I've paid a "full settlement" figure, now they want more. PLEASE HELP!

PaulBruce_2

I phoned up crapital one and virgin in august to request a figure of all monies owed to the respective companies. They gave me a figure which I immediately bank transferred to them in full. I did this as I was going travelling for 3 months and wished to be up to date and not in debt as I would be unable to service the account. I have returned and they have phoned me up demanding £54 each and they've refferred it to Mercers and are talking of taking me to court. The £54 comes from the interest that I apparently owe them for the month following the final payment i've made plus 3 penalty charges.

Being that I asked for a full settlement figure to pay off my total balance, is this legal what they are doing? How shall I proceed, please please help me someone, I just want these crooks out of my life.

milliemonster

If these were credit cards then this would have been from residual interest, that is the interest due on the balance between the statement date and the date you made the payments. The payments you will have made will have been the balance due at the last statement but they should have told you this when you phoned them up that even though you will have cleared the balance there would have been some residual interest due on the next statement.

If these weren't credit cards and were loans instead then, when you requested a settlement figure, there should ben no residual payments, can you clarify??

PaulBruce_2

Thank you so much for the reply. Yes, these were both credit cards. The amount outstanding consists of residual interest and 3 months of bank charges. I am happy to pay the residual interest (begrudgingly) as I can recognise that I owe them it. But my feeling is that it should have been included in the full settlement figure I requested. I would have paid it straight away but as I explained to them, I went travelling. Now they won't accept me just paying that figure, they want the 3 bank charges too or they will take me to court. Shall I just roll over and pay them? How would this stand up in court for them? Thanks in advance. Ps, I'm not trying to get out of paying money I owe, I just think a full settlement figure should be just that.

milliemonster

Ah, okay then, I know its annoying but unfortunately they won't have been able to tell you at the time what the residual interest would have been, that's why they normally advise you to pay a bit more to take you into credit on your account so that once the interest came off it wouldn't have caused you to be in debt on the cards again.

I think unless you have written evidence that the balances you paid were full settlement then you won't have much luck with this. At this stage I don't think they will take you to court, its just a blind threat, they are more likely to just sell the debt on but in the meantime this will just damage your credit rating further.

If you can afford it, I would just begrudgingly pay the balance owed now and take it as a learning curve for the future.

PaulBruce_2

Ok Millie, thanks for the advice. I think I'll do that to have closure on the sorry matter. Beans on toast for dinner all month methinks.

DarkConvict

Yes, probably interest. This is why we have full and final templates that they agree the amount will bring the balance to £0 and close the account with no amount outstanding, neither will they or a 3rd party try and persue for any remaining amount.