Please help! Lowell (Eon/TalkTalk) // HB overpayment // Suicidal

macman

You won't be able to get the parking fine CCJ set aside on the basis that the paperwork was sent to your old address, if that is your intention. All they have to do is send it to your last known address. If you have other grounds to dispute it, then fine.

Karen747

caynick wrote: »

Since being awarded a council property and my name going on the electoral roll I have received the following:

1) Letters, texts and calls from Lowell Financial, for a disputed Electric bill with Eon in 2014: £388.32 - I was certain I had paid my monthly bills and believed it was a !!!! up on their side re: meter readings on entry and exit of the property. At the time I had to ask 8 times for a breakdown of my bills and payment in their original form, all they sent me was a cut and pasted email. No bills. heard nothing til very recently via Lowell. I have blocked numbers and ignored letters.

2) Letters, texts and calls from Lowell Financial for a disputed bill from Talk Talk in Nov 2015. At the time my contract had expired and I gave 1 month notice on the recorded call and moved out. Talk Talk continued to send bills, I complained and they only called me when I was at work, when i had asked them to call at specific times. They then said the case was closed and passed on as they couldn't contact me. Lowell have begun contact. I have ignored all so far and blocked numbers. I have today left a message for the original Talk Talk complaint handler as I do not wish to engage with Lowell.

3) Overpaid Housing Benefit: £1248.42. As I did some freelance work for a few weeks in several months of not working they are chasing me for the full amount including when I was not working. They want to do an attachment of earnings.

4) My credit score has just plummeted - apparently I have a CCJ from my old address via Parking Eye for parking at Nandos leicester, £197. I spoke to the court they are sending me a form to dispute, plus a court date.

5) I have never had an overdraft in my 27 years of working and in 4 months I have racked up a £1300 one, and now gone over it = already 2 x £8 charges for unpaid DD's.

6) Thanks to kind friends bailing me out I am now £2000 in debt to them.

I cannot carry on in my job, I love it (Support Worker) but have to do 60-70 hours just to survive, as you can see above I am not coping.

Please can you advise me on how to handle them? I am considering talking to Stepchange but wanted to try you guys first.

Thank you and have a lovely day!

Just a few things which may help.

You can tell Lowell they are not to contact you by text or phone, these methods of contact can be really stressful and increase the mental health depession and anxiety.

With regard to the HB overpayment, you can opt to pay it in installments and even as low as £5 a month if that is all you can afford. Funny how the Council can give with one hand and take with the other. My ex got a small rise but did not tell me or them, I had to pay £800 pound overpayment as I made the claim even though we lived together at the time.

If you stop work that may affect your benefits, so be careful how you do it. If it is on medical advice by a mental health practictioner then you may be OK, it is disgusting how support workers are really exploited as cheap labour and bad contracts.

Do not worry about the overdraft, your debts are relatively small and if you can only afford to pay a pound a month for the ones that are genuine then so be it.

I have to say that TalkTalk have form, I gave notice to cancel one year in June for a contract that was due to end in September, I reminded them monthly thereafter AND they had their stupid offshore call centre call me numerous times, they did not seem to get that I was going to be homeless and would not be needing their services even if I could afford them. Still they billed me for September and onwards even though the contract had been ended. They said it was their accounting system but that was BS. In the end it took the intervention of a third party and they credited it but no word of an apology for all the stress.

In the end these people can't kill you or take your kids away, you just need to put them at arms length.

If Sourcrates (hero of this forum) has a pound for every debt company that deliberately send CCJ paperwork to old address they would be a rich person.

It is high time that the pre-action conduct was amended to force these companies to first verify the service address with proper evidence that the debtor still lives there. This would avoid a huge amount of cases, they should also have to pay the £255 it costs to get set aside as a deterrent.

TriggerHappy

Hiya,

I can't really offer anything above what has been shown above other than to say 'good luck and be strong!'.

Keep coming back here regularly too, I know I say this as what appears to be a newbie but years ago I was a regular but have since lost the details of that sign in...

At the time I had massive debts, a gambling drink and drug problem but now I'm debt free and the cleanest I've ever been! Talking to people who won't judge you is great, writing down your feelings, fears and hopes is incredible - especially when you read them back, and then re-read them after making a bit of progress to give yourself a little boost should it be required.

Remember, none of this replaces getting professional assistance though.

Good luck!