Help

Kiminy

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this site, but am wondering if anyone can give me some advice?

In 2009 I enrolled in a debt mamangement plan. This was successful and ended in December 2015.

At the same time I ended the DMP I had a letter from one of my previous creditors saying that I still owed them over £1000.

I have done some investigating of my own, And it seems that someone (not yet sure whether the company dealing with my DMP or at the creditor) saw fit to mark the account as paid in full in 2012 and so payments to this account ceased. I have since not had any correspondence with regards this account until December 2015.

I have raised the issue with several of the companies to which this debt was sold, but so far all deny that this account had been closed, but all have failed to write to me in the last 3 years asking why the balance is still outstanding.

I'm not too sure where to go next with this, whether I should pay a solicitor, or whether not to bother fighting it. I clearly by the maths still owe over £1000, but feel the whole situation is a shambles.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

sourcrates

Hi,


Welcome to MSE !!


Ok, bit more detail required.

(1) who was your DMP with, was it a paid service with a debt management company, or from a free debt charity ?

(2) Who was the debt to, originally, what type of debt is it, and who owns it now ?

You don't need a solicitor, dependant on the answers to my questions, you just need to follow the correct route to complain about this.

However, when the dust settles, you will probably still be liable for this money, as mistakes do happen, however, there are ways to tackle this, but more detail needed first.

Kiminy

So, it was originally for a credit card.

The DMP was taken in by a debt mamangemrnt company to whom I paid a fee to every month.

I have made formal complaints to each of the companies involved, and so far they are all, apart from the company dealing with the DMP, denying that the account was closed.

I also find it odd that I have heard nothing regarding this account for over 3 years.

Thanks in anticipation.

Kiminy

Sorry, to finish answering, the credit was originally with Vanquis, then passed through several companies, Connaught Collections, 1st Credit (which was where the account was allegedly closed), the most recent letter came from Arrow Global saying they are passing it on to Moorcroft Debt Recovery. But this is the first contact I have had since before the account was labelled as paid!

sourcrates

So the account has done the usual round of DCA`s then.


Everyone is denying responsibility for this, which leaves you in a dilemma, you could escalate this to the FOS, let them look into it for you.


If you entered into your DMP in 2009, is it likely that the account was originally opened prior to 2007 ?


Even if it wasn't, you should do a CCA request for information, are you familiar with the process, and the consequences of non compliance by the creditor ?

fatbelly

The downside is that there is probably an outstanding liability here.

On the positives:

Arrow will have bought it for a tiny sum and should be open to a settlement deal
They may well not have a copy of the original credit agreement
If it is pre-April 2007 you have extra rights should there be no original agreement
FOS may well suggest that your dmc owes you some compensation if they don't suggest that themselves.

For now, I suggest
a written complaint to your dmc - they have 8 weeks to investigate and produce a final decision
a cca request to Arrow

Kiminy

The original debt was taken 4/5/2007.

I have no idea what aCCA is, so I know nothing of the procedure. What is this, and what would I hope to achieve?

I had written to the FOS but they are not interested unless I have a final response from all involved, of which I am awaiting one further company to respond. Then I assume I can pursue this again with the FOS.

Kiminy

Having said the original debt was from May, I have the old credit card which was valid from 10/08, so surely the card before would not have been for 17 months? If that makes sense..??

sourcrates

Kiminy wrote: »

The original debt was taken 4/5/2007.

I have no idea what aCCA is, so I know nothing of the procedure. What is this, and what would I hope to achieve?

I had written to the FOS but they are not interested unless I have a final response from all involved, of which I am awaiting one further company to respond. Then I assume I can pursue this again with the FOS.

Have a read of this, I was going to link you to the national debtline website, as they have a more up to date letter template, but there site appears to be down at the moment.

https://debtcollectoradvice.wordpress.com/advice-and-templates/how-and-when-to-send-a-copy-of-your-credit-agreement/

Kiminy

I'm not sure what I would achieve by doing this. I had been paying the debt until one of these companies marked it as paid, hence the payments ceased.

sourcrates

Kiminy wrote: »

I'm not sure what I would achieve by doing this. I had been paying the debt until one of these companies marked it as paid, hence the payments ceased.

If they cannot provide a copy of the original credit agreement on demand, then they cannot obtain a CCJ against you in court, hence the debt becomes unenforcable, which means you would not have to pay it, in a nutshell !!