DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

Lu_thien

Hello! I was wondering if I could get some advice…. 

My other half has defaulted on a couple of credit cards. One of them being virgin. He entered into a DMP with stepchange in March and has been making monthly payments.

We’ve just received a court claim from a solicitors with regards to the virgin debit - seems it was sold to arrow who have instructed the solicitors.

What do we do now? He’s really worried as he works in the financial services and can’t have an attachment of earnings order. 

If we fill in the form there’s no money left basically to make payment for the debt (as stepchange are already taking all available funds).

My questions, I guess, are:

1. Can we dispute it as we’ve been making payments but didn’t realise they were going to virgin rather than arrow? My partner has anxiety so hasn’t been opening the letters - the stepchange website shows everything as being ok so he just assumed it was.

2. If we don’t dispute it and accept it what do we do as there is no money to make monthly payments. Do we have to tell stepchange and get them to lower the DMP? I thought that would mean creditors being treated unfairly etc.

3. if he does get a CCJ does it get paid through his wage or can he make payments separately (assuming we have any money to do so?) 

Sorry for the long post - I’m spiralling a bit as you can probably tell! 

sourcrates

Speak to the solicitor, explain the situation, see if they will put a hold on the legal action, you need to do this quickly though.

Is it Dryden Fairfax that have written to you ?

Your already paying the debt, you just need stepchange to re-direct the payments to Arrow, so you need to speak to them as well.

It can be sorted, but you must be pro-active here.

Lu_thien

Hi @sourcrates - I spoke to the solicitor yesterday before we received the claim letter and provided the stepchange reference and they confirmed the account was on hold for 30 days while stepchange confirmed the DMP. 

Today he received the claim letter so I phoned them immediately and was told that there is no hold being placed and we need to fill out the claim. 

They’ve made a complaint for me, as we were misadvised yesterday, but said there’s nothing else they can do. 

Should I call them back? They said they’d be in touch within 2 days after investigating the complaint but shall I just call them again? 

They didn’t care that payments were being made unfortunately. 

Lu_thien

Apologies @sourcrates - it is drysden fairfax who wrote to us. We got the letter advising we needed to contact them (yesterday) as they were going to put in a claim and then today the claim form came through. 

sourcrates

Ok, no I wouldn`t call them back, as you are likely to get another persons version of events, you rarely get a straight answer from companies such as this.

In that case my instincts would be to defend the claim on the basis that you are already making affordable repayments to the debt through a debt management plan via step change, acknowledging service online allows you a 28 day window in which to respond.

Once this is seen, they may put a stay on proceedings, It’s not just whether you owe this money, what is important here is if the creditor can win the case.

There is a lot of legal protection for consumers, especially for old debts, and you can also delay matters further by making a CCA request, and a CPR request to Dryden`s to determine what evidence they are going to rely on, and what they are able to produce, since they have opened this particular can of worms I see no reason why you should not take advantage of that.

Debt camel provides good advice here -

What to do if you get a Claim from the county court about a debt (debtcamel.co.uk)

Hols2021

Hi,
Just looking for some advice, my husband has just checked his CF and he now has a D beside his loan but we’ve not received the Default in the post yet. He has also received an email from the loan co today saying he needs to get in touch to make a plan up so do we now contact them to make a plan as we’ve not had anything from a DCA saying they are now dealing with it? 

Debtbegone2022

sourcrates said:

Debtbegone2022 said:

Hi

Has anyone had any experience with Scott&Mears? They are currently phoning me daily chasing an amount I am in arrears by but not the full amount I owe. 

The original creditor has yet to default me. Will they eventually stop and then chase me for the full value? Should I do anything about it in the mean time?

Thanks

You can block their number quite easily, or is changing your sim card an option ? two of the easiest way`s to deal with unwanted calls.

You will remain on the contact list as long as you owe money and have not come to an arrangement with them.

Bear in mind they are only collectors acting on behalf of their client, so have no influence or power over events here, they may be noisy, but they are toothless, you can just ignore them.

@sourcrates

I have blocked the number for the above. Today I received an email with a letter attached, stating the following; 

It is disappointing that you have not responded to us concerning this outstanding debt. We ask that you contact

us within the next 14 days to discuss this matter. If we do not hear from you, we will have no alternative other

than to refer this case to our client to seek their further instructions on whether they wish to escalate this

matter to Court Action.

I am assuming I just let it go past the 14 days and let them go back to to the original creditor and then wait for further communication and they are stating Court Action to scare me into making contact? 

Thanks

sourcrates

Hols2021 said:

Hi,
Just looking for some advice, my husband has just checked his CF and he now has a D beside his loan but we’ve not received the Default in the post yet. He has also received an email from the loan co today saying he needs to get in touch to make a plan up so do we now contact them to make a plan as we’ve not had anything from a DCA saying they are now dealing with it? 

If it has defaulted, it will clearly state this on the account status section of his credit report, the date of default will also clearly be stated.

Don`t confuse this with "default sums in arrears" which refers to missed contractual repayments.

Example of a Credit Karma report with account in default -

OVERVIEW

Account type - Hire Purchase

Status - Default

Account number - **************6549

Last updated - 01 July 2022

Start date - 26 Jul 2019

PAYMENT INFORMATION

Opening balance - £426

Repayment frequency - Weekly

Date of default - 27 Dec 2019

Hols2021

Hi Sourcrates, 

thanks for getting back to me, it has a red D beside his account on Credit Karma and it says the D is for defaulted. We’ve not received this in the post yet though or who is dealing with it so I’m guessing he now has to contact Zopa to make a payment plan up? 

sourcrates

Debtbegone2022 said:

sourcrates said:

Debtbegone2022 said:

Hi

Has anyone had any experience with Scott&Mears? They are currently phoning me daily chasing an amount I am in arrears by but not the full amount I owe. 

The original creditor has yet to default me. Will they eventually stop and then chase me for the full value? Should I do anything about it in the mean time?

Thanks

You can block their number quite easily, or is changing your sim card an option ? two of the easiest way`s to deal with unwanted calls.

You will remain on the contact list as long as you owe money and have not come to an arrangement with them.

Bear in mind they are only collectors acting on behalf of their client, so have no influence or power over events here, they may be noisy, but they are toothless, you can just ignore them.

@sourcrates

I have blocked the number for the above. Today I received an email with a letter attached, stating the following; 

It is disappointing that you have not responded to us concerning this outstanding debt. We ask that you contact

us within the next 14 days to discuss this matter. If we do not hear from you, we will have no alternative other

than to refer this case to our client to seek their further instructions on whether they wish to escalate this

matter to Court Action.

I am assuming I just let it go past the 14 days and let them go back to to the original creditor and then wait for further communication and they are stating Court Action to scare me into making contact? 

Thanks

Original creditors very rarely take legal action, that is why we have debt collectors.

You can ignore there silly time frames, if this bunch are unsuccessful, they will just return the account to their client, and the client will engage another DCA, and its rinse and re-peat.

Another option for them is to sell the account to a debt purchasing company.

The letters they send are deliberately ambiguous, mainly stating the blindingly obvious, the client`s do not possess the time or the resources to take every bad debt to court, but the debt collector want`s you to think they have more clout than they actually do, they want you to think your dealing with Don Corleone, when in fact your dealing with Jonny Bananas.