Credit Resource Solutions - Help!!

rara879

Hi - I need some advice asap so would be grateful if you could help!

This is quite long so please bare with me!

My car insurance with Hastings Insurance was cancelled last year due to a missed payment. I was in hospital at the time and I know that was my fault but to be honest paying bills was the last thing on my mind. When I came out of hospital I phoned up to make the outstanding payment and also asked if they would re-instate the policy, however I was told it was too late. Nothing was mentioned about cancellation charges.

In February this year, a whole year later, I received a letter from Hastings Insurance stating that I need to pay £272.37 within 14 days. The letter didnt even tell me what it was for, it just said it related to policy no:____. It didnt say anything about it being a cancellation charge.
I was going on holiday the next day and when I phoned the number it was out of hours so I didnt have a chance to do anything about it.

By the time I got back off holiday two weeks later I was being sent texts and emails from Credit Resource Solutions telling me that I have an outstanding balance and I need to contact them asap. I totally ignored them as they didnt say what I had an outstanding balance for, didnt mention Hastings Insurance and I assumed if they were a legit company they would post me a letter, not text and email me.

I eventually called them when I was getting texts every couple of hours saying that they would be visiting my home the next day.
The woman I spoke to was so rude, and unhelpful. She just told me that I would know what it was for so she didnt need to give me details, that the amount had now gone up to £372.37 and if I couldnt pay the whole amount that day then my only options would be to make three payments of £100+ a month. I told her that I can only afford £10 a month and she told me in that case I would need to do an incomings and outgoings assessment with her. I have done one of these before and knew I didnt know any of the information she would want so told her that it would be better if I got the information and phoned her back but she insisted I did right then. I decided I would do it with rough estimates but when I was giving her amounts she kept saying "thats too high for one person". She clearly had no clue of the cost of living in London. She was so rude I ended up telling her I am ending the phone call and she told me if I didnt phone her back the next day I would have bailiffs at my house.

The next day I sent a letter by email to Hastings Insurance with a copy to Credit Resource Solutions. I also posted it by special delivery to Hastings Insurance. The letter basically said if I knew what the amount was for I would pay it and I refuse to speak to Credit Resource Solutions after the phone call I had the night before (which I detailed). I told them that if they responded in writing telling me what the amount was supposed to be for, I would immediately send them a payment of £10 and then make a payment of £10 every month after that until the amount of £272.37 (not £372.37!) was cleared as this is the most I could afford.

Three days later I received a letter from Credit Resource Solutions, posted first class but dated two weeks before I received it. I highly suspect that they wrote it after they received my letter. This letter tells me that the amount has arisen from cancellation of my insurance policy and £372.37 needs to be paid immediately. It also tells me not to contact Hastings direct as they administer my account on their behalf.
I have not received a response from Hastings Insurance.

What should I do? Should I not pay anything unless I hear back from Hastings Insurance? Can they do anything if I dont pay because they have ignored my letter? Can they even charge me that much if they cancelled my policy? Or should I make a payment of £10 to Credit Resource Solutions and make a payment of £10 every month until the debt is cleared? If I only pay £10 a month can they pursue me? Do I have to pay the extra £100 or can I just pay the £272.37? I point blank refuse to phone Credit Resource Solutions now and be spoken to like that so I will only deal with them in writing.

Can somebody please help me out as as you can see I dont have the slightest clue of what to do!

Thanks

lisyloo

I would suggest you post on the "dealing with debt" board.
There is a template letter that you can write telling them to only contact you in writing and that any other contact will be deemed harrassment under their licence and will be reported to trading standards the FSA etc. etc.

However it does look like you probably do owe some money for cancellation.

Jenny253

I have just had a similar thing happen to me. Out of the blue i got a letter from CRS stating that i owe Hastings £320. I had no idea what for as i cancelled my insurance policy last year as i lost my job and couldnt afford to run my car.

However, my experience with CRS was completely the opposite to what happened above. I can only assume that you got off on the wrong foot with the telephonist and vented your anger at the cancellation charge to the person on the end of the fone.

Firstly, when i called in, i spoke to a polite female who advised me that there are cancellation charges with most insurance companies nowadays including Hastings and this is was for. She offered to hold the account whilst i checked and confirmed these cancellation charges for myself. She held the account for 7 days for me and i checked the t&c's and she was correct. 7 days later i got a txt from CRs so i called them and i was asked to pay the debt over 3 months which i couldn't do as im still unemployed. "No Problem" was the girl's response and i had to do an income and expenditure with her so i could set up a reduced payment. A couple of minutes into the call my calling credit ran out and the nice girl called my back straight away. After doing my i/e she set me up on a payment plan of £16.46 per month as opposed to the £100 odd they originally wanted which is great.

This is my first ever experience of a debt company and i found CRS very helpful.

I have looked at other comments about CRS on this website and comments seem to be written by angry people. I guess if you get off on the wrong foot with any company like this then the person on the end of the fone is less likely to help you and when you owe companies money and cant pay, you need every bit of help you can get.

TSx

It's very rare someone registers just to provide a compliment about a debt collection agency.

Making the massive leap of faith that you've posted a genuine instance of contacting them, rather than assume that this is the OP's fault for 'getting off on the wrong foot with the telephonist' - it could equally be that the agent who took the call was having a bad day, perhaps she hadn't met her targets and felt the need to pressurise the OP.

OP, I'd take the advice of others and post in the debt-free board, they have much more experience of debt collection and it's not really an insurance issue.

Quentin

TSx wrote: »

It's very rare someone registers just to provide a compliment about a debt collection agency.....

Even rarer to find someone so good as to find a dormant thread 15 months old to use for their maiden post!!

Jenny253

Im not sure what you mean by "someone just registering to compliment a DCA".

When i got a letter from CRS the first thing i did was look them up on Google and this post is near the top and was specifically relevant to my situation with Hastings, albeit the OP had the problem many months before me.

I guess you are right that the telephonist could also have been having an off day.

What baffles me is that CRS' letter came out of the blue many months after i cancelled my policy. I had heard nothing from Hastings which is what prompted me to look on the internet to see if CRS was some kind of scam which is what brought me to this page.

Anyhow, my situation has turned out ok but what i do think is a total rip-off is the fact that i have to pay a cancellation charge for my insurance policy. I wasnt told this up front and i wonder how many others have been stung this way. Whats even more frustrating is that i had to cancel my policy because i couldn't afford to pay it so i got hit with more charges.

Insurance companies are just legalized robbers.

Quentin

Jenny253 wrote: »

Im not sure what you mean by "someone just registering to compliment a DCA".

When i got a letter from CRS the first thing i did was look them up on Google and this post is near the top and was specifically relevant to my situation with Hastings......

Maybe something wrong with your google - I went through the first 5 pages for "CRS" and no mention of this thread (despite you lifting it from its slumbers to compliment them!)

TSx

In fairness, a search for "Credit Resource Solutions" does come up with this as the second result (or one of the second results, there's a few MSE topics shown)

Rosielorraine

I Keep Getting calls For someone I've never heard of. I've tried ignoring them then today they calls and i didn't realise it was them so i tried telling them they had the wrong number but they put the phone down before I'd finished.

what can i do i thought about emailing them says to stop but i dont know if thats a good idea help help help

forgotmyname

This topic is only near the top of the search because its been updated recently.

If it hadn't it would have been pages down the search.