Credit Agreement Help

seandk

Hello
I hope i'm posting this in the correct place.

A debt collection company has begun sending me letters chasing debt owed to a catalogue company. I asked them to provide proof of the debt and they sent me a credit agreement.
At no point have I ever accepted this debt as I dispute the amount.

The credit agreement has spelling mistakes in the address, is unsigned and is dated 2002 when the account wasn't opened until 2010. I would have been 16 in 2002 and would not have been the legal age to take out a credit agreement.

The debt collection company said that the address is clearly a typing error yet there is no mistakes in their correspondence to me. They also said the agreement was unsigned as I took it out on the internet. However they had no reason for the incorrect date being put on the agreement.

The lady I spoke to said she would go back to the catalogue company and come back to me about it.

Just wondering where I stand - is the debt enforceable?

Thanks

Helvetica_Van_Buren

I think you're already along the right track: what they've provided so far is not evidence of an enforceable credit agreement - my next communication with them would be this:
"I dispute that I am responsible for this debt and you have so far failed to provide any evidence that demonstrates to the contrary. Continuing to pursue a debt that you cannot determine is my responsibility is unlawful."

Not to mention the whole statute barred angle.

EssexHebridean

Back in 2002 it would still have been relatively unusual to take out an agreement of this type purely online, if I remember rightly. I can certainly recall being sent paperwork to sign for credit around that time. Sounds like you're doing all the right stuff - never mind the fact that unless you've paid anything towards it in the past 6 years (when I would expect that you would remember it!) it will be stature barred anyway.

Don't speak to them further over the phone though - put everything in writing and TYPE the signature on the letters - under no circumstances put pen to paper!

sourcrates

Hi,

There is no requirement for a signature on a credit agreement to make it valid.

Other posters are correct, that you should not speak to them on the phone about this matter, keep everything in writing from now on.

You have two angles to attack this from :

(1) as previously said, if no payments have been made for any period of 6 years or more, the account will be statute barred.

(2) possibly your best defence is that at the time the agreement was opened, you were under age, so legally not responsible for it.

All of which you should put into writing and send to them.