Received a county court claim form from lowell solicitors/Vodafone.. need help!

Ak876

Hope this is the right place to post..

I got in a 24 month contract with vodafone at the end of 2013, at this time I had a job, a couple of months later my job went into liquidation, it was a bar job, My only income and during this time I was also depressed as I had someone close to me in hospital who passed away. Anyway I couldn't pay the bill and each month it was going up. Then Vodafone transferred it to Lowell or someone before that.
So basically I owed £792.88, I'll admit I ignored a lot of the phone calls and letters as I had no job and didn't know what to do and had a lot of stuff on my mind, now 3 years later I have received a claim form from the county court business centre in Northampton from Lowell which says I have 14 days to respond.
Total amount is 922.88 including court fee and legal representive.
I'm self employed and could only really pay back in instalments of £15 a month atm which I know they won't agree to as would take years.
I tried to contact them before and each time it's been unhelpful.
I really have no idea what to do or how to respond to this letter, is it genuine? And what should I do? Will they let me pay in instalments or is it too late now? I'm in my 20s and still live at home.
Please help!

fatbelly

It's not in the right place but Sourcrates will probably move it.

Well done for posting promptly as the clock is ticking now. You have 14 days from service date to do something. The service date is 5 days after the issue date. If the 'something' is to 'acknowledge service' (you can do this online) then that extends everything a further 14 days. So work out those dates and write them somewhere.

Now then, I would recommend you nip over to

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?105-Received-a-Court-Claim

and let them look at it in more detail.

The claim will be genuine as Lowell do this a lot, and £15 per month is probably acceptable to the courts (~60 months is a 'reasonable period') if you eventually ask the court to let you make payment by instalments, even if Lowell disagree. That process is set out in the factsheet here

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/replyingtoacountycourtclaim/replyingtoaccj.aspx

One last thing - this is not a Consumer Credit Act debt, which reduces your options a bit. If anyone suggests you do a 'CCA request' then remind them of that.