Advice please - how do I deal with this reply?

FinallyLearnt

I could do with some advice please.

I am in arrears with a payday loan and have sent them the letters saying not to phone me, and not to arrange a doorstep visit. I did write to them as well as email but haven't heard anything by post from them.

I had the following reply this morning (I've added my comments in red):


Thank you for your email. First of all I would like to remind you that when you took out the loan with us on the xxxx you entered into a contract in which you agreed to our terms & conditions. These include using the information you've provided to contact you & agreeing to pay back the balance at the rates we charge.

We can contact you by email but since you took over a week to respond to the last email we were forced to try & phone you. If you stay in communication with us we are happy to contact you by this method, but we do not operate through the post.

<Note - I did email them the same day with letters attached but they couldn't read the letters>

We reserve our right to contact you by telephone. S.10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 gives an individual the right to demand a company to remove details after a reasonable time according to the circumstances. You have only gone into arrears today & a creditor has the right to chase a debtor for monies owed for up to 6 years. Therefore you cannot enforce this against us.

<Surely that's not right? The bit about removing details, that is - I asked them to remove my phone numbers.>


I would like to remind you that you have been called on a total of 3 occasions since you took out the loan; twice to ask you how much you would like to pay, in order to make sure no unfair charges were added & once as a reminder that you were overdue to pay, neither of which constitutes harassment.

<I did remove the bit about harrassment from the letters I sent them>

The Office of Fair Trading Rules merely state that we cannot mislead through communication or fail to give you information about the debt. We can contact you at reasonable times (s.2). These rules also give permission for Debt Collectors to enter your home as long as they give you adequate notice of the visit (they do not need permission), although as we are not a debt collection agency, this doesn't relate to our practise.

<Their email yesterday said they may arrange a doorstep visit and I emailed to say I do not intend to make an appointment with them for this>



We will not freeze the interest on an account until we have either agreed a reasonable payment plan (in the circumstances) with a customer or have confirmation from a debt management company that we are on a list of creditors for an officially agreed debt management programme. Until we have this we will continue to attempt to contact you & collect funds, as well as the interest being added on a monthly basis. This is reasonable under to Office of Fair Trading Rules.

Therefore we cannot accept a personal list of income & expenditure details; we need confirmation of a debt management programme, in which we are included, from the company itself or a copy of a recent bank statement to show that you are experiencing financial difficulty.

<I thought OFT rules stated that they had to be prepared to deal with me as an individual and can't refuse to deal with me?>


There's a bit more as well but this is the main part of it.

Where do you suggest I go from here? I've read the thread "Dealing with Payday Loan Companies" and have changed bank account, and am trying to deal with these on my own.

dancingfairy

It's pretty much waffle and flannel from them as you know.
I'd email them and say basically I am paying x and will be paying on such and such a day each month. Many Thanks.
They aren't going to come to your house and if they did you can send them off with a flea in their ear as they have no legal rights unless they have gone to court and it's a proper court bailiff that turns up but that's not where you are at right now.
You can't make them accept your offer. Just pay them what you said when you said and get on with the rest of your life. Send them an email/letter every so often asking them to freeze interest. If they still refuse then follow their complants procedure. If you still don't get anywhere you can go to the ombudsman but it all takes time.
Best of Luck
df