Lending Stream threatening CCJ through TM Legal Services for a 10+ missold payday loan

danakpop

Hi everybody.

This is my first post here but am having a stressful time as it is without receiving emails (the latest being yesterday) from TM Legal Services threatening me with a CCJ on behalf of Lending Stream for £433.70 (over 4 times what I borrowed).

I borrowed from them during an extremely difficult time. I had just left university after the death of my 2 closest friends, was living in a tent in a park, and had to wait weeks for a JSA benefits claim to start which took 6 weeks. I was only 20 years old and was 10-11 years ago where I borrowed £100 for food to literally survive until I had any sort of income. I didn't have an address and used a friend's.

They are only emails on an old account because they don't know where I live now, and with a perfect payment record and my life being a huge struggle to where I am today. My past is haunting and harassing me, where reading the front of the forums I was missold it in the first place as they had my details (and a friend's address) to do a credit check that would've shown I had no form of income at the time and that I didn't actually live at that address, because I was really living in a tent in a park as I say.

It was £100 I asked to buy food 10+ years ago. And I am receiving emails from TM Legal Services threatening me with 433.70 saying:

"As you are aware we have obtained a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against you on behalf of Asset Collections and Investigations . The balance of £433.70 remains outstanding and we now require your proposals by 02/09/2023 for repayment to avoid possible enforcement of the CCJ.     In the absence of your repayment proposals, it is open to our client to seek the following enforcement action against you:     • Warrant of Control – a County Court Bailiff can be instructed to recover an amount of money relating to your CCJ. This would involve a Bailiff visiting your property to levy on goods or collect payments to the value of the outstanding Warrant     • Attachment of Earnings – your employer may be Ordered by the Court to deduct payments directly from your wages to repay the balance owed under the CCJ.     • Charging Order – should you have an interest in/own a property, the Court may grant an Order which secures the outstanding CCJ debt against your interest.     In the event of enforcement action, your outstanding balance may increase due to additional Court fees and costs.     Get in touch today through our online portal or by calling us on 01253 531562.     You can access our online portal 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's simple to use and allows you to pay in full, make one-off payments, set up a repayment plan, update your contact details, view your outstanding balance and complete an Income and Expenditure form to help with budgeting."

Any advice on if I should just ignore it or am I really at risk of getting a CCJ on my credit record and made to pay that balance plus court fees?

Thanks for any help in advance.

sourcrates

It states that -

"As you are aware we have obtained a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against you on behalf of Asset Collections and Investigations".

So this is old news, they already have a default judgement against you, most likely granted years ago now.

CCJ`s stay on file for 6 years, and are then removed, they stay live, but after 6 years they would require permission of the court to further enforce this, and that rarely happens.

Let me get this right, they are sending emails to an old account you can still access, but they have no idea where you live, is that correct ?

If that`s the case, just ignore them, they need an address for you to do anything, and taking this back to court after 10 years is unlikely at best, if they did happen to trace you at all in the future, and send you a letter, post back for further advice.

danakpop

sourcrates said:

It states that -

"As you are aware we have obtained a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against you on behalf of Asset Collections and Investigations".

So this is old news, they already have a default judgement against you, most likely granted years ago now.

CCJ`s stay on file for 6 years, and are then removed, they stay live, but after 6 years they would require permission of the court to further enforce this, and that rarely happens.

Let me get this right, they are sending emails to an old account you can still access, but they have no idea where you live, is that correct ?

If that`s the case, just ignore them, they need an address for you to do anything, and taking this back to court after 10 years is unlikely at best, if they did happen to trace you at all in the future, and send you a letter, post back for further advice.

Oh so what you're saying is that they've already already apparently obtained a CCJ against me? The fact that my credit file remains clear of and has never had any CCJ's means that it's more of an empty threat? It was an email account that I used from when I was 16 and stopped (as it was hotmail/outlook i.e. it was a mess) using it as my main email switching to Gmail a number of years ago. The only reason I still have access to it is when I specifically have it linked to certain sites I use that doesn't let you change your original email you signed up with/username.

That's the only reason I still keep it, to specifically check if I need to confirm something via that email. This isn't the first email I've gotten from TM Legal about this matter but have ignored them up. They don't have my address no, I had an old mobile phone contract from the same time period that I couldn't afford who did manage to catch up with my current address with o2 and had sold it to Lowell, they sent me letters in the post so had my address. I settled this account.

I've been undergoing a lot of stress recently so think I'm picking out things to make it worse, but thank you for your advice. I'll just continue as is until/if they ever manage to find my address and I receive a physical letter. They never had any idea where I lived since I got it under false address information when I was living in a tent in a park over a decade ago. My desperation and vulnerability was completely exploited as I was 20 years old and literally had no form of income or anything and needed food to get by. I've moved maybe 15 addresses since then till where I'm at now finally having a steady place to live and generally much more stable life. 

Somehow, Lowell tracked my address down with letters for the o2 phone bill from a time period not long before I ended up leaving University and my housing, healthcare etc with it. I agreed to pay them £1 a month until one day I was in a much better position and just settled and cleared what was remaining as I could afford to at the time. I was just concerned about the fact that if I was tracked down to my address I'm currently living at now by Lowell after so many years. If they could do the same. For now, I'll follow your advice. Thanks very much. If they somehow find and start sending me letters then I'll post the update of the situation if the time comes. 

Thanks again  

sourcrates

They say they obtained a judgement against you, but don`t say when that was.

If nothing is showing on your credit file, it means either the judgement is over 6 years old, and has been removed, or it was never there to begin with.

Regardless, without an address, its dead in the water, its much cheaper to send an email or text than to employ a tracing agent, if they do trace you, then post back.