Littlewoods Catalogue Debt

tony2347

I have a Littlewoods catalogue debt of about £1200 which is now in the hands of Reliance collections. They now charge interest on the money outstanding aswell as late payment fees. I phoned them and came to an arrangement of £20 a month but they still added intertest which came to more than the £20. Are they allowed to do this ? The original debt with Littlewoods there was no interest and I haven't signed any credit agreement

happy_bunny_2

When did you take out the account?
Ask for your credit agreement by sending them a £1 postal order and don't sign the letter. Send it to the dca.

If they can't supply one you will be in a stronger bargaining position as long as you are not too fussed about your credit rating.

chalkie99

I suspect you did actually sign a credit agreement when you bought the goods, although, perhaps, you never went through the small print and realised this.

From your post I am assuming you bought goods on the basis that you can spread the payments over a 20 week period interest free or possibly larger items over a greater number of weeks on the same basis.

From the Littlewoods terms and conditions:

It is important you pay each minimum payment when it is due. If you don’t you will incur account charges. Details of these are set out in the information sheet and agreement

and:

If you fall behind with your payments, we reserve the right to impose a charge to cover the cost of any action we may take.

These are extracts from this page:

http://www.littlewoods.com/help/en/privacy-terms.page#how-it-works

which contains much more detail.

In short, once you have failed the agreed payment schedule, charges kick in.

Apples2

tony2347 wrote: »

but they still added intertest which came to more than the £20. Are they allowed to do this ?

Unfortunately yes they are. An arrangement to pay is to give you some breathing space until you get back on your feet and contact them to "up" your payments.

A lot of companies will agree to freeze the interest if things are that dire. Have you requested they freeze the interest? If not, do so. They aren't obligated to agree but it is common for the interest to be frozen so you have nothing to lose.

This arrangement to pay is also having a severely detrimental effect on your credit file, I hope that was explained to you.
It may be worth checking your credit file to see what effect it is having already. The chances of further credit is diminishing every day and will effect you for the next 6yrs or more whilst you are falling behind.

There is always a heavy price to pay when you break the terms of the agreement.

The original debt with Littlewoods there was no interest and I haven't signed any credit agreement

I'm not sure I see where you are going with this comment. Surely you understood you simply cannot obtain £1200 worth of goods and simply repay at your leisure?