RMA Debt Collection Agency

he then tries to sell me a remortgage designed speciffically for people like me to help. Or i could consider consolidation finance that might be of interest

They're breaking the OFT guidelines by doing that. Phone or drop a line to your local Trading Standards.

Firstly, they have to confirm in writing that they now own the debt, so ask them for the proof in writing and not for verbal information as as far as you are concerned until they do, the debt is with the primary lender, ie MBNA.

As for the guidance from the Office Of Fair Trading mention this:

"Under the OFT's Debt Collection Guidelines -you feel that you are being "harrased" in the way they are dealing with you and the could well be in breach of section 2 of the guidelines in more than one area."

Any debt collecting company, including the main banks, that work in this area has to have a licence to operate which is issued by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and there are guidlines that they have to adhere to, otherwise they could have their licence revoked. These guidelines are the OFT's Debt Collection Guidelines and they can be found at the following link

https://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/50F06527-9FC5-4610-B385-999D6E2A8950/0/oft664.pdf

I have cut out some relevent info from the document, but it is well worth reading.

2 UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES
Communication
2.1 It is unfair to communicate, in whatever form, with consumers in an unclear, inaccurate or misleading manner.
2.2 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:
a. use of official looking documents intended or likely to mislead debtors as to their status, e.g. documents made to resemble court claims.
b. leaving out or presenting information in such a way that it creates a false or misleading impression or exploits debtors' lack of knowledge
c. those contacting debtors not making clear who they are, who they work for, what their role is, what the purpose of the contact is
d. unnecessary and unhelpful use of legal and technical language, e.g. use of Latin phrases
e. failing to provide debtors or creditors with information on status of debts, e.g. not providing requested balance statements when reasonably requested
f. contacting debtors at unreasonable times
g. ignoring or disregarding debtors' legitimate wishes in respect of when and where to contact them, e.g. shift workers who ask not to be telephoned during certain times of the day
h. asking or instructing debtors to make contact on premium rate telephone numbers

There is also this section

Physical/psychological harassment
2.5 Putting pressure on debtors or third parties is considered to be oppressive.
2.6 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:
a. contacting debtors at unreasonable times and at unreasonable intervals
b. pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing
c. using more than one debt collection business at the same time resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties
d. not ensuring that an adequate history of the debt is passed on as appropriate resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties
e. not informing the debtor when their case has been passed on to a different debt collector
f. pressurising debtors to pay in full, in unreasonably large instalments, or to increase payments when they are unable to do so
g. making threatening statements or gestures or taking actions which suggest harm to debtors
h. ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment
i. disclosing or threatening to disclose debt details to third parties unless legally entitled to do so
j. acting in a way likely to be publicly embarrassing to the debtor either deliberately or through lack of care, e.g. by not putting correspondence in a sealed envelope and putting it through a letterbox, thereby running the risk that it could be read by third parties.

Having read through a month or two worth of posts on here, this appears to be a recurrent theme. I lost my cool with one of them a few weeks back (see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=135140) but I have now decided I will let them keep calling me, since:
1. They won't be calling anyone else at that point, so it saves someone else from a few minutes of verbal bullying.
2. If I bother to answer they will get as good as they give - I think I am going to become a helpline for excessive and compulsive onanists
3. Eventually they might notice that I paid the debt they are on about a few days ago.

As has already been said, these people work on the basis of intimidation, bullying and threats to take people to court. I suspect the number of times they actually do take anyone to court is virtually nil.