Landmark legal battle on credit card insurance won by South Shields mother

Oct 1 2009 by Katy Simpson, The Journal

"This will have a massive impact because consumers now have the authority of the court to bring a claim in such a way, that banks and credit card companies will be unable to defend it."

A relieved Mrs Thorius, who works as a cleaning supervisor, said the seven years since she got the credit card had been a nightmare for her.

She said: "I didn’t particularly want a credit card and I certainly didn’t want payment protection insurance. That alone was costing me a fair few pounds a month. When I noticed it on the statement, I rang them and told them I didn’t want it.

"They said I wouldn’t have got the card if I didn’t tick the ‘yes’ box. When I tried to explain that I hadn’t, they just wouldn’t listen." With her debt soaring and no other apparent other out of it, Mrs Thorius contacted Manchester-based Cartel in December last year.

Initially it contacted MBNA with a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request for all documentation relating to her file.

However, when MBMA found out Mrs Thorius, who was earning £10,000 a year at the time, was set to challenge her agreement, it launched a separate action to sue her for arrears totalling £8,686.

The case was heard over nine hours at Newcastle’s County Court last week.

Mrs Thorius said: "MBNA treated me appallingly from start to finish. I ticked ‘no’ on the PPI option, but they applied it to my account anyway.

"When I had my hours cut at work from full-time to part-time and started to struggle to pay the bill, MBNA started calling me three or four times a day, even as late as 9.30pm or 10pm.

"MBNA were rude on the phone and one person told me to get another job, while someone else said they would repossess my house," she said.

A MBNA spokeswoman said: "This case was brought by one of MBNA’s agents.

"The judgment went against MBNA for a number of reasons, in principle, because the deputy district judge felt that MBNA had not on this occasion provided the appropriate documents to the customer and as such was not able to rely on the clauses MBNA would ordinarily seek to rely on in these cases.

"The case is a County Court case and each case is decided on its own merits and on the factual circumstances of each case."

The spokeswoman added: "This does not set any legal precedent."