full & final settlement offer -Morecroft

littlemissbrooke

Hi!

I have an outstanding debt with Santander credit card for £3341.35. This has been past on to Moorecroft Debt recovery agency. The last payment to santander was roughly April 2012.

I have been receiving letters from morecroft since January 2014, but to be honest I have been ignoring them as I was concentrating on paying off another debt (which I have successfully done !)

So this outstanding debt with santander is my next to sort. This week I received a letter from morecroft stating that 'they have been informed by santander that they may be able to offer you a substantial discount from your outstanding balance. This means if you are able to pay an acceptable lump sum within an agreed time frame we will not pursue the remaining balance of the debt. Any relevant entry on your credit file will be shown as partially satisfied for 6 years from the date of your original default.

They have asked I make them in offer my phoning them. (I will try to deal with them in writing only)

Anyway my questions are.
1. Is this too good to be true? should i make them an offer. I was about to contact them and offer them 100£ per month anyway to repay the whole debt.
2. How much should i offer them?
3. Has anyone else had similar experience with them.

Many thanks for taking time to read this; sorry it’s so long winded!

LMB

sourcrates

Hi,
DCA`s offer "substantial" discounts for various reasons, either they only paid pennies for it, so can afford to take a quick few bucks, or there may be problems with its enforceability, maybe no paperwork, think very carefully before responding, how old is the debt ?
Does it pre-date April 2007 ?


Have you asked for proof of the debt at all ?

littlemissbrooke

Hi Sourcrates,

Thanks for taking time to reply.

The credit card was opened around spring time 2007. the payment I made was in 2012.
When you asked about proof of the debt do you mean asking them to prove that they are acting on behalf of santander?

Orginally I had been receiving letters from fredickson international, which i ignored. when i eventually contacted fredickson they said they had returned the account to santander, shortly after this moorecroft appeared.

sourcrates

If I were you I would make a CCA request to Moorcroft, if your account originates from before April 2007, then they have to send you a copy of your original agreement, signed, and it must include all the prescribed terms applicable to that account, all within the same document, after April 2007 the rules changed slightly and creditors could send a reconstituted version, which did not need to be signed, so the dates are important here.


They cant obtain a CCJ against you if they do not send you a properly executed agreement, the fact they are offering you a large discount sounds to me like they may know there may be a problem with enforceability here.


I would send CCA request, there are template letters all over the internet, just search "CCA request template letter", see what comes back, at worst you may be able to negotiate a far smaller full and final settlement, at best you may not have to pay anything.

fermi

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/sole-letters/Pages/Information-about-your-agreement-under-the-Consumer-Credit-Act-%28sole-name%29.aspx

You may be able to get a bigger discount.

Onthelongroad

I spoke to Moorcroft for the first time last week. (They have taken over my Natwest debt) They offered a settlement of £1400 on a debt of £1700, not a bad little saving...if i could afford £1400 :doh:

worried_jim

Onthelongroad wrote: »

I spoke to Moorcroft for the first time last week. (They have taken over my Natwest debt) They offered a settlement of £1400 on a debt of £1700, not a bad little saving...if i could afford £1400 :doh:

Since they probably bought the debt for 50% of it's value I think you should hold out for a bigger discount.

Onthelongroad

worried_jim wrote: »

Since they probably bought the debt for 50% of it's value I think you should hold out for a bigger discount.

Do the full & final settlements have to be paid in one payment?
If so, which Im guessing they do, i won't be able to clear this for a good while anyway.

amr547

My OH paid off a debt with them and they confirmed it would be a full and final settlement however they still marked it as partially settled. He really didn't want to deal with them again and left it at that.

On the whole they were polite though, once you had got in touch.

fermi

Sometimes companies will agree to stage them over say 3 or 4 payments. You would obviously want that in cast iron form in writing though. Moroncroft are not exactly trustyworthy.

harveybobbles

fermi wrote: »

Sometimes companies will agree to stage them over say 3 or 4 payments. You would obviously want that in cast iron form in writing though. Moroncroft are not exactly trustyworthy.

Are any DCA's..?

I would CCA MoorCrap and wait til they bother replying.

(NB: their reply will be "we are passing the account back to Santander..")