Debt Collection Agency GDPR

BadDebtor

I have eliminated the majority of my debt by timeout, there is one more that is nearly 10 years old due to a backdoor CCJ being obtained at a very old address.

The debt has been passed around and now the Debt Collection Agency has started emailing me at least twice a week. They write by post too but I usually don't open them.

I am told that under GDPR I can remove their right to email me, but I am concerned as to whether this in any way acknowledges the debt and extends the 6 years before the debt sinks. 

The debt only has just over a year to run so I could put a rule in that automatically marks it as spam and report the messages to as Spam as I have never subscribed or contracted with this firm. 

The emails are being delivered by a third party mailing company, there is no unsubscribe link and I never subscribed anyway, it comes from a Noreply@DebtCompany so I can't reply to unsubscribe.  My email address is extremely unusual, I am not on any social media nor can it be found online, so I am guessing they took it off correspondence I had with the former creditor.

I did tell all of my creditors years ago that they must not email or call me, I have never been called but the level of email is causing stress.

All of my other creditors got zero as their debt expired and I just want this one to go the same way, I was a mug for serving the debts for many years before I realised I could just go into default and start over with no credit ever again (which suits me fine).

I do not want to acknowledge the debt in any way, or be "deemed" to have done so, especially as the former Debt Agency firm that did the CCJ acted so egregiously by obtaining the judgement at an old address, they then emailed me at a current address as soon as they got the CCJ.  I heard it costs £300 to undo and I did not find out for a couple of years about CCJ so I figured I might as well ride it out.

So my question is, what is the best way to get the emails to stop without risk of acknowledging the debt?

DjangoUnchained

i would just ignore the emails. if you respond to them you are acknowledging that the email address is active. anything important theyd have to write to you anyway.

SusieT

If they have a CCJ the debt will never be statute barred, after 6 years they would however need to ask permission from the court to enforce the CCJ which may or may not be granted.

sourcrates

As above, the limitation act no longer applies once legal action, erroneous or not, has been taken, but a ten year old judgement is unlikely to get approval for further enforcement.

It makes no difference if you acknowledge the debt or not, it won`t change anything.

A set aside would also be unlikely to succeed now, as too much time has passed since judgement, i`d be tempted to just wait and see what happens..

twiggy86

Just a couple of comments re emails... 

"Unsubscribe" relates to marketing etc where things are optional. Again there is a "right to be forgotten" under data protection law - however if a company has a reason to have your data they do not have to delete your details (i.e. it is not an absolute right to get your details). 

Arguably, they have a reason to hold your details and equally a reason continue to contact you. So regardless of any impact it may have on acknowledging the debt, I think it would potentially be difficult to argue the means by which they can contact you?