Question about defaults

bazquando

Hello,

I hope this is the right place to post this question. In 2006 I had a joint bank account with some friends I was living with. When we moved out we sent a signed letter to the bank telling them to close the account - or at least we attempted to but the letter never made it and the account was not closed. The balance in the bank was zero. A few months after we moved out of the house a direct debit for TV licensing was paid from the account. As there were insufficient funds the account started racking up fines from the bank. After 6 months the total had gone from ~£140 for the TV licence to £650. At this point (some time in spring 2007) it was switched to a debt collection agency.

We have only recently found out about this outstanding debt as all the letters we would have been sent went to an address that none of us lived at. The bank is HSBC and the agency now holding the debt is Metropolitan. We don't know how much the debt is now worth as they have never contacted any of us - we only found out after one of us was refused credit.

Is there anything we can do about this or do we just have to stomach it and pay whatever debt there is? It seems mightily unfair that we should have to pay hundreds of pounds (at least) each because the only attempt anyone has ever made of contacting us is by sending letters to an address that none of us live at.

Any suggestions or information would be great.

Thanks

DarkConvict

Unless you sent the letter by recorded delivery and know the request to close it was received then there is nothing you can do I believe.
In the banks eyes if they didn't receive notice to close you (generally you get a reply) then as far as they are concerned you were making use of the overdraft.

Did the TV licensing make a mistake in taking out the payment or was that TV license used. If they were never meant to take a payment you could argue that and the subsequent charges.

bazquando

What about after the debt was transferred? It doesn't seem like they've made sufficient effort to get in contact with us.

Or am I just being naive...

bazquando

We paid the TV licence by direct debit the year before which I guess entitles the TV licencing company to take the money again the following year.

None of us were actually living at the address for which we had the TV licence when we paid it, but I guess this doesn't really matter.

DarkConvict

If the license was unused you can reclaim it. i also paid by DD for my 1st year then found out they started taking next years payment, i got the monthly payments back by DD guarantee. The problem is, you agreed to them taking out next years fee rather than paying a one off fee (disadvantage of the way TV licensing do DD). You can probably reclaim the license fee, but not the charges imposed by the bank.