MKRR Rapid Recovery Final Notice letter

Gavin_Average

Hi,
My partner got a "Final Notice" letter from MK Rapid Recoveries. She tells me that this is the first letter she's had from them. It looks like it might be related to an issue she had with her bank a few years back, but of course it's light on details and is claiming a debt of about £2000 which sounds a bit extreme.

So, she had a bank account. She went over the overdraft limit by accident, and got slapped with fees, and then fees got added on to the fees... After a few years of alternating between trying to "feed the beast" and keep on top of the rolling fines and just burying her head in the sand because she had no money to pay, she turned to me for help. She'd given the bank hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds up to that point to try to stop the fines. I paid a fairly substantial sum to the bank (something like £300 or £400, I forget exactly) in a final attempt to wipe all the fines and get the account back under control, after which she basically abandoned the account in disgust at her bank. We thought that the rolling fines had been dealt with, and she had no desire to carry on banking with them. That was the last interaction we had with the account, and we think it was some time in 2009 (but might have been 2010). As I recall, we found out later on that the bank had stalled my payment so that it went in after yet another round of fines, meaning the money that I paid didn't cover the fines and the whole cycle had started again. Because, yay, banks... :mad: At my partner's insistence, we just left it alone. It was a black hole entirely of the bank's creation.

Cut to last week, and MK Rapid Recovery sent this "Final Notice". I assume that this is one of those cases where the "debt" has been statute barred and they've sold it on to some debt collection agency to try to scare us out of the money. So my instinct is to send a "Prove it" letter, and then ignore them until they either come back with proof or admit defeat. I've had similar issues with banks selling on SB debts to DCAs in the past, and the letter worked a treat that time. But I'm a bit hesitant with this because I can't say for certain when that last payment went in (I don't think we have any records that will tell us the date), and I wonder what happens if you send a "prove it" letter for something that's not statute barred. Is it better to ignore it? Do we actually run the risk of a CCJ?

Any advice?

Gavin_Average

Here's the letter, if you're interested. It looks like a pretty stock thing to me, all threatening language but no actual content:

FINAL NOTICE

As you have not taken up our offer of help, and as a legal requirement, we must now inform you that we are instructing our pre-legal department to review your account for further action.

They may commence litigation against you which should increase the amount payable due to costs incurred in line with your agreement. Should the matter proceed and a court judgement be obtained against you they could take a charge against your property (if you are a homeowner) or have monies deducted directly from your salary (if you are employed).

It is not too late to resolve this matter, please contact us immediately to allow us to help you.

---

It's worth noting that my partner is not a homeowner, and is a full-time mum so is not employed either. Although we could do without the hassle of a CCJ - assuming somehow that that's a thing they can actually do. I doubt it, but again, I've seen organisations get CCJs for made up stuff with no evidence at all, so I don't have a lot of faith in the court system.

Gavin_Average

Oh, and to make matters more confusing, she's Scottish and would have opened the account in Scotland, but the final payment was made in England after she'd moved here. I don't even know how you'd go about figuring out the timeline for that getting statute barred...

sourcrates

Gavin_Average wrote: »

Here's the letter, if you're interested. It looks like a pretty stock thing to me, all threatening language but no actual content:

FINAL NOTICE

As you have not taken up our offer of help, and as a legal requirement, we must now inform you that we are instructing our pre-legal department to review your account for further action.

They may commence litigation against you which should increase the amount payable due to costs incurred in line with your agreement. Should the matter proceed and a court judgement be obtained against you they could take a charge against your property (if you are a homeowner) or have monies deducted directly from your salary (if you are employed).

It is not too late to resolve this matter, please contact us immediately to allow us to help you.

---

It's worth noting that my partner is not a homeowner, and is a full-time mum so is not employed either. Although we could do without the hassle of a CCJ - assuming somehow that that's a thing they can actually do. I doubt it, but again, I've seen organisations get CCJs for made up stuff with no evidence at all, so I don't have a lot of faith in the court system.

Hi,
Ok, no need to worry too much about the letter, it's just standard, common a garden, computer generated clap trap.
Notice it says "they may" commence litigation against you, I "may" win the euro millions jackpot tonight, but it's unlikley !!!!

Provit letter would be the way to go here, that gets them to prove there claim, without admitting any liability.
Remember, they have to prove the debt is owed, you don't have to prove it isn't.
See what they come back to you with.

happy_bunny_2

Yep send the prove it letter.

Statute barred is 5 years in Scotland.

fatbelly

Definitely send a prove-it.

MKDP went through a phase of alleging people had catalogue debts that were nothing to do with them. They have recently been issued with a certificate of 'unreasonable conduct'

They really should have their licence revoked, so please do your bit and make them jump through the hoops on this one.

[Deleted User]

Sourcrates, what happened to your picture of the train ?

Gavin_Average

So, we sent a prove-it letter. A little while after that got a very polite letter back saying that they had suspended their debt collection activities temporarily whilst they prepared their response to the prove-it (or words to that effect).

A few days ago they sent through a "Statement in relation to the below Agreement which is governed by the Consumer Credit Act 1974". It's got some reference numbers, the original creditor, and a statement dating from the end of February 2015, covering a period between March 2014 and Feb 2015, shows an opening balance with the amount they claim, total payments received of £0.00, and a closing balance still showing the amount they claim. In other words, here's the debt, and here's you not paying anything in the last year.

At first we thought this was the response to the prove-it letter (albeit a weird one because it doesn't show anything about the date of the last payment so doesn't prove whether or not it's statute barred either way). But there's a bit of small print that says "... we have an obligation to send statements to you annually..."

So, this is just an annual statement, right? One they "have an obligation to send", but which is conveniently timed to look like a response to the prove-it letter without actually BEING a response. Have I got that right?

What's the generally recommended course of action after sending a prove-it these days? I had to send one a few years ago, and in that instance I just held off all further correspondence with them whilst they sent a bunch of letters trying to get me to send them the evidence (!!) and eventually conceded that they had no proof and closed the matter. Is that still the best thing to do?

(obviously if they come back with proof that's a different matter, but this doesn't look like proof to me)

fermi

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=57703407&postcount=3

fermi

jvilton wrote: »

Hi,

I'm in exactly the same position as your partner, I received a final demand letter from MK Rapid recoveries yesterday stating that as I haven't taken up their offers of help my account is being assessed by their pre-legal department and COULD result in them applying to the courts for a CCJ.

Moved to it's own thread.

---> https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5227411

Gavin_Average

Sorry to bump this after a bit of a hiatus, by MKDP have got back to us, and we're not really sure what to do next. Here's the letter:

I write further to your recent correspondence in regards to the outstanding balance of your account. Please accept this letter as a Final Response to your concerns.

My understanding of your complaint is that you have requested verification of the claim for the balance above and you believe the account is in dispute.

Please find enclosed

- Statements of the account

I have raised your concerns with [BANK] and they have advised that they have no record of any dispute on the account. As verified in the enclosed documentation, you are liable for the outstanding balance stated above and we will resume our attempts to contact you to discuss this account.

We therefore request you contact us on [BLAH BLAH BLAH]

Due to the information stated above I regret to inform you that we will not be able to uphold your complaint. Should you remain unhappy with our response, you do have the right to refere your concern to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This must be done within six month of the date of this letter and I have enclosed a leaflet which explains how to do this.

The statements they enclosed are dated between January and March 2011. They show overdraft interest being taken out of the account, but no money going in. In March 2011 there's an activity marked "TFR TO CDR" which pays in the outstanding balance of the account, and then the account is closed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but am I right in thinking that that still doesn't constitute proof that the debt is not statute barred? My understanding is that a debt becomes statute barred 5 years (the account was opened in Scotland) after any activity occured - where "activity" can be defined as paying money into the account, a conversation with the bank in which account holder acknowledges the debt, or a CCJ? Showing the account accumulating interest and being closed in 2011 doesn't show any of those things, does it? They'd have to go back to 2010 and show that one of those things happened then, wouldn't they?

Anyway, not sure how to proceed now. Any advice would be very welcome.