Newbie Help - Mackenzie Hall letter with Ref Numbers!

claire6069

Hi All

I'm new posting on here but have used a lot of your advice from the forums in the past and its worked well. Now however, i'm a little stuck and need some help!!

In my younger days, I racked up a lot of debt (about 17-18k by the time I was 20, i'm now 27 and the remaining debts come to the 6 year mark next august so i'm in for a fun year!!).

The past 3-4 weeks I've received letters from Mackenzie Hall with my name on it and asking for clarification that I live here. As soon as I got the first letter, I googled them and realised to leave them well alone. I received 2 more letters exactly the same and ignored them.

Today however, I came home to find a letter with reference numbers, an owed amount and the original creditor. I checked on my credit file and it is exactly 12 months away from the infamous 6 year deadline.

Here is the letter:

Dear Miss Claire6069

Despite previous correspondences you have failed to respond. We have obtained this alternative address as a financial link, linking this address to the previous abode. This financial link information was supplied by a credit reference agency.

We have been instructed by our client to recover this Overdue Account on their behalf.

Our clients have informed us that they are unaware of any legitimate reason for non-payment of their account and although they would prefer an amicable settlement, they will not hesitate to take further action as may be appropriate.

We trust that this will not be necessary and would request that you send your payment by the deadline below:

Payment Deadline: Noon, 2nd August 2013

Then it says if I've forwarded payment contact them etc.

Bear in mind that this letter is dated 26th July, I received it today, leaving 48 hours to pay £427.81 when I only have £14.83 in my bank account lol

Please help, what do I do?! is there a way of putting them off for like a year?! I've heard they are menaces on the phone and that you must write to them only but what do I write?!

Any advice welcome..........thank you

[Deleted User]

seems they have caught up with you and its time to cough up
only option is to contact them and arrange to make sensible repayments

pauletruth

with a year to go you can drag it out.
1 you could just ignore them.
2 as them to prove the debt followed by a cca request.
3 after 5 years with no ccj then its very unlikely that they will go for one.

however if your in scotland its barred now.

you could if you get the money together offer 40% of the sum and they will probably settle for 50%. don't phone them you will regret it if you do. and dont feel guilty over them they are not nice people. up to you what you do

[Deleted User]

Yes, you can drag it out. Very unlikely to apply for a ccj given the amount of debt. Return to sender next time they write. You'll become adept at googling the senders po box on the reverse of the envelope. I had them chasing me for a long time, and made it through to the statute barred date by just saying 'addressee not recognised, return to sender'. You would have to respond if it was a ccj application from the court, but otherwise just send it back.

claire6069

hi all
many thanks for your replies!
I received 2 more letters after this initial post so sent them a 'prove it' letter (template from here)
they have responded with 2 screen prints (very crude ones may I say!) one stating my name, address contact details at the time etc and the other stating my employment status and amount earned. they are dated October 2007, and the employer on the form is correct for who I was working for at the time, however, my annual income is completely wrong and not only that, I was on maternity leave in October 2007 so I was not technically in full time employment as stated on this crude screen print.
they have given me 10 days to respond. any ideas on what to do next please?

matttye

claire6069 wrote: »

hi all
many thanks for your replies!
I received 2 more letters after this initial post so sent them a 'prove it' letter (template from here)
they have responded with 2 screen prints (very crude ones may I say!) one stating my name, address contact details at the time etc and the other stating my employment status and amount earned. they are dated October 2007, and the employer on the form is correct for who I was working for at the time, however, my annual income is completely wrong and not only that, I was on maternity leave in October 2007 so I was not technically in full time employment as stated on this crude screen print.
they have given me 10 days to respond. any ideas on what to do next please?

Do these screen prints have any details about the alleged debts on them? Or just your personal info?

If they only have your personal information and not statements of account, reply saying something like,

"Thank you for your letter of (date), in which you provided screen prints of my personal information.

I await details of the alleged debt as requested in my letter of (date)."

claire6069

hi
thanks for the speedy reply!

they are literally screen prints of my personal details in an application form then at the bottom of the second one it says 'final decision - approved' and the date. no signatures from either party, check boxes confirming t&c's agreed to and no amount stated either.

it looks like something I could make up myself on the pc!

matttye

claire6069 wrote: »

hi
thanks for the speedy reply!

they are literally screen prints of my personal details in an application form then at the bottom of the second one it says 'final decision - approved' and the date. no signatures from either party, check boxes confirming t&c's agreed to and no amount stated either.

it looks like something I could make up myself on the pc!

They could have filled in the application form themselves - that doesn't prove anything.

Send them back the letter I suggested, as they haven't actually shown anything that proves you owe the amount they're asking for.

claire6069

I don't know if this helps but my prove it letter was sent on 2nd August - they replied last week - letter dated 19.10.13 - doesn't this go against the 12+2 rule??

claire6069

matttye wrote: »

They could have filled in the application form themselves - that doesn't prove anything.

Send them back the letter I suggested, as they haven't actually shown anything that proves you owe the amount they're asking for.

thank you for your advice. I will do that tomorrow

matttye

claire6069 wrote: »

I don't know if this helps but my prove it letter was sent on 2nd August - they replied last week - letter dated 19.10.13 - doesn't this go against the 12+2 rule??

As far as I know that's for CCA requests rather than proof of debt requests.

Incidentally, given that they took all this time to reply and they haven't provided a credit agreement, it sounds like they don't have one.

Sending a screenshot of an application form is pretty desperate if you ask me. Seems like they have very limited documentation.

Just the proof of debt letter is fine for now though - you asked for proof, and they replied, but didn't reply proof. So you basically just need to write back to them saying 'thanks but can I actually have that proof I asked for now?' - that's basically what my previously suggested letter is saying.