Wescot/Lloyds debt

Jobey84

Hello fellow forum peeps.

I am in need of a bit of friendly advice regarding money/debts.

I have been toing-and-frowing with the infamous Westcot via letter for a few months (never rang or emailed them), ever since I received a red demand letter from them, stating that they were chasing a debt originating from Lloyds TSB. Long story short, after complaining about the threatening nature of their letter and denying any knowledge of the debt (for whatever reason I never received anything from Lloyds saying I owed them money) I asked Westcot to prove the debt before I would consider paying anything.

I have this morning received a letter, along with some lloyds bank statements, showing that the debt originates from an old current account that I had thought was closed ages ago following the full and final payment of a lloyds loan that I had taken out. Now, it seems I do/did owe some money to Lloyds (according to the bank statements (which I had never seen before today) as I ate into my overdraft in Nov 2012 to the sum of £147.78). However, before the debt was transferred to Westcot on 19 March 2013, Lloyds also seem to have added various charges - the worst of which is an £80 unauthorised overdraft fee. However, at the top of the statement it says that my authorised overdraft was £200, so I'm not sure how it was classified as 'unauthorised'. Anyway, now I'm not sure what to do. I would be happy to pay back the amount that I originally owed to Lloyds before the various charges (£147.78), but I don't feel the charges are fair (the total sum of the debt (overdraft plus all charges etc) is £248.62).

Do I go back to Westcot and try to explain this, or do I try and contact Lloyds directly. I would expect Lloyds just to say the issue is no longer theirs as they have passed the debt to Westcot.

Apologies if any of the above isn't clear, please let me know if you need any more info and any advice, guidance would be great.

Cheers

Tixy

Hi

Are you able to pay this off in a lump sum? or will you need to pay in installments?

You could write to westcott to offer a reduced full & final settlement to the debt. You may want to include a statement that you do not agree with the charges added on to the debt. This may be a quicker/easier resolution.

Info and template letter here - http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=24_full_and_final_settlement_offers

Alternatively you could write to dispute the charges with westcot. In terms of the unauthorised overdraft fee - I'd guess at some point lloydsrecalled the overdraft and that the fee was applied after that point.

FireWyrm

I would go directly to LLoyds. They are the ones you have/had the financial relationship with. Westcot are a bunch of sharks and are unlikely to give a monkeys about whether the charges were fair or not let alone be able to amend them.

If you dont think the charges are fair, then write to Lloyds enclosing a copy of the letter (and the one from Westcott) and state your case. With a bit of luck, you'll have some or all of it written off, especially as you say there was a full and final payment to Lloyds in there somewhere!

Ignore Westcot for now unless you see court proceedings, in which case you'll have to take pro-active measures and tell them to scoot off because you dispute the debt.