DCA has debt - who's responsible for agreeing reduction of amount owed ?

HopefulJen

Hi,

When a DCA has bought a debt from a bank or credit card company and you have received and calculated a list of charges from the original company:

1. You reclaim / negotiate from the original company and not the DCA or as the amount is now owned by the DCA do you go straight to them ?

2. If it's the bank or credit card company you deal with, how does the negotiation proceed with the DCA that the original amount is incorrect and they should reduce the amount accordingly ?

3. Is there any enforceability in the OFT guidelines or legally that can enforce the reduction in amount owed to the DCA ?

4. Does this happen by you or by the original bank or credit card company ?

Thanks - planning ahead ! :question:

Jen

militantconsumer

Are you sure that the DCA have actually bought the debt? They are in many cases just acting on behalf of the original bank or credit card company to chase the debt for them.

Curlyben

You always deal with the OC when it's concerning charges.
If the DCA insists on getting shirty then sue them, but most likely they will drop your account like a hot potato once they realise the potential of litigation.

Beware of DCA's that claim to "own" the debt, quite often they have simply purchased the rights to collect and nowt else. They often only hang on to debts for around 6 months before passing it on again.

There are very few DCA's that actually purchase the whole debt and as such they need to be watched closely.

At the end of the day you want to repay what you actually owe without the inflation of charges.
They should comply with the OFT collection guidelines, but as ever they do tend to bend things to suit themselves.
A few well placed threats of litigation and official reports soon puts them back in their place.

HopefulJen

The company is Link Financial Lin. Anyone got any info. on them ?
Jen

militantconsumer

Have you added up all your charges plus 8% interest? How much are the charges compared to the debt being chased? If most or all of it is charges then they will give up as soon as they hear this.