Mackenzie Hall - posted in Loans but it prob should be in here. oops

Sheriff_Fatman_2

Dear Board,

i'm looking for help. recently Mackenzie Hall caught up with me on an old loan i had.

Fair and squarei thought and instead of weaseling about i agreed to pay £150 per month. I have been paying them now for 5 months and i get a settlement letter yesterday which basically says there is no reason for me not to pay it back, and they want 9 grand. well if i had the money i would of paid it back 6 months ago. I'm now worried sick as they are demanding the money in 7 days and i dont have it.
please advise what my best course of action is.

Cheers

Sheriff

rog2

Just HOW OLD was this 'loan', SF?

Sheriff_Fatman_2

i think its about 4 years old, i remember it was not old enough to be written off, which i think is 6 years.

fermi

Keep paying back what you can genuinely afford.

99% of the time these letters are to scare you into upping payments whether you can afford it or not (they don't give a **** what you can really afford).

If they were daft enough to take it further (eg to court) they still couldn't make you pay more that you can really afford. They know that, hence the bluff and scary letters.

rog2

Sheriff_Fatman wrote: »

i think its about 4 years old, i remember it was not old enough to be written off, which i think is 6 years.

Then just continue to pay what you can afford - Mackenzie Hall can only ASK, they can NOT put pressure on you to pay any more than you can afford. Their ONLY recourse would be to issue you with a County Court Summons and, should this happen, the court would make an order of payment based in your income/expenditure - they would NOT ask you to pay any more than you could afford and any such order would be equally binding on Mackenzie Hall.

Mackenzie Hall are a particularly nasty bunch of lowlife masquerading under the heading of 'Debt Collectors' and will try ANY trick in the book to make you pay more than you can afford. So it is definitely worth having a look at the OFT Debt Collection Guidelines (link below) to see just how these thugs should, and should not, behave:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf

Good luck

Sheriff_Fatman_2

so what would you recommend, ignore it, phone them and tel them i have an agreement which i canot afford to change, write to them at the weekend and explain i'm cannot afford any more or what?

cheers, i really appreciate this advice.

Sheriff

rog2

It's up to you - personally I would ignore them and keep paying the agreed amount. They are 'trying it on' and no court would grant in their favour as long as you have kept to your side of the agreement.

protector

What exactly did the letter say?

I'm sure the previous posters are probably right as this place tends to be fairly full of good advice, but I think it would be prudent to have the actual wording they used before people assure you they are just trying it on.

Not to discourage - just might be a good idea to be sure is all.

Good luck.

RAS

Fatman

They can only ask you to pay what you can afford no more

see the OFT Guidelines below (Thanks Rog2)

It is against the OFT guidelines on Debt Collection, for a Debt Collection Agency to threaten action which they cannot take, make repeated phone calls or refuse a reasonable offer.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/bus...dit/oft664.pdf

if you are going to be dealing with this lot long term, read and inwardly digest.

Send them a letter telling them that you can afford £x. If they write another snotting demand, quote the OFT Guidelines to them. Send the letters recorded delivery and send copies to the OFT, FSA and the Trading Standards closest to the DCa's office

fermi

Also, if you are not sure where you stand you can phone/email an organisation like:

• [SIZE=-1]National Debtline - Tel: 0808 808 4000 [/SIZE]
• [SIZE=-1]The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) - Tel: 0800 138 1111[/SIZE]

who will tell you pretty much what you have heard in this thread:

There is a factsheet on how to deal with creditors/DCA's who you can afford to pay in reasonable instalments (but not in full) here:

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/review_pack.php?page=for_people_with_available_income_to_make_payments_to_their_creditors

Really really worth reading the above through.