Egg loan sold on to debt agency...?!

Madsy11

Hi

Total newbie to this so please forgive me if this is covered elsewhere and I have completely missed it!

In short, I've had an Egg loan since the early 2000s. I defaulted once in 2007 (very bad time in my personal life and my debt was the last thing on my mind) but after that I had an arrangement to pay and have paid regularly and on time since mid 2007.

I recently moved house and forgot to update my address with Egg. I take this on the chin as it was totally my own fault - I had other things going on. However the new tenants in my old place have kindly been forwarding on my mail...

I received a letter today from a company called Apex, saying I owed them lots of money, that I hadn't paid anything towards my Egg loan and that they were going to have to send 'field agents' for a 'home visit'. I was totally shocked, so I called Egg immediately and spoke to a very rude man who refused/couldn't discuss it with me and told me to call the agency.

Spoke to a lovely chap at Apex who informs me that his company have 'bought' my debt from Egg. He said this was the 8th letter they have sent and that a letter was sent to me in November 2010 (shortly after I moved) to tell me what was going on, then they had made 6 other attempts to contact me before this letter... I've received any other bits of mail I was expecting so no idea if they really did write and the new tenants didn't forward it, or if they just didn't write, who knows. Tis done now! They had been receiving my payments and I now have an arrangement to pay them directly rather than via Egg, who it appears aren't interested.

Apex will apparently check in with me every 3 months to "go through my finances" see if I can pay them any more!

My questions are...
Do I have to give them any information about my earnings and whatnot so they can work out what I can afford to pay? I pay what I can, I don't choose to remain in debt if I can help it and quite honestly I don't want a random company knowing all my business...

Secondly, I had no idea that companies could sell on debt, how is that OK?! And is there anything I should watch out for?

This company have been checking my credit file, they said they verified my old address as my current address (FAIL) and I know there's records of their searches, but is this likely to have affected my credit rating, as I HAVE been making payments, just not to them?!

All help very gratefully received - I am slowly but surely digging myself out of debt, not missed a payment on anything in 3 years but still my credit rating sucks... maybe this is why?1

Fankoo

[Deleted User]

i wouldnt imagine you have much of a credit rating if you defaulted on this loan 4 years ago
yes they can sell debt
and yes if they accept reduced payments they can ask you to update your situation on a regular basis,if you fail to do this they may stop the arrangement and demand full payment...your choice

redpete

What's happened to the money you have been paying Egg between Nov 2010 and now?

paddyrg

There's some untangling to be done here, but as far as I can see you say Egg sold the debt at some point despite being paid? What a mess. Did you actually default on the loan in 2007, or just late payment (which I suspect is what you mean if they have been accepting payments for the following 3 yrs?)? Why did Egg think you stopped paying them in Nov 2010? Did you have a direct debit? What happened to those payments? Or when you moved, did you stop paying?

Madsy11

Thanks for your responses guys I shall try and answer your questions...

Firstly, all the money I have been paying has still been reaching them, phew. As I understand it, this agency took over my account on 17th November, so the December, January and February payments I had made to Egg (via standing order) got passed to them - they confirmed on the phone that they had received them. I have now set up a SO to pay Apex directly and cancelled the Egg one.

The letter from Apex said that I had been failing to make payments, which is a total lie because I had and they confirmed that they had been receiving the payments. The chap I spose to there said they put that in the letter because I didn't have an arrangement with them - so despite my having had an arrangement with Egg for several years, that doesn't seem to apply to this new company. I have now set up an arrangement with this company for the same amount, and they were happy with that and said it was a reasonable amount against the debt owed.

Egg sold my loan on despite my paying it regularly. In 2007 I had a bit of a personal crisis and started using a debt management company, who instructed me NOT to pay Egg for a couple of months whilst they sorted our arrangements to pay. Hence there not being a payment on the account. I checked my credit history on Equifax and it shows one payment late in March 2007, a default in April 2007, and there are no records after that despite my making regular payments. The debt management company set up an arrangement with Egg and from May 2007 I have regularly paid them and haven't missed one. I started managing my own accounts again in 2009, got in touch with them all and set up my own payment arrangements/direct debits etc.

If Egg are allowed to just sell on any old loan they like, then fair enough. I still owe the money no matter which company it's to, but Egg have refused to explain to me why they sold it on and that grates me a little

CHR15

I would imagine Egg sold it because you were making reduced payments and not the payments iaw the original agreement.

If they considered what you were paying was too little, they would be encumbered with your reduced payments for a very long time so decided to cut their losses.

I doubt you would get a satisfactory answer to that question from Egg, loans are little more than business assets, they can be passed between companies the same as tangeable goods can be bought and sold between companies.

Your debt is little more than numbers on the Company spreadsheets.

paddyrg

If Apex now accept your only error was not updating the address Egg held on file for you, and that you are being a very reasonable payer, ask them about dropping any extra charges they made for multiple letters/etc - you clearly were not trying to dodge the debt!