Do DCA normally take you to court or just threaton?

astillacharm

Sorry for all the questions! i'm just trying to get my head around how these DCAs work.
When i have recieved letters from debt collecting agencys they often put in the letter "pay x amount in x amount of days we may take you to court" Is this just a threat or do they? do they only do it for the larger sums of money or any outstanding amount?
and the phishing tactics are they really allowed to just send random postcards to address they suspect may be debtor there?

Jesthar

Hi astilla

Don't worry about the questions, how else are you going to understand things?

The key thing in the letters you mention is the word 'MAY' - this can usually be expanded upon roughly as follows:

"We MAY eventually take you to court, but really we just say that in these standard bully boy letters because it scares people. Chances are we don't have much of a legal leg to stand on, probably none at all, and anyone with half a brain and a bit of knowledge could get any case we DID bring thrown out just by turning up (because we probably won't; we don't like the rude things the judges say to us about our underhand conduct and lack of ethics) - but we're hoping you don't know that and panic yourself into paying us more money..."

Hope that helps

~Jes

RAS

astillacharm wrote: »

When i have recieved letters from debt collecting agencys they often put in the letter "pay x amount in x amount of days we may take you to court" Is this just a threat or do they? do they only do it for the larger sums of money or any outstanding amount??

There are a few possibilities

1. The debt is old and is statute bared and they hope to panic you into paying before you find out that you are not legally required to pay.
2. "may" is the operative word as they could leggaly if, this, that and the other.
3. They are giving you the required advanced notice of legal action and hoping you pay before they have to spend money on legal costs.

Number 3 is the least likely option based on what we see here.

Please note that apart from the Statute of Limitations, we find a lot of DCAs are unable to comply with their legal obligations and in practice, IF you defend action, cannot proceed. But they could win by default if you admit the claim.

astillacharm wrote: »

and the phishing tactics are they really allowed to just send random postcards to address they suspect may be debtor there?

No this is entirely against OFT Guidelines and at least one DCa has been given a boolcking by the OFT regarding this recently.