Debt Collecton Agencies ( AIC )

Simon_Milne

A few months ago I received a letter from AIC debt collection agency saying I needed to phone within a couple of days as a debt from american express had been passed to them.
In the letter, it seemed to indicate they wanted to set-up an arrangement to pay off the debt, which I was more than happy to do, as like most people here im working hard to get myself out of debt.
When I spoke to them, they were awful people and no matter how hard I tried they would not accept any form of payment plan ( I was offering a reasonable lump sum,followed by a few smaller payments, paying the remainder in Jan - less than 6 months from the first letter), and just said, I had to pay the full amount by the next day or they would file for forced bankruptcy.
At the time this scared me to bits so I ended up having to borrow more money to pay off the debt (some was from parents-not too bad) but some had to come from other places.
I ended up paying the debt in full (£3900). I have now recently read up on this and have found they government guidelines for debt collection state that any reasonable offer should be considered / accepted to avoid going to court without proper reason / forcing the debter further into debt.
Does this mean that they should have accepted my offer and were acting unlawfully by demanding full payment in such a short time. If so is there anything I can do about this now? As by having to pay out in such a short time, my finances are even more stretched now than before, as im having to pay off extra higher payments.
Many Thanks in advance for any advice Simon

RAS

It is not against the law, but it is in contravention of the OFT Guidelines as is encouraging people to take on addtional debt to repay them. You should report them to the OFT and Trading Standards.

Simon_Milne

Thanks for that, I will report them to trading standards and the OFT, as I dont think its fair the way they operate,trying to force people who are obviously struggling, and even with that trying to make their best offer to pay amounts massivly over what they could ever be expected to afford.

Its a shame its not law, but hey hopefully if I make a complaint it will go some way to making them act in a more reasonable way in the future.

Thanks again

Simon