F&F offer to PRA with CCJs

DesignMonkey

I am pleased to say I am working my way to slowly becoming debt free but I am at my last - very big - hurdle.

I have had F&F offers accepted by Natwest (1 account) and Lowell (3 accounts, 1 with CCJ). All accepted a 10% offer of the total amount which felt amazing. I have 3 remaining accounts, all with PRA (2 overdrafts and 1 credit card) totally £9600. 2 of these accounts have CCJs. I offered the same 10% of the total amount and it was rejected. They offered 90%. We countered and explained our situation again and they came back and offered 35% on the 2 accounts with CCJs, and 15% on the account without the CCJ. This seemed a bit odd as they have court backing on the 2 with CCJs so we're surprised they went lower on these but hey ho...

The problem is these figures are still too high. A little about my situation... The debts arose when my UK visa renewal was rejected and I was no longer allowed to work whilst my appeal was pending. I cold not pay off the overdrafts and the credit card interest grew. The debt was sold from Lloyds to PRA. At the time I was living with a landlord that hid post and so did not get the letters warning me of CCJs. I did not fight this as I read t cost £200 to do so and it was very unlikely you could get the CCJs overturned. I kept PRA up to date with my immigration situation and my new visa application pending. This has been ongoing since January 2016. It was finally rejected Sept 2018 and I was asked to leave the country. I left voluntarily with my wife (all these debts are mine only, we were not together when I got them) and explained to them I could not pay as I cannot work. They accepted the situation but only lowered to the 35% and 85% figures. They have placed the accounts on hold for a whole year but we really want to get rid of the debt as we wish to apply again to the UK and don't want the negativity of debts hanging over us.

So my question is - do we counter again, explaining the same situation and offer the same or raise it a little? Or do we leave it, but risk it going against our visa application? We can;t afford even their offer so need to go lower. Has anyone had experience with PRA and how to 'persuade them'?

I'm wondering if it is worth contacting financial ombudsman and asking them to look into why Lloyds sold the debt to PRA the first place as they knew I could not work. PRA at one point did say they were talking to Lloyds about trying to 'give the debt back', which I understood as them being a little peed off that they are now lumped with it and my situation.

Any advice guys?! I know it's a bit of an unusual situation but want to push as much as possible where we are able...thanks in advance!