Capital One Default

openforever

Hi everyone!

Sorry if this isn't in the right place... I've also looked at a lot of old answers, but I've read so much that I'm confused. It'd be great to get some help.

I've fallen behind on Capital One payments, and I've just received a Statement of Default (not a warning) for £2,000. It's time to get my head out of the sand and sort this, so I rang Capital One. They've passed the debt to Cougar and say I should ring them to take things further.

What should I do now? Should I ring Cougar and arrange a repayment plan? I've heard that I shouldn't deal with Cougar, but only Capital One... Is that right? Capital One is my only debtor, incase that's important. Also, what happens to interest on the debt? I guess I still have to pay this each month?

Could you also give me some info on how bad this default is for my credit record? It's obviously not great, but I'd like to know what it really means for my future. Once this is sorted, I'd like to repair my rating as much as possible.

I'm quite worried at the moment, so some answers would be great!

Thanks so much.

Oddsociety

Hi, in my experience with capital one, I have a default notice on my credit report from 3 years ago. I had a 2000 limit but only a debt of £235.89 or something like that. I switched accounts to Barclays and used their transfer DD service. I had minimum payments set up so thought nothing of it. 2 months later I moved home, and forgot all about capital one when changing address. 1 year later I get a debt recovery letter demanding 235. I called capital one who told me they had closed my account and recorded it as default, I needed to call debt collectors.
I explained the situation but were most unhelpful. I paid the 235 to the company, and tried twice to have the default removed from credit file with no such luck. All I could do was ask experience to make a note. I have never missed a payment on any of my other credit accounts but this one default for 235 has cost me. Cannot get a mortgage, a 3000 loan I got from Barclays is 26% interest.
And after 1 year of having a Barclaycard my interest rate went from 18% to 29.9%. I had only used it twice!
I count down the days that the default leaves my credit report, 1055 days remain! Haha

fatbelly

openforever wrote: »

I've fallen behind on Capital One payments, and I've just received a Statement of Default (not a warning) for £2,000. It's time to get my head out of the sand and sort this, so I rang Capital One. They've passed the debt to Cougar and say I should ring them to take things further.

What should I do now? Should I ring Cougar and arrange a repayment plan? I've heard that I shouldn't deal with Cougar, but only Capital One... Is that right? Capital One is my only debtor, incase that's important. Also, what happens to interest on the debt? I guess I still have to pay this each month?

Could you also give me some info on how bad this default is for my credit record? It's obviously not great, but I'd like to know what it really means for my future. Once this is sorted, I'd like to repair my rating as much as possible.

I think Cougar is an in-house debt collector. You deal with them but we would recommend doing so in writing.

If you have surplus income, then a repayment plan is an option. National Debtline have some useful tools here:

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/debt_advice.php#3

The default will affect how your credit file is viewed and will stay on file for 6 years. On the positive side it should be (relatively) easy now to get charges and interest stopped so that you can get debt free.

fermi

fatbelly wrote: »

I think Cougar is an in-house debt collector.

They are external as far as I'm aware? These people: https://www.creditsolutions.co.uk They just do one hell of a lot of the outsourced [STRIKE]harassment[/STRIKE] debt collection for CrapOne.

fatbelly

You're right. I thought the address looked familiar, and it's familiar as it is also the address for CSL. It's external but advice still applies.

openforever

Thanks for the information!

So I should just ring them up (Cougar), tell them what I can afford each month, and work out a plan?

How about getting the charges and interest stopped? Do I have to ask for this? Is there some other process to follow?

Thanks again.

openforever

One more question. I've been reading around about the default notice, and sometimes it seems possible to make removal of the default notice a part of a repayment plan.

Is this likely to be possible with Cougar?

Thanks!

happy_bunny_2

openforever wrote: »

Thanks for the information!

So I should just ring them up (Cougar), tell them what I can afford each month, and work out a plan?

How about getting the charges and interest stopped? Do I have to ask for this? Is there some other process to follow?

Thanks again.

All in writing, never by phone as they will say things they will never put in writing.

happy_bunny_2

openforever wrote: »

One more question. I've been reading around about the default notice, and sometimes it seems possible to make removal of the default notice a part of a repayment plan.

Is this likely to be possible with Cougar?

Thanks!

Very unlikely. Slim chance if you paid all in one go but even then unlikely.

happy_bunny_2

And never give them your card or bank account details. Ask for theirs to pay by standing order. They may say they don't accept it, but they have to and if they put that in writing that's in the bank for later if t ever went to court.

Graham2704

These web sites helped me out a lot and Very useful

1) legalbeagle

2)consumer action group

Good luck
Graham