Dear Claudienne

On August 27, 2019 when I tried to access my National Commercial Bank (NCB) savings account via the NCB mobile app I discovered that a lien had been placed on it for the sum of $355,300.

I called NCB customer service and spoke with an agent who informed me, that acting on the instructions of an external company — that I don’t recognise — a lien was placed on my account for a credit card debt that had been outstanding for 2,749 days or over seven and a half years.

Even if I assume that I had a debt for the amount, it is my understanding that the law only allows for action to be taken within six years counting from the date of last payment unless it regards land.

I have not been involved in any court action nor am I aware that any judgment has been made against me. As far as I am aware I have no loan with NCB — credit card or otherwise. Now I am being made to suffer significant inconvenience as a result of NCB’s action. Because of the lien placed on my account, I am unable to cover any of my personal and living expenses. This situation is causing me to experience severe distress.

My attempt at having the lien removed has been unsuccessful so I am seeking your intervention to have this issue clarified.

TM

Dear TM

Tell Claudienne has been in communication with NCB in regard to the lien that was placed on your account. When you were contacted by the column you admitted to having defaulted on your NCB credit card payment after you were laid off from the job you had at that time.

You said that you had used up $30,000 of the $50,000 limit on the credit card when you became unemployed. You said that when the bank called you in 2011 re the default on the credit card payments you informed them that you had lost your job. You said the bank never contacted you after that nor did any other agency contact you on NCB’s behalf.

You told Tell Claudienne that a lawyer who you consulted told you of the six year limit for action to be taken on defaulted credit card indebtedness.

The law is The Limitation of Actions Act, first enacted in 1881, and to which one amendment was made in 1979.

Under the Act the limitation period for demand of loan and credit-card debts is six years.

Because client account information is confidential and should not be disclosed to a third party, NCB asked Tell Claudienne to inform you to write to them.

We note that on October 29, 2019 you sent NCB the following letter:

Dear Sir,

The purpose of this letter is to request information regarding the lien of $355,300 and subsequent withdrawal of $236,000 that was recently done on my salary account #xxxxxx096 by NCB. I was made to understand that the withdrawal was done by NCB to make payment on a 7 ½ years delinquent credit-card debt.

Could you please explain under what circumstance, NCB was able to freeze my salary and proceeded to withdraw the amount in question from my salary account for a credit card that is approximately eight years past due despite the six years limitation on credit card debts.

Also could you confirm if the credit card — which is usually an unsecured facility— was secured against my salary account.”

We see that on November 14, 2019, NCB responded to your query as follows:

“Please accept our apology for the delay in responding to you.

The additional time was needed to recover the attached copy of your application from our files.

You will note that the cardholder agreement signed by you gives the Bank the right to set-off any outstanding debts you may have against your deposit accounts with NCB.

We have also taken note of your claim that your debt was statute barred and that this would therefore preclude the Bank from taking such action. As previously advised the bank’s attorneys are of the view that, where a debt becomes statute barred, although a course of recovery by way of legal action may not be possible; this would not prohibit the Bank from taking alternative measures to recover the balance owed.

We hope this clarifies the matter for you and invite you to contact us should you have any additional queries.”

On receiving the NCB email you responded to the bank as follows:

“If the contract governs the debt and the debt is unenforceable then how can you still enforce the contract by withdrawing the sum from my account. Wouldn’t that also be illegal?

Isn’t preventing the creditor from enforcing the contract the whole point of the statue of limitation? Are you saying you can’t enforce the contract under the law but you can still enforce it at your discretion?

Even if I was to accept the reason given in your response, there is no way what you did could be considered fair debt-collection practice. After having waited almost eight years for interest to accumulate, only to withdraw a sizeable portion of my yearly salary to cover the accumulated interest and principal in one instance, when for seven of those years I have had money coming to NCB.”

Tell Claudienne notes that in the section of the Credit Card Agreement you signed with NCB entitled “Our rights if you default” the following is stated:

“If you do not make the required payment by the payment due date, fail to abide by any of the terms of this agreement, become bankrupt or insolvent, make any false or misleading statements on your application for this account, default on the payment of any other obligation to us, your property is seized by garnishment, attachment or any other process by any creditor, legal action against you is pending or in progress that will prohibit the bank lending to you (in which case all other accounts will also be frozen).

We may terminate your account and we may take the following actions:

1 Demand full immediate payment. The entire balance owing on the account will, at our option become due and payable with interest at the annual interest rate payable on the account at the time.

2 Fix the minimum payment at the existing or a new percentage of your outstanding balance at the time of default or a specified dollar amount, even if greater than the amount previously in effect. Your future minimum payments will then be fixed at that amount until your account has been paid in full.

3 We may without notice to you recover outstanding monies by deducting money from any other account that you have with us or any of our NCB Group entities and applying those sums to your account; and/or

4 Request that you cut the Card(s) and return them to us.”

The opinion of the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) is that despite the credit-card debt becoming statute barred after six years under the Limitation of Actions Act, NCB’s “legal stance may have come from the cardholder agreement he signed.”

We wish you all the best.