PRA Group Letter Before Claim - advice please?

The_Stodd · 21 March 2018 at 12:40PM

I have received a letter from PRA Group informing me that an account has been transferred to the investigations and Litigation Department. They say it is a letter before claim as required by the Pre-Action conduct & protocols contained in the Civil Procedures Rule, and constitutes a formal demand for payment and to give notice of PRA Group's intention to issue Court proceedings against me. I've previously sent in a CCA and they returned my £1 postal order along with a 1 page form that isn't signed anywhere. I have scans of these if that will help.

Is the threat real? They sent a similar letter in September but this one follows up with a reply form and a request for details of my financial situation, saying I have 30 days to return the completed form or it could result in Court proceedings.

They returned the £1 CCA fee does that mean anything? They haven't supplied any SIGNED DOCUMENTS or details of the DEBT TRANSFER to themselves, just a "SUMMARY OF THE INFORMATION YOU SENT US THAT FORMS THE BASIS OF YOUR CREDIT AGREEMENT" and a summary of some of the payments made to Moorcroft.

I believe it's from a Halifax credit card - assigned previsouly to Moorcroft - I was paying Moorcroft through Stepchange up to a point, but personal circumstances meant I could no longer manage the monthly payments and since then it's moved to PRA. The last payment I made was June 2016.

Any advice and help greatly appreciated, I'm not sure what my next steps should be. I believe they haven't sent me enough proof in reply to my CCA, and as stated above, they also didn't accept the £1 payment for that information.

I've recently moved out of the marital home, had to get a loan for a car (due to catastrophic MOT Failure - I need a car to get to work) and every month end up using a payday loan to make it to the next pay packet (which is manageable, very low APR, not a wonga style rip off), so I'm not really in a situation to offer anything other than a small token payment.

National_Debtline · 21 March 2018 at 1:21PM

Hi there and welcome to MSE,

As of the 1st October 2017 the pre action protocol was introduced that requires a debt collector to send you 30 days notice before issuing court proceedings. You should reply, using the reply form, within the 30 day deadline, and I would suggest that you treat this as genuine.

From your message, you say that you were making regular payments until June 2016, so I am afraid there is no issue with regard to the age of the debt. And, unfortunately, the change in your personal circumstances would not affect liability either. This debt, and your current short term loans, are all considered to be a non priority and you will need to approach them all in the same way going forward (one of the free debt charities can explain negotiation tactics and how this would affect your SOA in more detail).

With regard to the reply form, you have several choices. You can raise a dispute if you feel that is appropriate, however, I am not sure that they have actually failed to satisfy your previous CCA request. You say they sent you a breakdown of payments made (which is one part of what they need to do), and the other part is that they need to send you a 'true copy' of the agreement. This does not need to bear your signature and only needs to be an accurate representation of what you would've signed. If they have sent this to you, and you have concerns that 'prescribed terms' may be missing from the terms and conditions of the agreement, then you would likely need to this to a legal advisor to check. Good luck,

Laura
@natdebtline

The_Stodd · 21 March 2018 at 2:26PM

Thanks Laura, I guess the best way to proceed is to offer them what I can afford as a monthly payment.

PRA Group Letter Before Claim - advice please?

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