?

[Froggee]

Can Creation prove it doesn’t? Anyway I don’t have a mortgage. Chez Froggee is unencumbered.

I’m not concerned about the compensation. More the sport of it.

Eg I got short changed on Amazon not too long ago with a product quantity 5/6 that advertised for £120 (“sorry manufacturer changed product size – not our fault”). Seller offered me £10 for goodwill. I said no, £20 because that is right. They said go away. I complained to Amazon. Amazon refunded me the full £120. £100 straight to Ukraine relief efforts.

If Creation had sent me a letter on the white card saying they had identified my spend on the black card as being unprofitable and therefore they did not wish me as a customer on the white card, apologising for their oversight in issuing me the card and the subsequent delay in cancelling it (as well as six weekly marketing emails) then I’d be cool. What I’m not cool with is inept financing companies who are happy to gouge those less fortunate and savvy than me and acting like bullies when they don’t get their way.

But then I’m retired so it’s either this or daytime tv.

[NorthernLass]

@Froggee, how can you not love Rip Off Britain and Bargain Loving Brits in the Sun (which could be a bunch of HFP readers, if you think about it)? 😂

[Jon]

Right then, time for an update. I was holding off previously, to see how things would play out, but now seems like an appropriate moment. Hope this might be useful to others (thinking of) going through the same process.

I filed my MCOL back in March (having had no meaningful response from Creation to my attempts at resolving my complaint, even after sending two Letters Before Action).

As soon as the claim was formally issued, I emailed Creation my Additional Particulars of Claim (tip for next time: send a hard copy by registered post as well) and filed the requisite N215 Certificate of Service with the court.

Creation acknowledged receipt of my APoC the next day.

Creation appointed solicitors, who acknowledged service of the claim, and the next I heard was when I was copied in to an email from them to the court, with a ‘bare denial’ defence and an application to strike out on the basis that I hadn’t served the APoC within deadline.

I immediately replied by email, and after some correspondence, at the solicitor’s request, I emailed them the APoC (I suspect, but of course don’t know, that Creation hadn’t passed it on to them originally…).

The deadline for Creation to file a defence then passed and I requested judgment in default. This was issued the following day. I don’t know what happened to Creation’s strike-out application – when I spoke to the court, they said no application had been made.

I gave it two weeks (although apparently having requested ‘payment forthwith’ in my application, I was under no obligation to wait even that long), then requested a warrant of control, which was duly issued.

Meanwhile, Creation’s solicitor submitted another application, this time to set aside judgment on the grounds that (if I understood correctly – it can be a bit fiddly tracking back through the Civil Procedure Rules references) I had not sought prior permission to serve by email (notwithstanding that all my correspondence with Creation had been by email and they had acknowledged receipt of the APoC – so this felt to me like them trying to use a legal technicality to get out of the case rather than actually have to defend it). The court advised me (several times) that no such permission was needed. Nothing for me to do except wait – the court would be in touch if they needed anything. This was early/mid May.

A few days later I received notice that my warrant had been transferred to Birmingham for execution. And then I heard that it had been further transferred to Warwick (apparently that’s the court with jurisdiction over Creation’s address). I was advised it could take around 30 days and I’d hear back in due course.

Then, around mid-June I happened to check my MCOL dashboard (I don’t get email alerts from it – not sure whether I should – so I have to remember to check in periodically). I saw that my case (as distinct from the warrant presumably) had been transferred to my local county court, and a bar had been put in place pending a decision on Creation’s set-aside application, submitted in early June (not sure whether that was the same one they submitted in May having taken a month to process, or a newly-submitted third application – I’m not sure exactly what happens behind the scenes but I get the impression there can be a bit of a race going on between, say, a claimant’s application for judgment or warrant, and a defendant’s application to set aside, and the winner is whichever gets processed first – so what I take from that is don’t delay proceeding to the next step once the relevant deadline has passed).

And now in late June I’ve received notice that their application has been granted and an order has been issued to set judgment aside, with the case due to be permanently struck out unless I file and serve a Further Statement of Case within ten days…

…which I did immediately. After speaking to the court to check the process and requirements, I basically took my original APoC document, re-titled it as Further Statement of Case, added a brief commentary at the front to explain that the APoC had been sent and receipt acknowledged etc back in March, followed by a signed statement of truth (the wording for which is helpfully provided in the court order). I also added the email from Creation confirming receipt of the original APoC.

I emailed the FSoC to the court and also copied in Creation and Creation’s solicitor. I also sent a hard copy by registered post to Creation to head off any shenanigans re serving by email. That has now been delivered and signed for and I have forwarded the proof of delivery to the court.

So that’s where we are. I believe the next step is that the court will look at my FSoC and decide how to proceed. With any luck maybe they’ll agree with me that, having had the APoC since March, Creation has had every opportunity to file a defence, so maybe they’ll re-instate the previous judgment. But we shall see…

[PeteM]

Wow, this is fascinating, thank you for sharing!

[Lady London]

Please keep us updated.

Looks like @JDB is right IIRC he said Creation are supine and react only when it gets legally serious and then they engage a proper lawyer. Tbough I have to say, regardless of these lawyers being paid to trick and cheat and try to trap claimants using procedure,this all feels pretty dishonest to me. Why doesn’t Creation just treat customers correctly in the first place.

I think the big tip from your experience Jon is not to be kind, give them no leeway, as soon as a deadline passes push it on to the next step. Otherwise Creation and the lawyers they’ve hired will just try to use every chink to derail a claim.

I hope Creation gets their just desserts and slinks back to France with their tail between their legs.

Please keep us informed and I hope you are able to add these extra costs of nailing Creation to your claim

[JDB]

All fairly predictable, and shows that MCOL isn’t always the doddle some suggest. It was probably a mistake and unnecessary to rush into applying for a warrant of control after a default judgment that was likely to be set aside (and seemingly without notice) and you may not now get that cost (£83?) back. The Court should now issue new directions.

[Lady London]

Why was it likely to be set aside @JDB? Creation themselves had acknowledged receipt as long ago as March.

[Harrier25]

The best of luck @Jon. If the court rule in your favour it may help us all moving forward.

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

Why was it likely to be set aside @JDB? Creation themselves had acknowledged receipt as long ago as March.

Because while the Court expects people to comply with deadlines, they also bend over backwards to be fair and a default judgment means the defendant hasn’t been heard, so with a vaguely plausible excuse it will be set aside. That’s why one needs to wait a bit (beyond the 14 days) after a default judgment to see if it ‘sticks’ rather than rushing into things.

[Lady London]

Thanks JDB. About how long after a default judgment would you say is safe to wait before proceeding?

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

Thanks JDB. About how long after a default judgment would you say is safe to wait before proceeding?

Best to wait at least a week after the deadline specified for a set aside application as it takes a bit of time for that application to be processed and show in the MCOL system. Also, at that point you write to the other side and say, as you know the order has been made, copy attached, pay up or I will apply for a warrant of control with costs. Whatever you think of Creation, they will comply with a court order, no need for a costly warrant. Might be different if it’s your builder say.

[Jon]

JDB wrote:

Because while the Court expects people to comply with deadlines, they also bend over backwards to be fair and a default judgment means the defendant hasn’t been heard, so with a vaguely plausible excuse it will be set aside. That’s why one needs to wait a bit (beyond the 14 days) after a default judgment to see if it ‘sticks’ rather than rushing into things.

On the other hand, Creation has had my Additional Particulars of Claim from the outset and had plenty of time to prepare and file its defence, but chose not to.

I do think one area where the MCOL process could perhaps be improved, and might save everyone from wasted time, is by making it a requirement of the initial filing to upload the APoC. As it stands, claimants are instructed not to do so unless/until the court asks for it. Which means it is perfectly possible to get quite far down the line, and the court being asked to make a decision, without ever having seen the full case details. Which is a shame, because had the court had earlier sight of my APoC, and/or had they asked me to provide proof that Creation had acknowledged receipt of it, perhaps the judgment would not have been set aside. But hey ho, that’s the way it goes 😉

I do also wonder whether there shouldn’t be some question arising about whether a solicitor can claim they don‘t know what case they have to answer, and sign statements of truth to the effect that I didn’t serve the APoC, despite the defendant having already been in possession of it (since well before the deadline) and also the solicitor having received it directly from me, at their request, several days before the deadline for filing their defence. But I’m just a layman, not a lawyer, so perhaps that’s perfectly acceptable legally. I know what I think of it 😉

If I’d waited to see if the judgment would stick before requesting warrant, I would have been waiting 5 or 6 weeks before it showed up in my dashboard. I think that’s too long.

The set-aside order did give me the option of objecting and applying to have that itself set aside, but I chose not to take that route – I felt it would just result in us going round in circles arguing over whether or not the APoC had been served, rather than arguing the merits of the case. By filing the Further Statement of Case, while on the one hand it feels a bit like resetting and going back to square one, on the other it means the court now has, for the first time, the full details of my claim (as do, for the second time, Creation and their solicitors – hopefully this time they can’t argue that they don’t).

We’ll see what happens…

[JDB]

@Jon unfortunately the Court gave you wrong advice about service by email – CPR Practice Direction 6A at 4.1(1) and 4.2 confirm and quite a lot of solicitors don’t accept service by email. It’s an annoying technicality, but if a document is not served properly, it’s not served unless the other party agrees, so without having seen it the solicitor’s statement of truth may be technically correct, but wrong to most of us. Sometimes a Court will order deemed service if someone is clearly trying to evade or deny service (eg a certain prince). Unfortunately, the sort of two bit solicitor they have probably got will be very cheap (in all senses) but also very wily; expect more twists and turns. The set aside application will have cost them £275 in court fees…

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

[Jon]

JDB wrote:

Unfortunately, the sort of two bit solicitor they have probably got will be very cheap (in all senses) but also very wily; expect more twists and turns. The set aside application will have cost them £275 in court fees…

Yes, I daresay there will be fun and games aplenty yet to come 😉 It will be interesting to see, given part of the point of MCOL is to make justice more accessible to ordinary laypeople without legal representation etc etc, at what point (or indeed whether) the court decides that common sense / basic fairness / getting the case settled should override whatever minutiae of legal technicality Creation comes up with next as a delaying tactic. It would be nice if Creation actually filed a proper defence so we can see what their argument actually is.

The solicitor did try to claim costs in their applications, incidentally, but the court order made no mention of that.

To your earlier point – no deadline for set-aside applications was specified in the judgment paperwork I received.

[Benilyn]

My thoughts and prayers are with you @Jon!

[WillPS]

Never held a Creation credit card but very interested in how this progresses. God speed @Jon and everyone in the long queue for FOS.

[points_worrier]

Unfortunately @Jon this is the reason the FOS is preferable for the most of us. If Creation find an aggressive judge to believe you behaved unreasonably by not serving physical copies on them, you could be liable for £thousands costs, regardless of whether you win the case (I do think this is very unlikely however). Far more likely is a judge can just strike out your claim, although I think you would be unlucky.
I wish you the best – do keep us updated.

[Jon]

Many thanks for all the comments and well-wishes everyone. I’ll update as and when.

In the meantime, just to come back with some thoughts on the service-by-email issue.

I think this is perhaps another area where the MCOL process, or at least the guidance, could be improved. There was nothing that I could see in the MCOL guidance to indicate that serving by email might be problematic or require prior permission; arguably it gave quite the opposite impression, with the general thrust seeming to be that email/online/digital was preferable to paper.

Similarly in the N215 Certificate of Service form that one must file after sending Additional Particulars of Claim, there’s an option to specify that you’ve served by email, but nothing to flag any caution about that – e.g. a tick box for something like “I have the Defendant’s permission to serve by email” might be a useful addition.

Given the requirements as @JDB pointed out re serving by email per CPR 6A 4.1(1) (which the MCOL guidance could usefully have explicitly referenced rather than only mentioning 7E, which itself makes no reference back to 6A that I can see), and given that MCOL is (at least in part) aimed at unrepresented laypeople who won’t necessarily know every last detail of the CPRs, and with the potential for an error here to lead to a case being struck out, and/or costs awarded, this is something that really ought to be quite prominently highlighted in the guidance and forms, I would have thought.

To @points_worrier’s point, I feel fairly comfortable about arguing that I was not being unreasonable in serving by email, given that my previous correspondence with Creation was by email, and more importantly, they acknowledged receipt of the APoC, but I do take the point that a judge could rule otherwise. Hopefully the court might take the view that what matters here is that Creation has had the document, and hence has known exactly what case it must answer, since the outset – any attempt to claim otherwise is really just playing legal games, which may be a perfectly valid tactic, but ultimately is surely not in the interests of justice or conducting litigation efficiently etc. I suppose I’ll find out in due course 😉

I think the lesson learned for next time though is send a printed copy by registered post. So much for everything going digital and saving trees 😉

[Aston100]

Good luck Jon.

[PeteM]

I asked the FOS today if they have any updates for me, seven months after submitting my complaint and nothing happening:

“Creation does have a backlog of cases. We have recently been communicating with Creation in terms of finding an approach how to get the requested information more efficiently and promptly, the intention is never to wait indefinitely but since Creation has been in touch with our service and have been proactive – we have to be fair and allow them an opportunity to respond. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, Creation does have a backlog and we are waiting for information regarding similar issues like you’ve experienced on several cases.”

I have raised a complaint with FOS as I think their approach of waiting for the financial institution to respond for as long as they wish is crazy.

[Benilyn]

Thanks for that update!

[Lady London]

So…How much has Creation paid the FOS to be so utterly incompetent in getting what Creation is required by regulations to provide, as a condition of Creation’s continued existence as a financial provider in the UK?

Who has power to put a rocket behind FOS? Their total incompetence is doing so much timewasting that we are now only 5 months away from when Creation could be withdrawing from the UK and slithering back to France. Can we help the FOS understand there is some urgency as “The subject may flee the jurisdiction”.

What’s the levers that can be used on FOS? Who can call for a Vote of No Confidence on FOS?

[Luca M]

Lady London wrote:

So…How much has Creation paid the FOS to be so utterly incompetent in getting what Creation is required by regulations to provide, as a condition of Creation’s continued existence as a financial provider in the UK?

Who has power to put a rocket behind FOS? Their total incompetence is doing so much timewasting that we are now only 5 months away from when Creation could be withdrawing from the UK and slithering back to France. Can we help the FOS understand there is some urgency as “The subject may flee the jurisdiction”.

What’s the levers that can be used on FOS? Who can call for a Vote of No Confidence on FOS?

Just curious to know where is the 5 months ( I am guessing December 2022) exit from the UK market comes from? As far as I know they still actively push their loans and are still behind some store’s credit agreement to purchase large white goods in instalments.

[Thegasman]

I FOI’d the FOS & got a fairly vague answer. Haven’t had time to pursue further but I’d argue I wasn’t asking them to create new information, although that may be a generic component of a response.

Thank you for your email of 23 January 2022, in which you asked for the following information:

“Has the Financial Ombudsman Service provided advice to or been asked for advice (through formal or informal channels) by Creation Financial Services Ltd relating to its recent mass closure of IHG branded credit card accounts?
I am particularly (but not exclusively) interested in whether advice was sought or given related to handling of fee rebates or the award of points or vouchers.
If advice has been given I would like a copy of any correspondence.”

Response
I’ve carefully considered your request and unfortunately we don’t hold the information you’ve requested.
It may be helpful to explain that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires an organisation to provide the recorded information it holds – we aren’t required to create new information in the form of providing commentary to answer a request.