Old Debt? Mackenzie Hall

fuzzygazza

had a letter from mh saying final chance (first time ever heard from them ) demanding i pay £161 in seven day`s or £10 a mounth until debt is paid ,so i rang the number on the letter and spoke to a guy called james who at first seemed nice until i asked what this debt was about . i was told it was from 2002 and a adress that i had not lived at since 1997, i pointed out that i would like proof of this debt as i left that address some 5yrs before . well that`s where he turned very rude and started telling me i had to pay like it or not (i will point out i wasn`t in the best of mood this day and lost it called him arragant).as he would not listen to me i asked him to take court action and we can sort it out there ,he replyed we won`t take you to court unless u are willing to pay all court fee`s and said as i was been rude he will send THE BOY`S ROUND TO COLLECT GOOD TO THE VALUE and put the phone down . my Q hear is can there just send ballifs round with out a court order ????

walshy.walsh

nope, just tell them to leave if they do..

precious777

precious777 wrote: »

Hi,

No haven't done a CCA - to be honest, didn't know what it was, but have just read up on it and will be sending them a letter about it !

I was paying 1st Credit by monthly instalments, but they wrote to say I had defaulted in december 2008 (I changed banks and they were meant to transfer all my direct debits but this is the one they failed to do !) It's taken them this long to contact me, and I genuinely had no idea I wasn't paying them still, so when I called 1st Direct today to reset the direct debit, they said, Sorry too late it's been transferred to Mac H.

Any way I have since called 1st Credit back and said that I am VERY unhappy about my account being transferred to Mac H and that I am happy to pay the money owed by instalments, but NOT deal with Mac H. The first persn I spoke to - a lady called Rose - was lost when I asked why I hadn't received an Assingment notice informing me that my account was being transferred to another company - she then started speaking to me very loudly and said, "I'm not getting into an argument with you Miss B***, goodbye" (I suspect a supervisor may have been listenening and when Rose couldn't answer my questions this was her easiest way out of the call !)

So after calling back and speaking to the very helpful Dan, I asked why I had received a letter from 1st Cedit offering me a payment plan I could afford, and then 2 days later receiving the Mac H gem ! He explained that by law they now have to send out a yearly statement to me - which they had - and whilst they are paying postage sending out the statments they include the 'payment plan' offer and dd mandate to fill in, in the hope that the non paying people actually fill it in with an offer and return it.

Me being one of those 'non-payers' (which I was unaware of until 2 days ago) had rang them to discuss their offer of an affordable payment plan, only to be told I can only now deal with Mac H !! I asked if 1st Credit were withdrawing their kind offer of said payment plan, to which Dan said all he could do was speak to his manager and see if they can get the account back from Mac H and take me up on my offer of monthly payments - So I await Dans call

Quick update - I have called Aqua this morning to try and find out when the credit agreement/card was taken out with them, they have no record of me on their system under my acconut number or name ! She did however say I should send in a £1 for a copy of the Credit Agreement I have with them, but should I send it to Aqua or 1st Credit ?

Gingernutty

There is another website www dot debtquestions dot co dot uk which is extremely useful. There's a very good legal section which explains what can and can't be done under various laws.

Interestingly, Mackenzie Hall have recently (well, this year) had words with the OFT about buying up very old statute barred debts and failing to make clear to the debtors that the debts are not legally enforcable.

"A debt is considered Statute Barred if a creditor has not contacted a debtor for a period of 6 years and no action has been taken on the account. Although the debt is still legally acknowledged as being owed, the creditor is not able to take any legal action against the debtor in order to recover the debt. It is considered unfair if a creditor or debt collector misleads the debtor into believing the debt is still legally recoverable. It is also considered an unfair practice if the creditor or debt collector press for payment after the debtor has stated they will not be paying the money owed. This could amount to harassment contrary to Section 40(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970"

Hence Mackenzie Hall's aggressive tactics.

If you agree to pay, then you have to pay them, but if the debt conforms to the legal requirements and you say you're NOT going to pay as it's statute barred, then they have to walk away.

Sneaky.

precious777

Mine is not over 6 years old

precious777

Well after long discussions with 1st Credit, and explaining that I am extremely unhappy about them passing my debt on to MacH and that I have not received a notice of assignment from them, they contacted me today to let me know that they will be taking it back from MacH - so I'm pretty happy with that !

rufusdoode29

Hi,

I recieved a letter from MH approximat;ey three weeks ago asking me contact them regarding an outstanding debt. I did so and they advised me that it was a Barclaycard debt, of £935. They said that I had taken the credit card out whilst I was a Student living in Stoke.

Admittedly I was a Student in Stoke, but did not take out a Barclaycard and have not lived there for over six years now. I expalined this and therefore that I disputed the debt. Having read all the bad press about MH, I also sent out a letter requesting a copy of the original signed credit agreement and a statement of the account, thinking that would be the end of it.

However they have again phoned me today and they now say they have a copy of the credit agreement which they will be forwarding to me. They still don't have a copy of the statement of account though to proove when they billed / contacted me or when I allegedly last made any payments.

However the man I spoke to regarding the credit agreement stated that it was signed in 1998, when I had opened a student account in Plymouth. Again, I was indeed a student in Plymouth and yes I opened up a student account with an overdraft facility, that has since been paid off in full.They have clearly got the facts / information muddled in that the credit agreement which they have may be with Barclays, but is nothing to do with teh Barclay card which they were originally referring to!!

My Worry is that because they have a signed credit agreement with Barclays they will use this to pin any barclays based debt to me. Can they do this or do they have to improve it actually relates to the debt to which they refer?

Any advice or tips of where to go from here, will be greatly appreciated.

Tixy

Hi rufus

Sounds like if they can prove the debt is your it may well be statute barred. Best advice would be to send a prove it letter first (not a CCA request) http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11570893&postcount=2

If they manage to prove that this debt is yours and has not been repaid (which sounds unlikely) then you may want to look into whether the debt is statute barred - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11571227&postcount=3

If they phone you again - tell them to write to you and hang up, don't get into discussions on the phone with them, you need everything in writing.

Volcano

Don't contact them by phone. Do as Tixy said, but phone contact just allows them to threaten you and get nasty.

Remember: Most of the time, MH are sending out letters on the off-chance it'll get to the person they are trying to contact. If you contact them, then it's only confirming to them that they've found the right person, and from the reports in this thread that's when they turn nasty.

I know someone who received a letter from them and he simply ignored it, received one more from them (that was a threatening letter) and since that second letter has heard nothing more! As MH cannot be sure it's the 'John Smith' they're looking for (and they don't have the resources to send a debt collector round on the off chance it is), then him contacting them would fill in the missing piece of the puzzle allowing them to start the harrassment. It's cheap to send out letters in bulk, but expensive to track someone down.

There's no obligation to reply to these people. If you have and they're trying to get you to pay for a statute barred debt, please please report them to the Office of Fair Trading (as well as following the advice in this thread).

rufusdoode29

First of all thanks to Tixy and Volcanoe for your advice.

However it gets better. Following the phone call (see attached post), I have today recieved a letter from MH with the heading 'Information as requested'. The letter stated 'please find attached a copy of your statement of account or copy agreement (I presume they mean credit agreement?!) Expecting to find the credit agreement I was told would be forwarded to, I was surprised (or should that be not surprised) to find that there were no other documents contained with teh letter i.e. statement of account or credit agreement.

Maybe I'm over sceptical, but I suspect the following. I had originally written to MH on 21/10/09 requesting the credit agreement/statement of account, within 30 days under obligation of the CCA. They wrote back saying they would process this request, that no further action would be taken in the mean time and that if I had not been forwarded that information with 40 days (can anyone clarify whether it is 30 or 40 days that they have to provide it?) then the debt account would be closed.

Subsequently I believe that the phone call and letter are there illigitimate attempts to try and fake the fact that they have complied with the request so that they can keep the account open and continue to work the debt.

I phoned them (I will be taking Tixy's and Volcanoe's advice from now on and only correspond with them in writing) and the memberof staff said that it must have been sent in error as the request to their client for the credit agreement/statement was still pending!

I have now written a further letter detailing these events and explaining my intention to register a complaint with the OFT. Can anyone offer any advice of how to go about doing this, or any other useful guidance for that matter?

Many thanks

rufusdoode29 wrote: »

Hi,

I recieved a letter from MH approximat;ey three weeks ago asking me contact them regarding an outstanding debt. I did so and they advised me that it was a Barclaycard debt, of £935. They said that I had taken the credit card out whilst I was a Student living in Stoke.

Admittedly I was a Student in Stoke, but did not take out a Barclaycard and have not lived there for over six years now. I expalined this and therefore that I disputed the debt. Having read all the bad press about MH, I also sent out a letter requesting a copy of the original signed credit agreement and a statement of the account, thinking that would be the end of it.

However they have again phoned me today and they now say they have a copy of the credit agreement which they will be forwarding to me. They still don't have a copy of the statement of account though to proove when they billed / contacted me or when I allegedly last made any payments.

However the man I spoke to regarding the credit agreement stated that it was signed in 1998, when I had opened a student account in Plymouth. Again, I was indeed a student in Plymouth and yes I opened up a student account with an overdraft facility, that has since been paid off in full.They have clearly got the facts / information muddled in that the credit agreement which they have may be with Barclays, but is nothing to do with teh Barclay card which they were originally referring to!!

My Worry is that because they have a signed credit agreement with Barclays they will use this to pin any barclays based debt to me. Can they do this or do they have to improve it actually relates to the debt to which they refer?

Any advice or tips of where to go from here, will be greatly appreciated.