Selling on of debt

PCGuru

General question: Is it actually legal?

Lying in bed worrying about my debts, having dealt with & through the CCCS for the past 6 years, now being faced with redundancy in the New Year it got me thinking.

I now deal with (& pay) Moorcroft for the debt on my Egg credit card. Have Egg "sold on" the debt to Moorcroft, or are Moorcroft just acting as agents for them?

Since I do not have a "credit agreement" with Moorcroft (e.g. Moorcroft could not produce a piece of paper with their name and my signature on it) do they actually have any legal case to claim money from me?

I did not ask Egg to transfer my debt to Moorcroft or ask Moorcroft to settle my debt with Egg on my behalf. My agreement was with Egg. If Moorcroft have paid Egg an amount (probably less than the total outstanding amount at the time of the transfer), then the Egg account has been settled (by Moorcroft). The fact that Moorcroft are out of pocket is not my problem, since I have no agreement with them & did not ask for them to act on my behalf regarding Egg.

It raises the question of legality of "selling on" debt. Can someone shed light on this, legal references etc?

TIA

Simon

jase1422

I dont know the answer to your question but id be interested to know the answer.

CLAPTON

if it was illegal to sell debt on then

every single mortgage and loan from abbey, a&l, B&B which have been transferred to santanda would be illegal

similarly with all the Building Soc take overs, mergers etc.

every time a company is sold/taken over etc debt would become invalid etc.

GeorgeUK

As Clapton says, it is legal for the banks to sell on debts. That's how this recession started and all the banks got into trouble - they bought bad debts from the US (i believe).

Something else you mentioned though was credit agreements. While You did not enter into an agreement with moorcoft, they are still bound by the terms of the Consumer Credit Act and must supply a copy of the customer credit agreement (CCA) on request. (Cost £1)

If they are unable to provide a copy of the agreement within 12 working days, then the agreement may be unenforcable.

stapeley

They can now take as long as they want to find the agreemement but after 12+2 days the account is in dispute . I would also request a notice of assignment , this will tell if they have purchased the account or just acting on behalf of the OC .

PCGuru

As it happens, my wife works for a solicitor and they are using our case as a test case for the whole credit agreement illegality thing. None have replied with the correct paperwork so far, the Halifax being quite abusive stating they "will not be threatened by solicitors letters", which I found amusing.

Will start a thread if we get positive results!

As far as Clapton's post goes, I could understand the transfer if the company itself (e.g. Egg) was being taken over, since the buyer of that company would assume all of it's assets & liabilities etc.

Will ask if there have been any "Notice of Assignment" requests gone out to the recovery companies.

GeorgeUK

Might be worthwhile having a look at the consumeractiongroup forum in that case - they are much more clued up on all the legalities. They may be familiar with similar cases.

There is a "legal issues" board that may have some things of interest - i would do a search on there to start with. Alot of that stuff i get lost with so don't read much of it in detail.

Let us know how it goes.

RAS

THE CCA covers loans, CCs and catalogues, but not bank accounts.

A lot of people here have disputed debts for which there is no agreement available and many have stopped paying them. If you go over to the CAG web-site hordes of people have done this. Not used solicitor's thoug, done it themselves.