HFO letter - advice needed!

Tixy

Hi

Not being on your credit report does suggest it might be statute barred.

But it is possible for a debt not to appear but still not be statute barred. Eg you stop paying a debt in Feb 2004, a default is entered in May 2004. You then get chased by the company or a DCA and make a payment towards the debt in Dec 2004.
Because the default is May 2005, by May 2010 the debt will no longer appear on your credit file (6years from default) but the debt would not be statute barred until 6years from the last payment - in this example Dec 2010.

Andyc24_uk

Tixy wrote: »

Hi

Not being on your credit report does suggest it might be statute barred.

But it is possible for a debt not to appear but still not be statute barred. Eg you stop paying a debt in Feb 2004, a default is entered in May 2004. You then get chased by the company or a DCA and make a payment towards the debt in Dec 2004.
Because the default is May 2005, by May 2010 the debt will no longer appear on your credit file (6years from default) but the debt would not be statute barred until 6years from the last payment - in this example Dec 2010.

Thanks - I suspect that might be exactly what the situation is. I'll just wait and see if HFO come back with anything then.

I assume it's any payment on the debt, regardless of who to? (for example, if it's been passed around several HFO-type agencies, it's still 6 years from the date of the last payment, regardless of who 'owned' the account at that time?)

Tixy

Thats right - any payment for this debt to any DCA would count.

Andyc24_uk

Hi,

HFO sent me a court claim form today. They failed to reply to my letter asking for proof of the debt - that letter was completely ignored.

They claim that I defaulted on the original agreement on 12/01/2007, although I have seen no proof of this as they failed to respond to my letter. However, my Equifax credit report shows the account with HFO as having defaulted on 07/07/2006, and that the amount owing is £877.
The initial letter they sent claimed that I owed them £1298.62. However, the court claim form is only claiming for £225 plus costs.

However, the form also says that

'On satisfaction of this claim and the costs
there will be an unpaid balance of
to be paid by the Defendant which is
accruing interest at the contractual rate of
12% PA.'

Interesting that no figure is filled in there...

A couple of questions I have - First, if they have proof that I owe this money, then why only pursue me for a fraction of the total? and secondly - Does the second part mean that, even if I were to either pay up voluntarily or lose the case and be forced to pay the £225, they would then simply file another claim for an unspecified amount of money? Also, since the amount they claimed on the initial letter is different from the amount which appears on my credit report, where are they getting this information from...?

What would people suggest I do now? The court form gives four options -
-> Admit the claim and pay the money to HFO now
-> Admit the claim and ask for time to pay
-> Admit part of the claim
-> Contest the claim

It also says

'Costs and Interest: Additional costs and interest may be added to the amount claimed on the front of the claim form judgment is entered against you.'

If I were to contest it, would I be best to use the argument that the debt is statute-barred (and if so, how would I find this out for certain, seeing as they won't send me any information? According to my credit report, the default was entered on July 2006, and there's no record of me having made a payment in 2006, but the CR doesn't show any information prior to that year.); and if not then how about the argument that it's unenforceable due to the original credit agreement being incorrect? (If it was - how would I get hold of the original credit agreement?) Lastly, is their failure to respond to my 'prove it' letter something that I can use against them in my defence? Surely they are required to respond to a reasonable request...?

Any advice/suggestions would be most welcome!

Thanks!

Andy

Andyc24_uk

Any suggestions, anyone?

jotez1

please can anybody help me,im being tortured by a company called hfo services.
they say theyve bought a debt from 2005 from a welcome financial services(unbeknown to me i had a debt with these)but basically ive got advise from these sites an decided to follow peoples advise so sent a cca request which they sent to me and has clearly been took out by somebody else but they wont leave me alone,anyway i decided to fight them on this and there was no t&cs with this or a right to cancel can i have this written off
many thanks in advance if anybody can help

Andyc24_uk

Hi Jotez1,

What stage are you at with HFO? Are they sending you letters/phonecalls demanding repayment? or have they issued a claim against you in court?

If they're making phonecalls, the first thing is to get that stopped as it's annoying and illegal as it constitutes harassment. Then make them prove that it's your account, that you owe them what they claim, and that the claim is valid (ie not statute barred and enforceable T&Cs). Chances are it's not and they won't be able to prove it; plus the more I read on the Consumer Action Group site, the more it looks as though HFO's shady business practices and offshore accounting makes them ineligible to claim in the UK courts anyway...

Let us know what it is they've sent you so far, and I'll try to suggest what steps to take next.

jotez1

hi basically the origional phone call came at my works demanding money they phoned lots of times,then i sent a formal complaint about harrassment and asked only in dealing by post,i sent a cca got it back,then asked for terms and conditions aswell as the right to cancel(i told them its not my debt but they just woudnt listern,so decided to try and have it made unenforceable rather that having to try and explain its not mine)they failed to reply in the allocated dates,so i sent a letter saying that they basically never replied so i would like to know what they intended on doing,they then sent a letter from a solicitor with a piece of paper proiving that theyve bought the debt thats it.and have said if i dont pay within 14 days court action will be taken without telling me,thats the last i heard from them a week ago

Andyc24_uk

Have they stopped phoning now? If they're still doing it after you've sent them a demand to stop then it's clearly harassment - so make an official complaint about them to the authorities.

The first point to make is - When was the last time you made a payment towards the debt (to any DCA or the original creditor?) If it's more than 6 years ago, then it'll be statute barred and there's nothing HFO can do legally to reclaim the money.

I'd suggest you might want to take a look here and send one of these template letters

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2532927

- It depends on precisely what they've sent you, but I'd suggest number 22 since they're threatening you with legal action, and then also send one of the CCA dispute/reminder letters - you'll possibly have to fine-tune one of the existing ones a little if they've sent part of the information but not everything. If they don't reply within a reasonable timeframe, then send them the CCA Cease and Desist letter.

From the experience I've had - and it appears SADG has had too - I suspect they'll probably ignore your CCA request and issue a claim against you in the hope that you'll ignore it and they'll get a judgement by default. If/when they do this, which is the stage I'm at now, you need to respond to the claim online saying that you wish to acknowledge the claim (which gives you 28 days to file a defence) and then dispute the claim. There appear to be a number of arguments to defend oneself against HFO - one of which would be that they haven't provided you with the documents (CCA) which you need to properly defend yourself.

I suggest you take a look at the CAG website (https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk) and search their forums for HFO - This forum is wonderful for support and advice, but there are some very helpful guys over there who have direct experience of defending and winning against HFO and have developed a set of legal arguments to use against them.

The good news is, if they haven't actually sent you a court claim yet then you can get your head clear on this ahead of time which should save you stress later on!

Andyc24_uk

sadg - Looks like we're in a similar position then!

2 quick questions - first, do you know when you last made a payment on that debt? if it's over 6 years then it should be Statute Barred which makes life much easier. Have you checked your credit file? my Equifax file shows data from 2006 only for HFO - nothing before or after, which is odd...

Secondly, have a look at the court charge claim form again - Who is the claimant listed at the top of the form (and on moneyClaim online)? HFO Capital or HFO Services? chances are it's Capital... From what I've been reading over on the CAG site, this could be very important. I suggest you take a look at the thread that I'm enquiring on over there - there are some very knowledgeable people with past experience of fighting HFO over there! http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?268331-HFO-Services-barclaycard/page4&highlight=hfo