Want to settle - jumping through hoops?

joeythepoey

Hi people,
Hope you are all well and still somewhat sane:P
After having had about 4 cards with debts on them for quite some time, I was fortunate to be able to clear 3 of them earlier this year through a windfall.
The 4th one, which was from Halifax and being managed Robinson Way, was transferred to another collector in Sept last year, who went straight for a threat of court.
I did an information request on the account, which has taken until last week to arrive(!)
The amount outstanding is £2800.

It looks like I'm able to settle, with the help of a family member, and wanted to offer an initial settlement figure of 65%, so I called them yesterday.
It took 28 mins to try and get an answer on whether I could (the lady on the other hand kept putting me on hold to ask her manager), and at the end she said that in order to proceed with talking about a settlement figure, we'd need to go through an income and expenditure form, as that was 'their procedure'.

I'm puzzled as to why this is needed since I'm offering to pay a one off full settlement figure that we'd agree on, after which I'd close the account?
I explained the family member was helping with this payment, and that it was a gift.

Is this something they can even enforce? Considering it took 28 mins for the previous call I'm loathe to go through all that; the amount of time it takes to both talk to them and get all the info seems superfluous?

Cheers,
Joe

sourcrates

Hi Joe,

Its actually them who would close the account, not you, did they provide what they should have under your request for information ?

The income/expenditure form is more or less industry standard, its to make sure what you are offering is affordable to you.

Where debt and settlements are been discussed, its always best to do the negoatiations in writing, then your not been bounced between call handler and manager all the time.

Natioal Debtline have a template letter for just that purpose -

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Full-and-final-settlement-offers-(sole-name).aspx