Barclays Debt

Red_Man_2

Hi, I'm presuming this is the right place this query.

Around November 2008 I took out a £5000 loan with Barclays to pay for a plumbing course, arranged through the college, which I have now completed.

After finishing the course I found near on impossible to find gainful employment, so was forced into working for free to gain the vital experience, and the even more vital Gas Safe portfolio.

Sadly this left me unable to pay my loan. This coupled with the fact I left my home (Mortgage) to move back with parents (Split with partner) meant I was receiving no mail from Barclays.

I've now gained a well paying job starting on Monday, after nearly 2 years of working for nothing, and finally feel as though I'm in a place to pay my debts. Coincidentally this morning, i receive a call from Apex Credit Co, saying I now owe in excess of £10,000 to Barclays.

The first year of this loan had no payments, and i weren't to make my first payment until October 09, at around 29% APR

Sadly I just had no capacity to pay anything during the last year, and stupidly ignored the knowledge that I would need to pay it back eventually.

Anyway, there is a brief rundown of events.

So, Apex firstly asked me how I would be paying the £10,000 today, which was comical to say the least, once I made the operator understand I didn't have a spare £10,000 hanging around the house, he seemed to hint that they would accept a much smaller sum, yet still in the thousands, but sadly I don't have any disposable cash at the moment, with only starting work on Monday.

I told him I am likely to be able to pay £50 per week, but will not agree to any repayment plan until i receive a full breakdown on how I have incurred an extra £5000+ in charges/interest.

I'm basically just asking for any advice on what else I should be doing!? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated, be it lowering the debt, or handling it in the most effective way.

Many thanks again, and if you need anymore information from me, feel free to ask.

HappyMJ

I have no idea why DCA's double the original debt then make it feel like they are doing you a favour by accepting the original amount. Very annoying....that's my rant

NorthernLas

You have done the right thing asking for a breakdown of charges and interest. It should give you proof that they are actually assigned to collect this debt.

I would check your credit rating to see if the loan has been registered against you (there is info on how to do this in the debt problems article). If you have a default through non payment, it should tell you whether the debt is still with Barclays or has been bought by the DCA. I am not sure if the DCA is allowed to charge interest when they have bought the debt.

Red_Man_2

They did tell me when they called that the debt was still with Barclays, but they had been instructed to carry out the collection.