CCJ applied without my knowledge

Lynneyy

Hi there,

I wonder if anyone can help me?

I had a dispute from Vodafone from 2007/2008 about a bill that wasn't right. It was for about £400. I then moved to Dubai early 2008 until 2014. Upon returning I found out that the debt was sold on in 2015 to Lowell Portfolio and BW Legal, who then went to court and got a CCJ against me in June 2015 which I only found out about when I got my credit report. No letters were sent to my house or parents address - of which were both on my vodafone file.

I stupidly entered into an agreement to pay £10 a month last July.

is there anyway I can get this CCJ removed and the debt wiped as I had no knowledge of it and it was already in dispute? Also the debt increased from £400 to £1020?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

Arleen

When you dispute a utility bill the correct way to do it (if you cannot get it immediately resolved over the phone) is to pay it and then lodge a complaint. Not paying leads to troubles.

It's rather unlikely/impossible that letters were not sent to the address you have left with Vodafone, at the very least forms from court and judgment would have reached it. Maybe the person living there returned them, or plain tossed them into a bin?

But that doesn't matter. You owe the money; you didn't dispute or pay the bill when you received it and then left for six years. Did you close the account when leaving the country, or did you just let it ride? My worry is that while it may look like they were seeking to recover the money too late if you didn't close the account then it may have very well been running for quite a few years before they've marked it as default. And then they have six years from default date to go to court and get CCJ against you.

I am not sure what do you mean by saying that you had no knowledge of it. It seems you knew very well that you owe the money, but figured that abroad you don't have to care about that obligation. And as you, I imagine, in the same way, abandoned your dispute with Vodafone, they have dropped it on their end too.

So there is very little you can do now. As you've entered into a payment plan, and they went out and got the CCJ against you, there is microscopic leverage on your end even to try to negotiate. You have no grounds to get the CCJ set aside as you didn't provide them with new contact details, or seen the dispute through in the first place.

Your only way would be that you can come up with lump sum payment for the entire debt, then maybe you can negotiate the price down a bit. But the CCJ is likely to stay. And it went up because it most likely includes interest, court costs, monthly charges (if you didn't close the account before moving) etc.

rtho782

Yeah, CCJs never become statute barred so not much you can do now.

They must have sent a summons somewhere, shame as if this timeline is 100% accurate you could probably have argued with the court that it was statute barred.

Arleen

rtho782 wrote: »

Yeah, CCJs never become statute barred so not much you can do now.

They must have sent a summons somewhere, shame as if this timeline is 100% accurate you could probably have argued with the court that it was statute barred.

If it was obtained past the 6 years, it still can be set aside. But that depends on default date of the account.

seatbeltnoob

So, how long before you flew to Dubai did you get the bill? Did you think that flying to Dubai you're effectively flipping a birdie at voda because you think you might be in Dubai for a long time so can escape your liabilities?

Vodaphone will not reopen this case to allow you to dispute the bill. You had time to do it, but they just sold the debt off (got paid by the debt company). It's not in their interest to look into this any more.

If you had funds to sue them in court over this debt the judge too would agree you do not have grounds to dispute this as time as passed.

Westminster

At least the debt laws in the UK are very substantially more lenient than in UAE where bouncing cheques etc is a criminal offence and creditors there have recently been successful in starting to pursue those debts through the UK court system where debtors skipped the country.

Definitely take it as a learning exercise: pay first, argue later because the fallout is pretty severe.

WillyWonga

Its a hard lesson, especially when you consider the debt agency probably paid about £40 for your debt and the return they are making.

The CCJ stands, you have not disputed it by making an arrangement to pay.

Contact the debt agency and offer a settlement figure to get them off your back and at least the CCJ will be recorded as satisfied.

They have a CCJ to guarantee the full amount so dont expect miracles with a low offer. I would go in at 50%. £10 a month or say a £450 payment then business wise they may well go for the £450.

Voyager2002

Except the OP makes it perfectly clear that he DID dispute the bill at the time... If he still has evidence that the bill was wrong, and / or that Vodaphone promised or agreed something different from what actually happened, then a complaint to the regulator might help.

As for court procedures: the only time that a CCJ was taken out against me, I was not aware of the proceedings because I was out of the country at the time (in fact I was attending a hearing in the High Court in Hong Kong on the day in question). So as soon as I was aware of the CCJ I applied for SJA (set judgment aside); explained to the judge why I had not been able to attend and the CCJ was immediately cancelled. In this case, I would imagine that if the OP can demonstrate that Vodaphone held his parent's address as his point of contact and his parents are prepared to swear that the notice of court proceedings did not arrive at their address, it should be possible to obtain an SJA.

Guest101

Debt sounds like it was statute barred a set-aside should be straight forward

System

Westminster wrote: »

At least the debt laws in the UK are very substantially more lenient than in UAE where bouncing cheques etc is a criminal offence and creditors there have recently been successful in starting to pursue those debts through the UK court system where debtors skipped the country.

Definitely take it as a learning exercise: pay first, argue later because the fallout is pretty severe.

You talk rubbish - there is no UK court system to begin with.

Lynneyy

Hi everyone, thank you for all your comments.

The bill was disputed because it was wrong, vodafone agreed that it would be amended. I then moved to Dubai (which I told them at the time) and also gave my forwarding Dubai address, bearing in mind my mum moved into my UK address where the bills were sent too - so all mail sent to me was kept by my mum and forwarded to me in Dubai.

There was never any letters from Vodafone or a debt collection agency. Trust me, my mum would have went bananas.

Re the CCJ - I live in Glasgow, the CCJ was applied at a court in Manchester in June 2015. I moved back from Dubai in 2014 to my previous address that the mobile bill was against in Glasgow. I only knew about the CCJ when I got refused credit, so got my experian credit report. Lowell/BW Legal bought over it in 2014 and had the CCJ applied in June 2015.

So I did not 'just simply move away and hope the debt would disappear' - @SEATBELTNOOB

I've never had any debts that I haven't paid.