drydensfairfax

grevious

Hi, I am hoping someone can give some advice please I have received a letter today from drydensfairfax saying I have been passed over to them from Arrow Global and they want £1800 from me by the 23rd September otherwise they will take me to court, I have been paying this debt of to another company for a few years and it was set up originally by the credit card company the thing is I paid for years extremely high interest to Scottish Bank and have more than paid the debt in the amount of money they have had from me as it was in 1999  I have never defulted this agreement and always paid on time so can dydensfairfax still do this to me even though i have been paying this is causing me so much stress I do not have that amount and not sure what to do I have looked on line but most of the advice is for people that have not paid.

[Deleted User]

They're able to apply for a CCJ, but they're far less likely to if payment is still being made. 

Advise them you're not in a position to repay in full, but can continue with the existing payments.

sourcrates

These letter`s are designed to stress and panic you, you did the right thing coming here for advice.

Arrow Global are debt purchasers, Dryden's Fairfax are their tame legal arm.

Neither will be aware of the previous payment arrangement you had with the original creditor, these companies send out template letters to new acquisitions, dependant on a number of things, in your case, as its an old debt, and as such its enforceability may be in question, they have gone straight to the threat of court action, in order to initiate a fast response from you, there threats and timescales are pretty much meaningless, but this method usually works well for them.

Old accounts tend to have questionable paperwork, or no paperwork at all, so can`t be enforced through the courts, they are well aware of this, so they opt for the legal action template letter, in order to panic you into a quick response, sneaky huh.

If it were me, my initial response to them would be to send them the "provit letter", get them to prove they have the legal right to ask you for payment, by producing a copy of the credit agreement pertaining to the debt.

This will keep them busy for a while, and put a hold on any further action, then see what they come back to you with.

You can then decide how to proceed with this.

They come out with these bold statements about taking legal action, as though they have already won, when in reality winning is far from certain, they must follow the civil procedure rules, the first step of which is a "letter before action" a questionnaire type document with a 30 day return window, they must also supply evidence of liability on request, so nothing happens quickly, and most fall down on the evidence part.

And this is before a claim form has even been sent.
Even if you lost the case, you are not expected to repay a large debt in full, all at once, instalment plans are common place, and set by the court according to your budget.

These companies rely on bluff and half truths to operate, in essence, with a little knowledge, its quite easy to put Dryden's back in their box.