Optima Legal

discodriver

I see from a previous thread that several people had threatening letters from this company about two to three weeks ago. I had one concerning an MBNA account, and as we are already in a DMP with CCCS I contacted Optima to inform them of the details. Couldn't get an answer on the phone as it was constantly engaged for over an hour and I had to go to work, so I emailed the bod, one Masud Mahmood, as instructed, with the details. Had an "Out-of-Office" reply saying he'd be away until 28th, so I copied the email to the collections department as instructed, receiving no reply. Also gave CCCS the new contact to transfer the payments over, although they probably had no more succes than I did.
Rather distressed therefore to receive a court summons today, 26th, issued due to my failure to contact them! I'll get on to CCCS on Monday to see if they can help, but it all seems a bit OTT. Anyone else had any hassle from this company? Obviously in retrospect I should have sent a registered letter or similar, but we've had several instances of debts being transferred between companies recently and all have gone smoothly.
Any advice welcome, still trying to calm the OH down after she took the letter from the postie!

DVardysShadow

Not an expert on this, but it looks like the basic approach would be to apply to have the matter stayed, postponed or adjourned or even thrown out

The grounds for this are that you complied with their request to contact them and emailed Mahmood as requested and by other means. Original letter from Optima with instruction and out of office reply come in handy here. And that in consequence Optima are not facilitating attempts to resolve pretrial.

discodriver

Thanks, been wading through the 20-odd pages of Scottish legalese issued by the local Sheriff Court and it seems there is procedure to do this...
All seems a bit unnecessary. Hoping the CCCS team will be up on their Scottish Law when I call them on Monday!