advantis credit re: water rates

angelcakes_smw

I have just been contacted via telephone by Advantis Credit about an old water bill I have yet to pay off. He told me that the matter was 'urgent' and 'needed to be settled today, tomorrow is no good'. I offered to set up a payment plan of what I know is all I can afford at the moment which is £2.50 per month but he rejected the offer saying 'that isnt good enough, we wont accept that'. I know it is a very small amount but I am not in a position to be able to pay any more right now. When I asked 'so what do you want me to do?' he said 'make an acceptable payment arrangement'....I asked him 'which is?' and he just said again '£2.50 is unacceptable and if you dont make an acceptable arrangement you will incur further charges'. I am confused, he didnt tell me what he wanted me to pay other than the total balance which I cant do. Are they allowed to refuse payments and then charge me for it? I dont know what to do next. He also told me that it may go to court but it has already been to court, can they do this again for the same debt?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

podperson

You say the debt has been taken to court already so what was the outcome to this? Did they give you a repayment plan at the time and have you stuck to it? They can take you back to court if they can show that you haven't kept to what was agreed by the courts last time.
Don't speak to these people again by phone, tell them that you want everything in writing and I would also suggest sending them a letter asking them to prove that they are entitled to collect this debt.

angelcakes_smw

I dont even know what the outcome was as I was unable to be present as the court date because I had to move town in order to start university, they wouldnt reschedule at such short notice which I didnt think was fair. I was never informed of the outcome. Is there anyway that I can find out now? It only happened last september.

podperson

You could contact the court direct as they would have the information. Might also be worth asking them if you would have a case to get the ccj (I'm going to assume the creditor was granted one since you didn't defend) set aside since you were unable to attend and weren't given an option to pay by installments. I'm not an expert on that so might be worth doing a forum search as I know some people have been quite successful with it.

dancingfairy

I believe it depends on what the judgement was - if it said you had to pay immeadiately and you didn't apply to pay in installments then presumably they can go back to court to get the judgement enforced - otherwise what would be the point of a ccj if people just ignored them?
Check out National Debtline's website for useful factsheets and maybe give them a ring. Oh and I believe that for a fee (8 pounds?) you can check the registry trust online and it will tell you whether you have any CCJ's but getting a credit report and phoning the court may be cheaper.
df

dancingfairy

I would also say get them to write to you as anyone could phone up and say you owed them money for this that or the other - they may not even be allowed to collect the debt officially so they need to prove this to you.
df