Belfast News Editorial: Tortured By Lender

High Court judge, Nicholas Chambers QC, sitting at Mold in North Wales, has accused the MBNA bank, which has its UK base in Chester, of "torturing" a customer, with repeated phone calls demanding repayment.

The judge wrote off the debt accrued by Keith Harrison in the sum of £20,270 after ruling that MBNA had failed to give Mr. Harrison the terms and conditions for the card, when he took it out, a fact denied by the bank, but one they could not prove.

Mr. Harrison took out the credit card in 1998 after responding to a mailshot, but after accruing a large debt following financial problems, the business man stopped repayments. He argued in court, that the bank, contrary to the explicit requirements of the Consumer Credit Regulations 1983, failed to send him the necessary terms and conditions for his card.

The judge indicated that the claimant rightly complains that, MBNA & Link Financial hounded Mr. Harrison by telephone seeking payment. Stating that 'The calls were a form of torture oppressively frequent in amount and often without attribution to an identifiable number'.

The judgment was welcomed by the Consumer Action Group and follows criticism of the lender's in-house debt collection department, by the Office of Fair Trading.

Editorial

At long last a judge willing to take on the big banks and their conduct towards some clients. This is just one case, but rest assured there are many more out there that have suffered this same type or torture.

Last Updated: 3rd March 2011