6 years going it alone but now I need some help with PRA

Black_Monday

My apologies in advance as this post is going to be a long one! I have been reading this forum for 6 long years and have taken so much excellent information from people who do not post anymore to the regulars who are now on the forum, however I think it's time I posted for some advice on my present situation.

Credit card was taken out in 2001

A bit of background information, February 2012, set up a debt management plan with CCCS, now Stepchange, a lot of debt due to failure of a business set up with a friend, was borrowing money from credit cards to pay staff wages, then paying it back when local council paid up, this went on for years until Council awarded contract to another company in another part of the Country, our world collapsed but hey hey ho life goes on so enough of that.

All credit cards accepted my monthly payments through Stepchange and all was okay until I decided to ask for CCA's. Have managed a few full and finals along the way and several of the cards are unenforceable.

My problem at the moment is the dreaded PRA, I will start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start, excuse the pun).
February 2012 original debt with MBNA for £14,500, debt is now £12883.00 which is when I stopped paying Stepchange.
March 2012MBNA agreed to reduced payments,
1st August 2012 received a default notice from MBNA
13th November 2012 letter from MBNA saying they had sold debt to AKTIV KAPITAL PORTFOLIO AS ZUG BRANCH
18th November letter from Activ Kapital (U.K.) Limited saying debt had been sold to ZUG branch.
During 2013 and 2014 letters from AKTIV Kapital offering settlements but not enough for me to take them up on the offer.

Nothing then until 9th October 2015 when I received a letter from PRA offering a settlement, I had never heard of PRA before that date, no correspondence from them at all.

In May 2017 after reading many posts on this forum and AAD forum I decided to leave Stepchange and ask for CCA's. I wrote to PRA for my CCA and received my post order back plus a letter saying that my account was currently deemed unenforceable.

On the 12th June 2017, I received another letter from PRA with an attached copy of an application form from the Bank of Scotland ( I do not know what that was about, the debts always been MBNA), however, they still deemed the account unenforceable.

On the 13th July 2018 a year later another lot of documents arrived from PRA, there was a reconstituted letter about financial difficulties and a reconstituted default notice plus a pile of old statements from 2011 to 2012. On the same day, I also received another letter from PRA dated 10th July saying account was still deemed unenforceable, strange they both arrived on the same day!

27/7/18, 31/8/18,18/10/18 more 10% discount letters.

After reading different senario's on both here and AAD I decided to send a SAR to MBNA so that I would know what information PRA held about me. A large pack of paperwork arrived on 9th October 2018, there was no copy of a default notice, nothing about the sale to AKTIV KAPITAL, therefore PRA did not have an original copy of the default notice or sales letter in the files.
There was however a customer information system log from 2006 to present date. Apparently PRA had started asking MBNA for relevant paperwork about me on the 3rd July 2018, PRA asked for a S78 request however, on the 10th July MBNA had told them they could not comply with the S78 request, the next log on the sheets was from me asking for a SAR. Log was then closed.

Best news so far, in with the SAR paperwork was a letter MBNA had written to PRA saying:
THANKYOU for your request with regards to the above customers account (me) under Section 78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Unfortunately we are unable to comply with the request for information and would ask you to notify the customer accordingly (did they heck).

After reading this letter I thought, great this it it, no way will they ever get the documents they need to take legal action against me but, on the 12th November 2018 (hence my signature Black Monday) I have received a letter before claim which needs to be returned before the 7th of December 2018.

In their covering letter they state that; we do not presently envisage that Expert evidence will be needed in this claim, the letter should be treated as an invitation to refer this dispute to Mediation or some other form of ADR in order to avoid Court action. If I do not reply by the 7th of December they MAY issue court proceedings.

My dilemma is, do I tick box D (I dispute the debt) and tell them I have the letter to them from MBNA saying they cannot supply section S78 and hopefully stop them in their tracks or do I just say "the debt is in dispute due to non compliance with my CCA request in May 2017".

So sorry it's a follow on to War and Peace......hopefully I will get some replies from you good folk on the mutual support thread!!!

Thanks in advance

Black Monday x

sourcrates

Hi,

I would second the advice to ask on the AAD website, or legal beagles.

Di’s experience would also be helpful to you, but she is only on site intermittently.

Have moved your post to the general forum, Fatbelly usually has a quick look at new posts first thing in a morning, hopefully he can help.

Black_Monday

Thank you so much sourcrates

Just_Di

sourcrates wrote: »

I would second the advice to ask on the AAD website

Di’s experience would also be helpful to you

I’ll take a proper look at this thread tomorrow.

PRA lost a case against me in court last year so I’m always happy to share my experience of that

I also post on All About Debt forum so I’ll be able to help the OP if they start a thread on there too.

Di

Black_Monday

Thanks Di,

I just wondered if PRA are fishing!

Just_Di

Black_Monday wrote: »

Credit card was taken out in 2001
My problem at the moment is the dreaded PRA,

. . . . February 2012 original debt with MBNA for £14,500, debt is now £12883.00

. . . .13th November 2012 letter from MBNA saying they had sold debt to AKTIV KAPITAL PORTFOLIO AS ZUG BRANCH
18th November letter from Activ Kapital (U.K.) Limited saying debt had been sold to ZUG branch.

. . . . Nothing then until 9th October 2015 when I received a letter from PRA offering a settlement, I had never heard of PRA before that date, no correspondence from them at all.

. . . . In May 2017 . . . . I wrote to PRA for my CCA and received my post order back plus a letter saying that my account was currently deemed unenforceable.

On the 12th June 2017, I received another letter from PRA with an attached copy of an application form from the Bank of Scotland ( I do not know what that was about, the debts always been MBNA), however, they still deemed the account unenforceable.

On the 13th July 2018 a year later another lot of documents arrived from PRA, there was a reconstituted letter about financial difficulties and a reconstituted default notice plus a pile of old statements from 2011 to 2012. On the same day, I also received another letter from PRA dated 10th July saying account was still deemed unenforceable

. . . I decided to send a SAR to MBNA so that I would know what information PRA held about me. A large pack of paperwork arrived on 9th October 2018, there was no copy of a default notice, nothing about the sale to AKTIV KAPITAL, therefore PRA did not have an original copy of the default notice or sales letter in the files.
There was however a customer information system log from 2006 to present date. Apparently PRA had started asking MBNA for relevant paperwork about me on the 3rd July 2018, PRA asked for a S78 request however, on the 10th July MBNA had told them they could not comply with the S78 request, the next log on the sheets was from me asking for a SAR. Log was then closed.

Best news so far, in with the SAR paperwork was a letter MBNA had written to PRA saying:
THANKYOU for your request with regards to the above customers account (me) under Section 78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Unfortunately we are unable to comply with the request for information and would ask you to notify the customer accordingly .

. . . on the 12th November 2018 (hence my signature Black Monday) I have received a letter before claim which needs to be returned before the 7th of December 2018.

. . . . do I tick box D (I dispute the debt) and tell them I have the letter to them from MBNA saying they cannot supply section S78 and hopefully stop them in their tracks or do I just say "the debt is in dispute due to non compliance with my CCA request in May 2017".

I'll start at the end

My suggestion is you tick Box D to say you "dispute the debt due to non compliance with my s77-79 CCA Request". No need to attach any documents.

If you say anything more than that you'll be giving them clues, which in turn could enable them to attempt to remedy any flaws.

At this moment in time PRA doesn't know what you know and discovered from your SAR to MBNA. Keep it that way.

Based on what you've said, if this was a poker game then you've got a good hand, but I'm hesitant to say that because I don't know the full facts and haven't seen the documentation with my own eyes. However I do recognise the 'players' such as Aktiv Kapital so there could be assignment issues for PRA. Does the name Experto Credite mean anything to you?

I'm assuming PRA in-house legal team have sent you the Letter Before Claim. However the absence of instructing an external law firm doesn't mean they won't issue a claim.

PRA will make a commercial decision on what to do when they receive your response.

Since this debt is over £10k any claim would be allocated to the Fast Track where the loser pays the winner's costs. So if PRA won you would have to pay the amount claimed plus their legal costs on top. If they lose (claim dismissed) then they would have to pay your legal team's costs as they discovered in PRA v Diana Mayhew (and the other cases my firm win against them).

You've raised lots of other interesting issues but it's best to deal with the LBC first and discuss the others later.

Di

Just_Di

sourcrates wrote: »

Di’s experience would also be helpful to you, but she is only on site intermittently.

Memo to Self: must try harder

Di

Black_Monday

Thanks Di for your input, I will send reply back to the LBC and just say about the non compliance with CCA and wait and see what happens next.

Now doubt I'll be back!

Black_Monday

Hi Di
Sorry just another question, if they have told me it's still unenforceable on the 10th July, why are they sending me a LBC ?