Arrow Global court claim on 8 year old debt

alfie35

Hi, I have just received a small claims court form from Arrow Global for a debt that I believe was over 8 years ago. I have been online to complete the acknowledgment of service and just to check that this was real, and then have been doing some searching as to if or how I can query this order. There are a couple of flaws in the paperwork that I have picked up which is what makes me wonder how or where they got their information. Firstly it has my husband down at a different address, which we haven't lived at for over 4 years, and the date it says I took the contract out is wrong. Reason I know this is that since my youngest was born I have not taken out any credit apart from HP for a car purchase, she is almost 8! I regularly check my credit file (with checkmyfile.com) and last month there was nothing showing with regards to this supposed debt, but when I have been on today and updated it, this is now showing on there. It is listed as a default from 2008. I don't know how best to deal with this, as I am positive that this debt is from at least 8 years ago, so if I contact Arrow will that show as me making a contact thus ruining any chance of this debt being statute barred?? Any advice would be most appreciative as I don't know what to do next. I have 14 days now to file my defence to the court to stop any CCJ I presume.

matttye

Once a debt is statute barred it cannot be unbarred, even by you acknowledging or making payments towards it.

The age of the debt is irrelevant - it's whether there has ever been a gap of six years where you have neither acknowledged that you owe the debt nor paid it that's important.

How did you pay before, was it by direct debit? You could print out your bank statements from when the last payment was made to present to show you have made no further payments and you should be able to defend it on the basis of it being statute barred.

rizla_king

Arrow nearly always reapply defaults to make things seem more recent than they are.

alfie35

when I was making payments it was into the branch itself I believe but its been that long I don't remember. The branch here shut down a very long time ago, and I have looked into that too but can't find out when it closed. With regards to the court claim, I have completed the acknowledgement of service online, and am in the process of compiling a letter requesting any documentation they hold, would this be the correct way of going about it? I was originally going to send an SB letter, but with the time frame I have to complete my defence in I didn't think that was the best way. Can anyone tell me if this is right? I do actually have an appointment with CAB next week but was worried that I won't be able to complete things in time if I hang on till then.:eek:

happy_bunny_2

I'm no expert here, but I think you would file a defence that the debt is statute barred end of. It's up to them to prove it isn't.

Is it more than 6 years since you paid or acknowledged debt in writing?

After that, you can complain to get the default date corrected or in your case removed. To the debt owner in the first instance hen the FOS. Also the OFT as making the default more recent to suit themselves is out of order.