Lowell

Brainer87

Hi all,

New to the forum so please be gentle!

I've received a few letters from the named company above about a couple of debts that I allegedly owe, they've been chasing me for approx 1 year for one & about 6 months for the other.

Up to now i've just ignored them & filed them away, but a couple of days ago I received 2 letters with "pre-legal assessment" across the top of the letters, are they now starting to get serious, or is it scare tactics to try & get me to pay?

One of the debts is for roughly £720 which is an old O2 contract, which i'm convinced was paid up correctly, the smaller one is for an old loan which has approx £150-£200 left to pay.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Willing2Learn

The term 'pre-legal assessment' is just a scare tactic. You need to be acting immediately if you get a Country Court Claim letter. Are the debts being reported by the three CRAs in your credit files? Why not send Lowell a 'proveit letter'?

Edit: And welcome to the forum

[Deleted User]

If you don't believe you owe them, send a prove it letter.

If you do owe it, consider the value of your credit file versus the amount owed and go from there. Check your credit files for the current status.

macman

As above, it would be insane to trash your credit history for the sake of £150, which you admit you owe. The 02 debt is confusing me though. £720 would be at least 2 years of monthly contract charges: how can you be convinced it was paid off when they think you owe so much? Did you fail to terminate the contract and maybe move to a new address?

National_Debtline

Hi Brainer87


Welcome to the forum. Can I check the letter you have received is not a letter before claim? That is a letter warning you the company is considering court action. If it is one, there will be a response form that you have to return within 30 days and it is very important you do this.


Let us know if it is a letter before claim and we can give you more details on how to deal with it.


Best wishes


Susie
@natdebtline

Brainer87

Thanks for all the replies guys!

After looking, both debts are on my credit file with Lowell's name attached. Defaulted in 2015 according to the file.

The O2 debt, I never received letters from O2 to say my payments were missing & my address hadn't changed when I was with them, & as far as I'm aware all payments left my bank account (This bank account has now been closed for about 3 years). I've not been with O2 for about 5 years now.

Susie @ National Debtline, it doesn't look like a letter before claim & it didn't come with anything for me to complete, the first line of the letter goes:-

Dear Mr XXXX

Your O2 (UK) Ltd account remains unpaid. We are now deciding whether to transfer your account to our solicitors to take legal action against you to recover this debt

It then goes on to explain what "legal action" means.

sourcrates

Send the provit letter for each account.

You ignore Lowell at your peril, they will seek CCJ’s on these debts if you do not cooperate with them.

If you have a dispute, then make them aware, otherwise you risk CCJ by default.

Brainer87

Thanks Sourcrates,

I'll get the provit letter sent in the next couple of days

Brainer87

Hi all,

Just a quick update, I sent the provit letters on Thursday by recorded delivery, it appears as though they have been signed for today.

I'm looking forward to what they have to say!

Brainer87

Hi all,

So i've received a letter back from Lowell ref the 2 alleged debts, they've given me a little info about the debt's in question & have said they have requested original docs from the companies in question & that they have placed the accounts on hold for now.

This is all well & good but on the information they've given me the "application address" for both accounts is an address i've never lived at & the rest of the information is also all new to me. The O2 account turns out to be one i've never known of (the one i'm thinking of earlier in the thread i'll come to in a minute), & it turns out this loan is again one i've never known about & must have been getting confused with another i'd had.

My question is, what do I need to do about these 2 they're chasing me for, because I know for sure I didn't take out these contracts?!

At the end of the letter they tell me that I have another account with them which is now being managed on Lowell's behalf by Lucas Credit Services Ltd, this is the first i've heard of this but it's an O2 account so I think this is the one I was thinking of originally. It then asks me to contact Lucus for more info about it. The thing with this one is that it isn't showing on my credit report, why would that be?

Any help/advice is much appreciated

Cheers

Brainer87

sourcrates

Brainer87 wrote: »

Hi all,

So i've received a letter back from Lowell ref the 2 alleged debts, they've given me a little info about the debt's in question & have said they have requested original docs from the companies in question & that they have placed the accounts on hold for now.

This is all well & good but on the information they've given me the "application address" for both accounts is an address i've never lived at & the rest of the information is also all new to me. The O2 account turns out to be one i've never known of (the one i'm thinking of earlier in the thread i'll come to in a minute), & it turns out this loan is again one i've never known about & must have been getting confused with another i'd had.

My question is, what do I need to do about these 2 they're chasing me for, because I know for sure I didn't take out these contracts?!

At the end of the letter they tell me that I have another account with them which is now being managed on Lowell's behalf by Lucas Credit Services Ltd, this is the first i've heard of this but it's an O2 account so I think this is the one I was thinking of originally. It then asks me to contact Lucus for more info about it. The thing with this one is that it isn't showing on my credit report, why would that be?

Any help/advice is much appreciated

Cheers

Brainer87

Once they have replied in full to your letter, if you still do not recognize these two accounts, you must write back and tell them so.


If the account is not yours, then its either someone else`s they have mixed up with your name somehow, or it may be a case of fraud.


You will need to determine which it is, if its potential fraud, you need to report it to action fraud.


As for the account you do recognize. i would not do anything in haste, old accounts only snow on your file for 6 years, it may be statute barred, wait till they write to you again, and take it from there.