Divorce Online Scam

TrisheeSquish

Waited over a year for my Divorce which started after lockdown; used an online company and I'm now separated and we've split up the assets and children (4). I've just found out the comapny has gone into liquidation after I couldn't contact them for months. Now I don't know what will happen as my Acknowledgement of Service and Decree Nisi was never issued. Please please help!! They are called ACTION CREDIT MANAGEMENT LIMITED. I don't know if I'm legally divorced!
Thanks- Ms Trish

Malthusian

I don't know if I'm legally divorced!

You are only divorced when a decree absolute is issued, and if you haven't even had a decree nisi yet (which is a preliminary step) it sounds like you aren't.

You need to speak to an SRA-registered solicitor in your area so they can pick up where the previous company left off.

Are you in touch with your spouse or their solicitors? Isn't there any impetus from their end to get it done?

Pollycat

TrisheeSquish said:

Waited over a year for my Divorce which started after lockdown; used an online company and I'm now separated and we've split up the assets and children (4). I've just found out the comapny has gone into liquidation after I couldn't contact them for months. Now I don't know what will happen as my Acknowledgement of Service and Decree Nisi was never issued. Please please help!! They are called ACTION CREDIT MANAGEMENT LIMITED. I don't know if I'm legally divorced!
Thanks- Ms Trish

Is this the correct company?
They seem to be debt collectors.

Why is it a scam?

Malthusian

Action Credit was one of those "pay us money and we'll try to get your creditors to reduce your debts" bottom-feeders. It seems that the same people also took money to file divorce petitions - with no legal qualifications - while trading as "iDivorces". They were censured by a judge for submitting 28 copy-and-pasted divorce petitions with identically worded "particulars of behaviour". (I.e. the bit where you say what your good-for-nothing spouse done did that justifies divorce for "unreasonable behaviour", in the pre-no-fault-divorce era.)
The OP's claim of "scam" seems fair comment.
The guy behind it currently seems to be dividing his time between yet another debt advice company (mybailiffadvice.co.uk, which confusingly is registered as "South West Logistics Group Limited", not to be confused with SW Group Logistics which is a real logistics company) and a gin distillery. Busy fella.

TBagpuss

What paperwork have you had? Do you have a copy of the divorce application/petition?
IF so, it will have a case number on it.

Assuming it was issued using the court's online system this will either be in the format ZZ22D123456 OR 1234-2345-5432-1234 but either way is a unique number, and with it, you should be able to contact the court and find out the current status of your divorce . IF you then send them a notice of acting in person to say you are acting for yourself, then you will be able to deal within yourself moving forward.

If you are on OK terms with your ex, if you don't have any paperwork ask them what they have, the number is for the case, so the same on yours and their paperwork.

If your spouse returned the acknowledgment of service, you will be able to apply for the decree nisi / conditional order and then for the decree absolute / final order (the terminology changes when the law changed last April) 
If not, they can still do so now, or you can apply for personal service if they are not cooperating, but you may want to instruct a solicitor if that's the cas.e.

I'd recommend speaking to a solicitor in any case to get a formal financial order drawn up to reflect he agreement you reached, so that neither of you can change you mind and come back for more, at a later date. 

If your divorce was issued online then the contact will be divorcecase@justice.gov.uk 0300 303 0642
If it was older and was issued on paper then it will be being dealt with at Bury St Edmunds Court even if originally issued in a different Regional Divorce Unit) - I think the contact details are the same in the first instance although the postal address is different if you need to write 

TrisheeSquish

TBagpuss - Thank you for your advice. This has given me some hope and a good plan going forward which I will tackle asap.
Malthusian - My 'ex' husband is a wonderful man and father, our divorce was unusually amicable and we wish each other true happiness! He comes over for a cuppa and I pop to his house too. We get on like brother and sister! I have already told him the situation and he has offered to split the cost of a new solicitor with me which is admirable. Thank you for believing me! And yes, Matthew Eastman (the scammer) seems to have his finger in ALL the pies. 

tightauldgit

I'm not quite sure why you need the services of anyone to process your divorce - if you've already agreed finances and child arrangements and you just want the divorce then you can just apply to the court for a divorce. No solicitors or other third parties required just the court fees. 

Malthusian

TrisheeSquish said:

Malthusian - My 'ex' husband is a wonderful man and father, our divorce was unusually amicable and we wish each other true happiness! He comes over for a cuppa and I pop to his house too. We get on like brother and sister! 

Great news. It sounds like it might be for the best all round that Action Credit failed to get you divorced - it almost sounds as if you had no legal grounds until "no-fault divorce" was allowed from April 2022 (although I could be reading too much into it).

Secret_Squirrel

Apparently, during the fault based divorce laws there is absolutely nothing you can to re-open the case or appeal the case, if you have provable evidence that the divorce grounds were entirely fabricated or the other person used misleading evidence, domestically abused the husband, had embezzled money in the marriage, engaged in credit fraud or failed to contribute. If there's someone reading this who can truly advise otherwise, please say because I've tried everything I can think of severely out of pocket and suicidal.

RAS

Secret_Squirrel said:

Apparently, during the fault based divorce laws there is absolutely nothing you can to re-open the case or appeal the case, if you have provable evidence that the divorce grounds were entirely fabricated or the other person used misleading evidence, domestically abused the husband, had embezzled money in the marriage, engaged in credit fraud or failed to contribute. If there's someone reading this who can truly advise otherwise, please say because I've tried everything I can think of severely out of pocket and suicidal.

You really need your own thread.

This really doesn't enable anyone to help or advise you.

What happened? Do you want to re-open or appeal the case? Which?

Why do you want to re-open or appeal the case?

Why are you severely out of pocket? Who have you been paying for what?

What do you want to happen in the future.

AskAsk

tightauldgit said:

I'm not quite sure why you need the services of anyone to process your divorce - if you've already agreed finances and child arrangements and you just want the divorce then you can just apply to the court for a divorce. No solicitors or other third parties required just the court fees. 

I use a company called Amicable and they offer a consent order and divorce application service, where they apply for the divorce for you and also apply for the consent order for you.  Yes, the divorce application can be done very easily online these days yourself without the need for third party involvement but I don't know if it was that easy when it was pre covid and pre new divorce laws.

I completed the divorce application myself online but it wasn't simple if you have never had to do it before as it asks about the financial order, which is very confusing as the online system is not very well designed.  I had to print out the paper application form to understand what I needed to complete as the paper application form had more explanations than the online process.