HELP... advice needed! : (

Legendbully

Hi All,

I've just joined this forum so am new to all this, so please bear with me. I'm after some advice as I'm at the end of my teather and dont know what to do next

Basically, my ex bfriend was and is totally pants with money. He has a bad credit rating and we often got final demand letters to the house where we lived for 18 months but dont own (my dad owns the property!). I did the stupid thing of listening to his sob stories for months about the debt he had and decided I'd get a loan for both of us in my name, to pay off his debt, some of mine then have the rest to do bits to the house etc. We were splitting the repayments 50/50 and until he lost his job and we split up (long story!) he paid his way... but now he's paying nothing! I'm still keeping up the repayments on the loan and havent missed any, but its blimin hard work

Also, I found out just before we split that he'd been taking my credit card out my purse and getting cash out on it to the tune of £2000... so I was less than impressed by that as you can imagine and we split up in the end!

I'm now paying the loan and credit card off on my own and am about £350 out of pocket each month cause it's 'his' debt, not mine... but both the card and loan are in my name! So... where do I go from here???
I've threatened legal action and am more than happy to follow it through, but will that mean eventually the debt that is in my name but that he owes, gets written off where i'm concerned??? Will it become his and not mine eventually???


HELP!!!!!! xxx

CommonSense

i guess if you are able to prove that he took the money then your credit company might do something about it. do you have insurance with them ?

RAS

How was he able to get money out on your credit card? if you had written down your PIN or shared the information the creditor will hold you liable.

Could you prove that he stole the money? If so you could threaten to report the theft if he does not return the money. Otherwise, you have very little chance.

Nargleblast

Not good news I'm afraid. If the loan is in your sole name then you are stuck with it. Likewise the credit card debt. I can't see you being able to prove that he took cash out without knowing your PIN so you're snookered there too.
You will just have to chalk it up to experience and thank your lucky stars you found out what he was like and got shot of him before getting married and having kids with him. There are decent blokes out there, honestly, and you will find one one day. In the meantime, why not post a statement of affairs detailing your income and outgoings (use the sticky at the top of the DFW home page) and let some of the good folks on here make some suggestions on how to cut your expenditure and maximise your income? There is no debt problem that is unresolvable, believe me. And welcome to the madhouse that is DFW by the way!

GeorgeUK

If you have proof that the money from the loan was used to make payment to his debts, then you may be able to go through a small claims court to get him to repay his half of this. For the card, it may be more difficult as he shouldn't have had access to your PIN number. As you did not report it as theft at the time, i'm not sure what action you can take.

The debt is in your name, so that bank will expect you to pay it. If a court orders that he make paymnt, the paymnt will be to you and not the bank so even after going to court, the bank will still hold you fully liable for all payments - hopefully all the money won't be coming from you though.

It may be worth looking on the consumeractiongroup forum to see if there is anything similar that has been discussed. They have a pretty good knowledge of the legal basis for alot of the arguments.

Legendbully

Hi All,

Thank you for your comments... I know it doesnt look good for me, but am getting advice from the CAB as well as legal advice, so spose I'll just have to see what happens.

Regarding my PIN, yes I was a fool and let him use my card once to get a train ticket for work on a Monday morning. Of course I had planned to change my PIN straight after I'd got it back off him, but forgot all about it, so he used to take my card out of my purse when I wasn't looking then put it back on the sly so I was none the wiser : ( Not good!!!! People do silly things when they are in love... ARGH!

Anyway thanks again and I'm simply holding onto the fact that even if I stay as I am, i.e. paying the debt every month, in two years time I'll be completely debt free... a long way off yet tho, but i'll get there! :T

A xx

GeorgeUK

Have you tried compiling a statement of affairs? The SOA calculator will make it easy to seeif there are any areas where you can save money, either changing your insurances or utilities. You may also be able to reduce the amount of interest you are paying on the debts to make it easier to pay the debt off quicker if your credit rating is okay.

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html