Debt management company got me in £4,000 more debt

ambitious_upstart

Hello,

I signed up with a debt management company called "ADS" last year to consolidate my car loan, a hire purchase.

They were more than happy to take it on, actually bugged me 4-5 times a week to hurry up with my application.

I was paying them £150 per month to cover the car loan repayments and 2 small minor credit cards. They adviced me to ignore all contacts with my creditors and to send them any post I had received.

Every month since I joined them, my creditors would bombard me with mails and phone calls that they haven't recieved any repayments. I thought that was very unusual because I had paid almost £700 in 3-5 month.

It was around Feb 2010 when I just had enough of it and cancelled the agreement with the company. That's also when I realised some of the money was being transferred to a liquidated company called "Blackfriars Finance " instead of "Blackhorse Finance".

I was fuming! They were supposed to help me ease my debts but now i'm in £4,000 more debt because the car was repossessed and sold in auction.

Blackhorse finance sold the car and recovered their money, but their still chasing after me to pay another £4,000 which is a joke.

I was about 18 then and the car company did no checks whether I was in employment, receiving income or whatever. However I was in a stable job earning £800 a month but was made redundant 2 months later.. boof! My whole world fell down.

Here is an excerpt of the email from a representative of ADS (now they are called "Fresh Start");

Blackhorse fiance was taken over by blackfriar finance ltd and the one payment made to your creditors through our selves was cashed by them 24th February 2009 £57.27

and

I have looked into this further and Blackfriar never has the account but cashed a cheque of £57.27 on the 27/2/2009, i am currently in the process of trying to get the funds back.

I am a little confused as to why Laura would take on car finance if she was made aware for the start the BlackHorse debt was hire purchase? she is one of our most experienced advisors. (Laura is the one who urged me to sign up the car finance from day one)

If the debt was addeded with your knowledge the car was always going back, you should of been aware of that, any finance paid below the agreed amount will result in repoession?

If you have a short fall on the car we can still deal with this for you..

I heard some debt management companies do take on car loans and these guys didnt complain at the start but now they're trying to shift the blame on me.

I sent off a "letter before action" today with a 14 day deadline, let's see what happens. The solicitor is adamant that it's their fault, I have alot of hard proof evidence which is all on email and I think it will be a good outcome.

I was adviced to claim £4,000 with 8% interest, but I don't want to pay the car finance company - they already have their money anyway.

If you have any advice you could give me or have you experienced something similar?

Thanks for reading.