Australia debt - now living back in UK - DCA contacted me - Advice please

__Jamesarthur__

Hi there

First post and couldn't find any other posts specific to Australian debt so any advice appreciated?

I'm from the uk and to AUstralia for 4 years and moved back 18 months ago, I had a credit card out there and was making payments on it until about 12 months ago. Stopped paying due to financial situation and priorities changing . I kind of just forgot about it and put it to the back of my mind (admittedly slightly in the hope that now we're residing back in the UK it might just be forgotten about).

The debt is around £3,500-4,000 (maybe higher now interest added since no payments) and they wouldn't have my new address or any contact details for me in the uk, however I recently got a random email to my work email address from a Australian DCA saying they have a 'personal matter in my name to discuss with me', no other details given. I have recently bought a house here in the UK and so my main concern is this not effecting my UK credit score or my new mortgage. 

I am now in a position to set up a payment plan, but my partner was made furlough and is now only working part time so our financial situation has been effected by the corona virus. My main questions are, should I reply to the DCA? Should I ask them for more details (request CCA?) or as this is a relatively low debt amount should I ignore until any more serious communication may come through from them? Do they have much legal right for me to reply or force me to pay back the debt?

Thanks

sourcrates

__Jamesarthur__ said:

My main questions are, should I reply to the DCA? Should I ask them for more details (request CCA?) or as this is a relatively low debt amount should I ignore until any more serious communication may come through from them? Do they have much legal right for me to reply or force me to pay back the debt?

Thanks

They just collect debts, they have the same legal rights as you or I have, they are nothing special.

What do you mean by "more serious communication" ?

Debts of this nature are seldon chased across international borders, i believe a recipricol agreement does exist between Great Britain and Austrailia, but its not normally cost effective to chase consumer credit debts in other countries.

In theory the debt could be sold to a UK debt collector and then chased over here, but they would first need to trace you, its a time consuming process and with no guarentee of getting anything back for all the hard work, and i`ve yet to see that happen.

The only way they can force you to pay the debt is by going through legal channels available to anyone, however, they don`t know were you are, and probebly don`t even know your back in the UK.

At present its costing them nothing to send you an email, it would be the clients decision how to proceed, not the debt collector, they just do as they are instructed.

fatbelly

__Jamesarthur__ said:

 I recently got a random email to my work email address from a Australian DCA saying they have a 'personal matter in my name to discuss with me', no other details given.

Thanks

It could be anything. I certainly wouldn't respond to a random email giving no details.

Mark it as spam

__Jamesarthur__

Thanks for the reply.

By 'more serious communication'  I meant them actually threatening to take legal action or CCJ etc.
As the one email I've got was very vague but I'm quite sure its about the credit card as that's the only thing it could be.

From what I've read in other posts it seems it would be a lot of work their end to track my address and I'm a bit worried they'll start trying to contact other employees or friends, but I'm confident nobody would say anything as it would just come across like a scammer and my work wouldn't give anything out about me due to GDPR rules.

Sounds like I should junk and ignore for now. 

Is there any risk that further action could effect my mortgage/house here? I understand that my credit report is different and Australian credit isn't on my Experian credit report here, so it can't effect that. But I'm just a bit nervous as we've only just moved into our first home.

sourcrates

You’ve had a random email from a debt collector, let’s try and keep it real shall we.
An unsecured credit card debt in Australia won’t affect diddly squat over here, you give them far too much credit, don’t lose any sleep over it.

DCFC79

Your credit score is just a nu ber, only you can see it, your history is whats important.