Clearing my debts

stufalkirk

Hello people!

This is my first time post after being a long time lurker. I have been quietly sorting out my finances, when I was 19/20/21 I went mental, credit cards, HP, loans, further loans. Since then I have been creditless and it took a couple years before I started making inroads in to the mess.

I have dropped from £17,000 debt to £9,000 debt within a year and a half, down to me having a good stable job and a good stable head these days. I have three questions:

1) One debt - with T-Mobile of £400.00. I stopped making payments to them in July 2009, however a default was not served until March 2011. Am I right in saying this default should have been served within 6 months of missing my first payment? If so this would have a big impact on when it would fall off my credit file!

2) A second debt - Welcome Financial Services of £6,750. I stopped making payments to them in July 2008 but they have never served a default notice (it is shown as 6 months arrears). How should I play this one? There is no sign of them becoming statute barred because the account is still "Open" as such.

3) For my remaining debts which I am now planning to pay (I have been paying one debt off at a time, usually in full). They have all defaulted, mostly for less than £500. Could I contact the lender and negotiate them removing the default notice from my file in exchange for full and immediate payment?

I understand this is a lot of questions but it really would help me plan clearing off the final debts. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Stuart

rizla_king

1) Yes, they should have.
2) Should also have defaulted that. There are some threads on the DFW board about getting wrongful 6 payments in arrears corrected.
3) Yes. Rare for them to agree to that. But no harm trying.

stufalkirk

rizla_king wrote: »

1) Yes, they should have.
2) Should also have defaulted that. There are some threads on the DFW board about getting wrongful 6 payments in arrears corrected.
3) Yes. Rare for them to agree to that. But no harm trying.

Thanks for the quick reply - can I send T-Mobile a letter asking for this to be corrected?

ValHaller

rizla_king wrote: »

1) Yes, they should have.
2) Should also have defaulted that. There are some threads on the DFW board about getting wrongful 6 payments in arrears corrected.
3) Yes. Rare for them to agree to that. But no harm trying.

If nothing has been paid since July 2008, then it will become SB in July 2014. More trouble than it is worth to get the wrongful payments put right until after that ....

rizla_king

ValHaller wrote: »

If nothing has been paid since July 2008, then it will become SB in July 2014. More trouble than it is worth to get the wrongful payments put right until after that ....

Very true.

Thrugelmir

stufalkirk wrote: »

3) For my remaining debts which I am now planning to pay (I have been paying one debt off at a time, usually in full). They have all defaulted, mostly for less than £500. Could I contact the lender and negotiate them removing the default notice from my file in exchange for full and immediate payment?

You can, though this will also leave a partial settlement marker against the account. This will itself remain on file for a further 6 years.

Defaulting on debt does come at a personal cost in some form. Particularly when it comes to mortgage applications where screening of credit history data is very particular.

sultryabyss

Hi Stufalkirk,

I am in exactly the same predicament, I went mad with credit in my late teens and now I'm paying for it, I have managed to clear a large amount of my debts but the one I am concerned about it for Welcome Finance.

I believe mine is due to be statute barred in January - as I believe that was when the last payment was made 6 years ago to the month.

I'm keen to know as to whether you will pay for the debt or you plan or waiting for it to become statute barred?

stufalkirk

Thanks for the replies.

Will the Welcome Finance debt be SB though? As it shows as the account is still open?

In response to paying the Welcome Finance debt - my opinion of Welcome is extremely low. I got into payment difficulties with them and they started appearing at my door (no problem with that - I owed them a lot of money!) but when they start asking my neighbours if they have seen me because I "owe them almost 7 grand" - that is bang out of order.

They were also hand delivering letters saying they had been to see me but I wasn't there - then charging a £50 "visit fee" - even though I was adamant nobody had been to my door. I then set up a CCTV camera at my front door and it shows one guy standing at the end of my drive, the other guy sneaking up my drive then putting the letter slowly through my letter box then leaving. I confronted the manager with this and she said the guy no longer worked for the company and funnily enough I've never been chased since!