I just don't know what to do!

scared_worried_upset

Hello everyone,

I have been a lurker of this site for a while and am now in serious trouble. I am hoping on some advice from you wonderful people.

Basically this is the scenaio. I have recently moved from living at home with my dad to my own place. When I was younger 18/19 I opened up an account with Next and didnt pay it with a balance around £280. I also went on to open a second account but with my middle name. This account has an outstanding balance of about £300 on it.

Now I am 23 I am paying heavily for my irresponsible ways of early adulthood and am doing my utmost to get out of debt and repay what I owe. My credit rating has been severly effected and I know I only have myself to blame. I deserve all I get!

Thing is is that now I have a Next accout (Third one) which I pay fully and have only recently bought stuff on and have paid for. But I think that they have found out about the other 2 accounts which are in different combinations of my name and I am so scared I could now be prosecuted for fraud!

What should I do, I want to now pay them but if I contact them I run the risk of being caught for fraud.... is it fraud though when they clearly didnt do credit checks on me and nothing was signed.

Before anyone has a go at me, nobody could possibly feel as bad as I do for what I have done and I am now a complete believer in paying every penny I owe back..... im just scared and don't know what to do. I have no reason for what I did other than having a very bad few years and needing clothes but having no money. I know there is no single excuse though.... what I did was wrong, very wrong! I feel so embaressed by my behaviour.

Please help :embarasse

CFC

Bah, we have all done stupid things when young. Don't nail yourself to the wall over it.

My advice, for what it's worth - find a trustworthy friend or relative who knows about your foolish past, give them the money to pay off the debt and get them to pay it off as a third party, ie not giving your current address or any details. All they need to do is send a letter and a cheque, saying it is in payment of that debt. If you want to get more proper and complex, let them send an initial letter first, saying that they want to pay off a full and final settlement, and get the exact figure that is now owed (interest etc). Then they can send them a cheque for the final amount.

That way it will be paid off, you'll have the worry off your mind, but will not drop yourself in the dwang - they may not have joined the dots yet between the names and accounts. Don't give 'em any help, eh?

grown_up_girlie

Please don't worry about this too much, I know it seems awful but like CFC said, we all make mistakes.

I won't offer you any other advice at the moment as i'm not too qualified with financial guidance at this stage in my life (Someone else will be along to state the facts and help) but the worst thing you can do is worry and get yourself so worked up about it. :grouphug:

FatJock

Scared_worried_upset,

I wouldn't worry too much about this at the moment.

I'd say contact them about the 2 'other' accounts (a pre-emptive strike of sorts). Make sure you've got your details to hand about them ask them for an up to date balance and if you are in a position to do so send them a cheque for the amount they want (2 seperate cheques with the account ref number on the back and a letter as CFC suggests). You will probally need to make a couple of calls for this so they dont connect the dots (if possible). Once they accounts are cleared and you owe them no money then I would suspect you should be ok. dont use those accounts again.

IMO - I cant see a company taking action if the accounts are cleared, closed and never used again, but please dont take this as concrete as I'm no legal expert, this is just my opinion.

Good luck with this. Keep us posted on how you get on.

Regards,
FatJock

southernscouser

I'd say contact them aswell. You tried hiding from these debts before and they have come to bite you on the bum so don't do the same this time.

I think all they will care about is receiving the money you owe them. Are you in a position to pay them off in full or monthly payments?

climbgirl

I'd contact them too and pay it off, using a third party is a good idea as well. Yes, it technically is fraud as you've deliberately taken out credit under a falsified name. But it's probably not something they're going to be overly concerned about - they'll just want their money more than anything!

I'd imagine they have made the connection now too. I checked my credit report the other day and was interested to see a credit card there from Natwest in a completely different name to mine. Not sure how they managed it, but Natwest got my name totally wrong from the form I filled in (apparently it was my fault - after 30 years I still haven't figured out my own name....typical!). Took months to get it put right, but I was rather interested to see the wrong name was still linked to my credit report. So they probably have made the connection.

Just bite the bullet and pay it off. It's only going to get worse if you leave it!

Dolly_Smith

don't worry about it but do pay it off quick - I just looked at my Next Directory bill and the apr is 26.49%!!

that's your top priority

CFC

Actually, it's not fraud unless you set out to deliberately defraud them. In this country you are allowed to use whatever name you want, and change it as frequently as you want, providing you are not doing it to defraud...

I'm not going to ask if it was deliberate young foolishness..I would rather assume that at that point, you didn't like your first name much and so were using your middle name and simply had forgotten about the first account :-)

If anyone asks, I'd think you'd probably tell them that....

As for paying it off via third party, I think that is best because of the massive interest they will slap onto the debt as soon as you poke your nose above the parapet...

notes

Not certain myself on this but.....

Next are a business. 99% of businesses are there to make money. If you pay off all money owed then why would they want to pursue it to court level which could cost them loads of money and they would get no return for it.

Anyway, im no expert but if the debts are paid off then surely they cant take you to civil court as they have nothing to claim. The only thing they could do if they believed it was fraud was to pass it on to police for possible criminal courts to deal with. Not sure about legality of using "any" name as surely a reasonable court may look at that as fraud as has been done twice ?
HOWEVER, if the amount is fully paid back before then I cant see it going that far. Im sure that the fact you paid it back BEFORE any one did anything about it will get you off any hooks .

Anyway, i think your worrying too much. From my understanding these companies have massive computer systems with loads of people on it - therefore id do as mentioned earlier. Get a "friend" to phone up and say that you are away at the moment, and you have been asked to pay off outstanding amounts for the account. If they ask where your "friend" is then say you dont know ! etc etc. Then pay amount off. Repeat process a bit later for the other account. And hopefully as the company has so many accounts you may be ok.