Out of the blue

ciderwithrosie_2

Hello, been reading these boards avidly for a while now but I'm hoping to get a little advice if possible. We are currently in year 2 of an IVA, all seems to be going OK, not a lot of spare cash but managing.

A week or two ago my husband got a letter proporting to be from a private investigators asking him to contact them as a client of theirs was seeking information - we dismissed it as a spam letter. On Friday he received a letter this time from Global Debt Recovery asking that he contact them in regard to an account (they quote some random number at the top of the page no other information is given). I believe these two letters are connected. I read up about Global Debt Recovery and from people's stories they are not very nice to deal with so we do not want to phone them, even though we would like to know what this debt is for. We have racked our brains and the only thing we can come up with is a Barclays overdraft from over 20 years ago (my husband switched to a joint account with me in a different bank and just forgot about paying it off) I can't imagine it was for hundreds. They have never contacted him in all this time despite living in the same town and same house for over 18 years.

Is it feasible that they would try and pursue this after all this time? I have found two sample letters - one about asking for disclosure about this account/outstanding debt and another refuting it on the grounds that it is statute barred.

My question really is... (sorry to take so long to get there!) should we inform our IP that this letter has come and ask them to help sort it out or just send them copies of the letters. Obviously I do not want to jeopardise our IVA in any way.

Regards CWR

PNPSUKNET

until they disclose what it is, ignore it as possible not even yours

DVardysShadow

Would not bother. The debt is statute barred unless you have paid anything towards it or acknowledged it is the last 6 years. So it has no effect on your IVA and your present creditors would [rightly] insist on being paid off first.

DarkConvict

Agreed with both of the above, just ignore it until they supply something more concrete for you to actually bother to reply about.

In the event you do wish to reply in the future,

These 2 letters might help

Prove it - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11570893&postcount=2

Statute Barred - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11571227&postcount=3

ciderwithrosie_2

Thanks very much for some speedy replies there and some sound advice. I think I will either wait to see if they send anything else or write asking them to prove it. We declared everything we thought should be counted in, even our WFTC overpayment so I'm stumped on this one. I'm not going to mention it to the IP unless I have to. I'm just so paranoid about anything mucking up the IVA as we joke (sort of) that our family motto should be 'if we didn't have bad luck, we'd have no luck at all!'

Thanks again CWR