Advice re DCA's

iwannabeasaver

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice re DCA's and their charges.

My sister had a debt of £6700 sold to a DCA this week. It was a shock as she was expecting to be given a chance to pay the creditor, but they sold the debt on before giving her a chance to pay it. She is going to borrow the money from family, and can therefore pay the DCA in full straight away, but none of us has ever dealt with a DCA before, and we would like to get an impression of the kind of charges/interest etc... that are likely to be added to the debt by the agency.

I've done some searching on google but haven't found anything so far.

Can anyone advise?

Thanks.

fatbelly

None.

If the balance is not what she recognises she should ask for evidence that they had a contractual right to add whatever that was...and then offer no more than the original balance in full and final settlement.

It's often a good thing that the debt is sold on. Are you sure that it was sold (assigned) to the DCA, not just passed to them for collection? If so, it would have changed hands for 6 to 16% of the balance figure. Is she sure that she wants to contribute to their profits in this way?

If she will be paying the family back over a period of time, what is the advantage over paying the DCA over a period of time?

iwannabeasaver

Thanks for the response fatbelly, much appreciated.

The DCA haven't been in touch yet, so she hasn't had a figure from them directly. She was worried that if the debt had been sold there would be charges/interest on top of the original debt.

It's a very long story behind the debt, and I don't have all the information from my sister, but it seemed strange that the company would write to her (just over a week ago) to tell her the figure she owes one day and the very next day they say they'd sold the debt. It would seem more likely that it's been passed to an agency for collection rather than actually sold. At least we hope so

Thanks again.