£22,000 debt

Hello everyone,

Thought I'd post my predicament into here, as it seems like it's the first step to recovery (hopefully!). My situation is as follows. I'll try to keep it as short as possible in the hope of not boring you all to death...

This time last year, everything was going great, I had a credit card and store purchases that I was paying off on time and in full, and my credit rating was fairly good. In January of this year, I did what a lot of young lads would do, having just turned 21 and having plenty of money, and started looking at nice sports cars. I had a word with the finance company I had my hatchback with at the time (BCT) and they said they were willing to borrow me enough money to finance a nice Audi TT I'd spotted for sale. I had a think over my finances, and decided that it was fine to go ahead with the purchase.

Things were fine up until April, when we lost a major contract completely out of the blue with our business, and our profits really took a hit. Added to this was the ridiculous amount of unlawful charges we were getting from the bank (as well documented on this site), and there was no way I would be able to keep up repayments on the car, at least for the next 3 months or so. My credit card and store card payments were also hit by this, and I couldn't afford them either. This led to me defaulting on 3 different accounts. I did what I thought was the sensible thing to do at the time, and instead of brushing the problem under the carpet, I got in touch with BCT to let them know what was going on, and that I'd struggle to keep up with the repayments for the next couple of months. They were very, very unhelpful with the matter, and I told them in no uncertain terms that if they weren't willing to agree to reduced payments until I was fine again, or make some sort of agreement with me about it, that they would have to come and collect the car. Following this phone call, I received a barrage of threatening letters from them, saying that if I didn't pay them what I owed immediately, that they would repossess the car. Remember that with every letter, their monthly charge goes up an extra £25. Another load of unlawful rubbish right there (similar to the bank charges). With them pushing up their charges through unlawful practises, I had no chance of meeting the payments, even though I explored every possible avenue.

I'd missed May's payment, and a few days after I'd missed June's payment, they were at the door with a wagon, out of the blue. I didn't understand the repercussions of repossession at that time, so I unwittingly handed over the keys, and took my private registration off the car. I told the bloke that they couldn't sell it when it was still registered under my plate, which he accepted and then asked me for my signature. Following this, I got in touch with the DVLA, and they managed to mess up in any which way possible consistently, which led to BCT selling the car with my plate on it. I was livid at the DVLA for their incompetence, which they later stated they could do nothing about.

Everything went quiet for a few months, and then I received a letter from BCT one morning. They informed me that they had sold the car for £10,850 (only £5,000) less than they were selling for privately on Auto Trader at the same time, and that they wanted the other £22,000 from me. This was made up of the full 5 years interest, and their nonsense charges on top of that. Once I'd stopped laughing at the letter, I phoned CCCS, Trading Standards and the CAB. To my understandable horror, they told me that there was nothing I could do, and that I was liable for the ENTIRE sum. I laughed this off as nonsense, as the sheer notion made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. I couldn't see how they could charge £22,000 for something that I'd never owned, had for only 5 months, and they had an almost instant £12,000+ return on.

Since then, there's been no contact from me or from them, and I really don't know where I stand with this. As a 22 year old lad, I simply can't afford to be paying this kind of money, and it's seemingly going to stop me from living as someone my age would (looking at house purchases, holidays and the like). The realisation of this has changed me as a person - I get so stressed about it, and I just feel like there's no way out of this downward spiral of debt.

My credit history is now shot to bits, and I can't get anything anymore without paying cash upfront, all due to a rough 3 months in business and the bank's ludicrous unlawful charges.

I'm not sure if I've got this in the right forum, but this seems like the place to come when you realise you need help. If I've posted it in the wrong place, would someone please move it to the correct forum? Cheers.

Anyway, that's my story, and I'd really welcome any help anyone can offer me, it'll be very much appreciated.

Regards,

Anthony.