Help with old overdraft debt

psyangel

Please can you advise me on how best to manage increasingly aggressive tactics from BLS Collections -
I've been paying them £2 monthly for 10 years on a debt which never goes down, allegedly currently £715.16. It was a combination of overdraft and bank charges from an old current account with Lloyds. They wrote to me stating they were increasing my monthly payment to £40 and despite my verbally telling them that I did not agree to this and that the original payment would continue to be made they have commenced ringing me 2/3 times per day and further letters stating that if i do not bring the account up to date today they will formally demand the full balance immediately. I have already verbally told them not to ring me anymore, to communicate in writing otherwise I will consider it harassment but phone calls continue, this time the caller states they are from Lloyds TSB.
Please advise on the following:
1. Can they take me to court for a debt which is 10 years old which I am already paying?
2. Is it worth doing a SAR because
3. Should I be putting in a claim against them for illegal bank charges ie overdraft and 'administration' fees? (And if so where can I seek help on doing this correctly?)
Or am I better off meekly writing to them with a statement of income/expenditure which explains why they will get no more? BLS are obviously a part of Lloyds but they are not declared on the Information Commissioners website anywhere under Lloyds - can I complain to the Info Commissioner about this?
I am paying off all sorts of debt and so far have managed to negotiate with them all but BLS will just not be negotiated with.
Thanks very much in advance for your help.

di3004

psyangel wrote: »

Please can you advise me on how best to manage increasingly aggressive tactics from BLS Collections -
I've been paying them £2 monthly for 10 years on a debt which never goes down, allegedly currently £715.16. It was a combination of overdraft and bank charges from an old current account with Lloyds. They wrote to me stating they were increasing my monthly payment to £40 and despite my verbally telling them that I did not agree to this and that the original payment would continue to be made they have commenced ringing me 2/3 times per day and further letters stating that if i do not bring the account up to date today they will formally demand the full balance immediately. I have already verbally told them not to ring me anymore, to communicate in writing otherwise I will consider it harassment but phone calls continue, this time the caller states they are from Lloyds TSB.
Please advise on the following:
1. Can they take me to court for a debt which is 10 years old which I am already paying?
2. Is it worth doing a SAR because
3. Should I be putting in a claim against them for illegal bank charges ie overdraft and 'administration' fees? (And if so where can I seek help on doing this correctly?)
Or am I better off meekly writing to them with a statement of income/expenditure which explains why they will get no more? BLS are obviously a part of Lloyds but they are not declared on the Information Commissioners website anywhere under Lloyds - can I complain to the Info Commissioner about this?
I am paying off all sorts of debt and so far have managed to negotiate with them all but BLS will just not be negotiated with.
Thanks very much in advance for your help.

Hi there

Bumping this up for you.
I'm sure someone with this knowledge in these matters will post up soon, good luck with this.;)
There are a great helpful lot on here to help you through this.

psyangel

thanks very much indeed.

GeorgeUK

1. Yes, if you owe a debt (and a default has been issued against the debt), they can take you to court for a CCJ.
2+3. Definately - you can claim back 6 years (plus interest) so the sooner you do this the better. The SAR should allow you to see transactions for the last 6 years.

There is another board on this forum for reclaiming charges, complete with templates. They should be able to keep you right and you should also be able to read through some of the other MSE'ers threads that will detail what they did and the resulting letters etc.

Not sure about complaining to the ICO - sorry.

I would just continue making the payments that you are already making. If they do decide to take you to court, state that you will counterclaim for all unlawful charges.

psyangel

Thanks very much indeed for the advice, i'm quite shocked that they can still take me to court after 10 years as i've now got a squeaky clean credit report, more than 6 years having passed since all my initial problems (and want to keep it). Given that i'm paying them monthly and have done all this time, would it really be worth their while? They wouldn't get any more money out of me. It would be very vindictive of them to do that. But that's DCA's isn't it? But i'm not giving into the bully tactics, so will do as suggested, do SAR and counter claim.
Thanks once again :T