Consumer Law, Warranties Shares given to me by mistake

Status
Not open for further replies.

djenks19

New Member
My jurisdiction is: England

I am a UK Citizen and work in the UK for a US company. For a long time I have been purchasing shares from the company as part of the 'share scheme' they offered. The company provided an intermediate company to manage the shares for 'buy and sell' purposes. I started selling for the first time in a long time, about 2 yrs ago. I'd use the intermediate company's 'on line' facility to sell, until in May this yr, whilst trying to sell the remaining shares in my account, the account had a 'block' on it.
I contacted the company and they advised me that they had mistakenly put a number of shares into my account the previous year by accident. As i'd been selling on a quarterly basis they would 'freeze' and take away the remaining shares, and that I owe them $14k+ of the current share value, for shares i'd requested they sell, but didn't own.
I was devastated as I did not know this had happened and am unable to repay this money. They did offer me a number of repayment plans, all of which i cannot afford. Also, due to the current economical situation, the $14k+ will now cost me at least 20% more due to the significant slide in the exchange rate.
Now they have involved a US solicitor to recoup the money, and although i've asked advice in the UK, all say that I need US law advice. I don't know where to turn for this. I have never refused to pay, only advised that I was unable to afford the monthly payment plans they had offered so far.
I do take some liability as I should have looked back through previous statements even though i just used to check how many shares I had left by using the 'on line' facility. I have 2 main questions:
1 Do I have a good case to request that they take some of the liability and have the remaining amount reduced, if so, how do I go about requesting this and making it stick?
2 I have very low 'available' cash each month, i'm concerned at what level they can force me to pay, and what I can actually afford.

Please help a desperate English lady.
Thank you.
 
Unless the mistake was clearly obvious, e.g. 30% more than you should have received, you probably do have options. There is no question that you have a case - assuming the mistake wasn't tremendous and one you should have realized - to get them to accept a payment plan that is more suited to your needs. But I don't know the details. You might want to let them know that they can't get blood from a stone and that they will be equally embarrassed at having this happen. Good luck.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top