Telewest Debt

Skullcreature

Hi,
An wanting some advice regarding a dent with Telewest/Virgin media that is more than 8 years old. My son ran up a debt with telewest when we had the tv and internet service in our house, the debt i think is about £500, but i was wondering is that since this debt is years old, is it still valid for them to pursue this matter becayse we were enquiring about virgin broadband and and i was advised that we were not going to be allowed the service becuase the debt was still shown on our account. But would the debt not be invalid by now and we should still be able to get this service?

Rab

apf666

hi

fyi

unsecured debts, like this, can become Time Barred under the Statute of Limitations Act 1980, once a 6 year period has passed since the debt became due. personal injury have a 3 year timescale, secured debts mostly have 12 years for capital and 6 years for accrued interest, but secured can differ depending on who the loan was obtained from

to become Time Barred, you must not have made a payment OR given written acknowledgement of your liability for the debt to the creditor, (whether this is Virgin/Telewest/Debt Recovery Agent or any company that may have bought the debt from Telewest)

AND the creditor must not have issued and obtained a County Court Judgment prior to the end of the Limitation Period.

IF you have made payment or provided written acknowledgement of the debt then the 6 year Limitation Period starts again from the date of payment or written acknowledgement

IF the creditor has obtained Judgment, then there are no Time Limits that would apply, but the creditor would need the permission of the Court (liklely given, so long as you were not unduly prejudiced , ie accruing interest) to persue the debt if there has been an excessive delay in enforcing the Judgment

ONCE a debt has become Time Barred, acknowledgement or payment does not make the debt not Time Barred

Time Barred means that the creditor cannot enforce the debts through the Courts, it is still a debt but it cannot be recovered or enforced through the legal process, companies either write them off, or quite often, sell them to other companies, who then attempt the recovery process again. Continued demands for a debt that has been identified as Time Barred is contrary to OFT/FSA debt recovery guidelines and a formal complaint can be made to the Ombudsman if you are not left in peace.

Each company will have their own policies for keeping records of debts owed, some will only keep records as required by the Data Protection Act (for 6 years). As Virgin have kept records of your debt, they have obviously decided that your Business is not wanted, unless perhaps you clear the debt, they are entitled to take this position. You could approach them (if 100% sure that 6 years have passed), state that you feel the debt is Time Barred, and see if they will confirm write off and let you start again from scratch, even here, they would probably want a hefty deposit or a personal guarantee from a creditworthy individual

One last point regarding Judgment, if 6 years have passed since Judgment has been obtained, the Courts will likely not have any records of the Claim and reference will have dropped off the Judgment Register, and should also not be referenced on your credit file, if this is the case, and a creditor tries to enforce, they must prove Judgment was obtained.

hope this helps and does not appear condescending, just wanted to cover all relevant bits

cheers

af

ps.... full advice can be obtained free of charge from your local Citizens Advice Bureau

Skullcreature

Thanks for the help guys

Marcusp

So eight years ago you had a service from Telewest and never paid for it and now you want a service from them again and they won't give it to you unless you pay the debt?

Quite right, how do they know you won't do the same thing again?

Pay the money owed.