Credit Card & Loan Balance's Wipped Clean !!!

~Brock~

NickX wrote: »

We may have agreed before, but I don't agree with you here.

No CCA = No evidence of the debt.

Without the CCA the debt does not exist legally.

If you have a scan through the DFW (Debt Free Wannabee) board, you may be surprised to see just how many cases there are where the creditor cannot supply a valid CCA. They have usually sold the debt on to a DCA by this point, but it is happening all the time.

Actually we do agree....up to a point.

You are completely correct that the debt does not exist legally. The debt still exists physically (the money was still lent in the first place), but the DCA cannot persue it.

I still strongly suspect that this applies to a very very small percentage of agreements however, and if some lenders cannot take greater care of their documents then maybe they are partially to blame for some of this.

Does nothing to change my opinion of debt-busting scams though.:rolleyes:

skintandscared_2

For the record, I'm not interested in the CCA thing as something to pursue in any event. I want to pay back what I've spent. That's why I'm doing a DMP.

But I do know that requesting the CCA is a waste of time anyway. My OH was chased for a debt that didn't belong to him. An ex who worked at a bank had opened an account in their joint names without his knowledge and run up a card. She then moved and got married. As they couldn't find her, they came after my OH. We requested the CCA and paid £1. They sent us statements of the account (all transactions were after they'd split up, when we were together and up in Lincs while we lived in London so I know the account had nothing to do with him). The DMC admitted they didn't have a CCA, said they would leave it at that and then sold the debt on to another company!! So unless we go through the whole process with them too, we're stuck with more phone calls.

uktyler

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Then to suggest he is leaving the country, with his 'fortune', in order to leave the rest of us to pick up bill (he had virtually no part in racking up) is ludicrous.

After rereading his posts it looks like Bert or Ernie seem to think I have financially benefited from people who don't pay back what they borrow. In fact the opposite is true, every single one of us with credit is paying a proportion of our money to people who don't pay theirs back.

Our credit cards would have lower rates, as would our mortgages if everyone paid the money back.

Credit is going to get more expensive because people are defaulting on payments, the money has to come from somewhere, and the somewhere is the rest of us.

BertOrErnie wrote:

They both front the view that they can only be threatened by the perceived irresponsibility of others and fail to see that they may have, at one time or an other, shared some benefit from it.

NickX

skintandscared wrote: »

The DMC admitted they didn't have a CCA, said they would leave it at that and then sold the debt on to another company!! So unless we go through the whole process with them too, we're stuck with more phone calls.

That is pretty typical for the DCA's. Once they know that they cannot collect the debt its easier for them to sell it on for anything they can get for it.

But, when you were contacted again, a single letter stating that you do not acknowledge the debt and that you formally request a copy of the CCA should suffice. If they do not evidence the debt then you do not have to deal with them. Further phone calls without the correct evidence could be classed as harassment.

skintandscared_2

Yup, I know we should just go through the whole process again. But OH just can't be bothered. He just doesn't answer the phone to them any more.

bert&ernie

Its good to see that this thread has moved on. I must admit I have indulged in a little sophistry during this debate. This hasn't helped and it appears that I have managed to offend a few people along the way. My apologies to PROLIANT, uktyler and others for comments that could be viewed as a provocative.

One thing I would like to explain is that the profit from high risk lending, of the type that has now turning bad, helped to subsidise prime lending and savings for many years. On this basis, those who consider themselves to be financially responsible may have indirectly benefited from those who could be described as reckless.

I should also apologise for not setting my stall out on this. As it happens, I had actually confused this thread with another very similar one from months back where we, especially PROLIANT and I, had been through all this before.

I'm sure many will have noticed that a number of these threads have appeared in recent times, typically appearing to have been originated by spammers, as I would suggest this one was. I would venture that this is evidence of the fact that that an industry is springing up to exploit this. Like other posters, I don't have any time for claims companies who will use dubious claims to extract money from people who are often very vulnerable. I've no problem with claims management per se, but I believe that the authorities should do more to regulate this industry and protect vulnerable consumers from unfair and predatory practices.

Unfair and predatory practices are precisely what the CCA and other consumer protection legislation was enacted to prevent. As a side effect of this, it would appear that consumers can establish that an debt is unenforceable. This is something that the banks have known about for a long time - in my experience, this has been the elephant in the room for certain quarters of the industry for some while.

The only people who can say with any certainty what percentage of pre 97 agreements are unenforceable are the banks themselves. I don't believe many will have even undertaken as much as a sample audit to even estimate this - the reason is that the results are not likely to be pretty and could send bad debt provision through the roof. The industry strategy has been to use the same playbook as they did with penalty charges i.e. pretend it doesn't exist.

This has the potential to be disastrous for the industry and, as we all know from recent events, this means we will all have to pay the price. However, I'm not naive enough to expect the individuals who may benefit from this to refuse it simply because they realise that it will have an adverse affect on society at large. Its not unreasonable to lay some of the blame with the borrower for being irresponsible. However, I think the banks should take the lions share because it was their business to lend within terms of the legislation. The threat of enforceability should have been the ultimate incentive to ensure compliance. Yes, I know that its the regulators job to ensure compliance, but we all know how successful they are.

PROLIANT

Agreed.....

_Andy_

kav.alison wrote: »

Reading all these reviews i found some to be true. but i could not be bothered with the paperwork and i had 4 cards with over 20K debt . so i found these guys cleartoday.com. their service is £99 (non refundable) up front and another £295 on a no win no fee payment to write off my card debt , the lender and defaulted from sending the solisitors have my original agreement so good chance i will win. so i have tried one card first to see what happeneds, they have stoped the lender chacing me for payments and i just pay the solisitors the minimum payments. will know in a couple of months if they mange to write it off.

Nice to see you have the money to go on holdiay to the USA (and, indeed, buy a camera) but not bother paying off your debts.

ALIBOBSY

Hmm read this thread with interest. I can see both sides of the argument.

I have read alot about this subject on here and on another forum, where people have spent alot of time looking into this area of legislation.
On there, there are people who because of creditors failing to either provide the credit agreement or provide an unenforcable document (mostly caused by the creditors trying to combine the application with the agreement so they could lend money out even faster) have ended up with a stalemate. Most dca/creditors refuse to let the matter drop but won't proceed with court action knowing they may well lose.
They are a number of cases where the debtor themselves took it to court, some won (some settled out of court some in front of judges) and had the amount written off (in some cases thousands) plus removal of the default and entries on the credit record, however some have also lost in court. This would suggest things aren't cut and dried in this area it is certainly not as easy as these companies are making out.

I would say look at a CCA request as a way of putting you in a strong position to negotiate either a low full and final settlement or a low payment schedule safe in the knowledge you hold all the cards should they get nasty with you ( I have seen cases where people had made agreements and stuck to them, but the DCA/creditors still applied for a CCJ against them or agressively tried to force them to pay more than they could afford) rather than an easy way to write off debt which it certainly isn't.

Another thing to remember is the whole process is very long winded, and even if you end up with the debt cleared and a cleared up credit file, in between your credit file will be seriously marked with defaults and non payment. So not to be taken lightly.

Something else I currently read regarding your credit file is the fact that the banks et al are seriously abusing the legislation regarding default notices, apart from many notices not being issued correctly or even issued at all. The legislation clearly refers to a default as a pre-cursor to court action. In other words a short term note on your file until the court can make a decision on the enforcability or not of the debt. It was never intended to be a long term (6yr) note which the banks can add to anyones record with no recourse for appeal (other than taking them to court).
It is also clear only one default can apply to any account and the date cannot be renewed, but creditors/dcas regularly default twice on the same account and or change default dates.

The whole area of credit reference agencies seems very murky as well, with most of them being directly "in bed" with debt collectors.


ali x

udydudy

uktyler wrote: »

every single one of us with credit is paying a proportion of our money to people who don't pay theirs back.

Our credit cards would have lower rates, as would our mortgages if everyone paid the money back.

Credit is going to get more expensive because people are defaulting on payments, the money has to come from somewhere, and the somewhere is the rest of us.

UKTYLER, I am happy you are doing well for yourself and hope you make the best of this downturn.

but I beg to differ in that yes our card rates are going up, mine went from 14.9% to 29.9%, until i called them and they pegged it to 18.9%. But frankly it does not bother me a bit as it will never apply to me(hope this crunch does not get that ugly!!). Does it really apply to you as well?

The people who pay the higher rates are the ones who were reckless as they revolve their credit at standard rates and this increase in rates will means they will pay higher costs every month as they cannot afford to repay/transfer their debts should the rates increase.

it may apply to us in a small way when we remortgage by way of higher charges and "mark to base rate" tracker mortgages. But even there when I remortgaged I was able to make my lender match the better ones around. Obviously since they could see that all through I paid on time and also made repayments to capital(I am on interest only) which meant I was a responsible borrower which they want in these times.

yes, I still get high limits on new cards(last one was £11000 in september) and also get repeat BT offers at 0%(this month). I still get automatic increase in credit limits(last one from £12000 to £16500 in october)

Ok, the days of 0% BT with £50 max transfer fee are over but then that was the party time which was thanks to people who borrowed recklessly!!

Being a finance person(Investment management) myself, Well lets accept it we did benefit(and I totally accept it) because the others spent recklessly, the only difference was that unlike the others some like us decided to look longer term and save for this rainy day.

And we are not really paying the costs. Some of us may say that its not wrong that these reckless people pay the higher interest costs. thats a difference of opinion.

I just hope too many people do not rely on this fly-by-night operators who promise that their debts can be wiped out wherein a fe wmay benefit but most will have ended up paying the guys £99(or whatever) and then still having to pay their debts.

might as well use the £99 to reduce your debt or enjoy a last night out before you sacrifice yor comforts till your debts are closed.

these operators will be millionaires if only 10,102 people subscribe to them!! WHat have they got to lose!!