Unfair Defaults?

BananaHammock

Hello, good people

I'm here to see if anyone can offer some advice. It's a long story so I'll provide the abridged version and hope you're still awake by the end. . . 

I used to be a landscaper, I had my own business and life was good. One day in 2015 I became Ill, really Ill as it happened. I found myself whizzed into hospital where I stayed for the next 2wks, hooked up to a drip, watching my kidneys fail, enjoying the delights [and hallucinations] brought on by sepsis, doing my absolute best to die. 
When I left hospital, the infection that had put me there was still present in my leg. The skin on my left leg fell off, literally, and it was swollen to around 3 times it's size. Skipping forward 2yrs, the leg eventually needed to be amputated. 

After leaving hospital, I couldn't work. the district nursing team visited me at home daily and my business failed. I sold my tools to pay the bills, I sold my van and we [my wife and I] sold pretty much everything we could. It wasn't enough, my bills piled up and the usual hassles kicked in. I didn't hide from my creditors, I spoke to them all, explained the situation and owned my debt. I couldn't pay as I had nothing, but they were happy that I was fronting up. 
My Wife was taking care of everything that I couldn't, and that meant her own financial situation was pretty much ruined within 12 months. Her credit card was maxed and her wages just vanished on pay day, as you can imagine, life sucked a bit back then. 

My leg came off in 2018 and it was then that things turned around for me. I was contacted by a third party who advised me to speak to a charity called Perennial, who help people involved in the horticulture industry. A lovely lady came and saw us, explained what they could do and set about making our lives liveable again. Perennial even helped pay for school uniforms for the kids, and were absolutely awesome. 
One of the key areas that Perennial specialise in is debt management. Another lovely lady took details of my creditors and wrote to them all, it took around two months but each and every one of them agreed to write off my debt, which was amazing of them, especially since I'd promised to pay them as and when I could. Along with my debt the same lady also took a run at my Wife's credit card, by now her debt had been sold to PRA Group but after a bit of back and forth, we received an email advising us that her debt was also written off, that they wouldn't contact us again, that they wouldn't sell the debt and, crucially, that they wouldn't update her credit file again. 

That was in 2019, and ever since then, as we discovered last week, PRA Group have continued to add a default to my wife's credit file each and every month. 
I tried to contact them via telephone but got nowhere so I used a setup called Resolver and sent a message to them that way. I explained what had happened, what they'd been doing and I also provided account details as well as the name of the person who emailed, and the date they'd emailed too. Resolver wouldn't allow me to send them a copy of the email so I included my email address and offered to forward it if they contacted me that way, since then, nothing. 

I know it's only been 5 days but they've not even acknowledged the message. I'm hoping that they will and that I won't need to chase them but I'm now wondering if what they've been doing is actually wrong or if it's just me thinking that it's wrong, anyone got any ideas? 
The debt is somewhere in the region of £15k and we have no way of paying it. I'm now in a wheelchair full time as my 'good leg' is also now infected and i need an operation that will hopefully allow me to walk with a prosthetic [I've been waiting 3yrs so far] are PRA Group entitled to add the default even though they said they wouldn't? 

Apologies for the long winded ramble. I'm new at this! Hopefully I've given enough information but please let me know if not and I'll fill in any blanks. 

Cheers! 
Andy

Brie

Wow Andy!  it just shows how quickly one's life can be completely overturned!!  (I get so sick of some talking about "lazy people getting into debt" as if we all have complete control over everything in our lives!!)

Is it possible to copy and paste the email via Resolver?  Otherwise I think you'll have to wait for them to get back to you.  Collection groups seem to have a sieve like memory and conveniently forget what they've been told in the past on the off chance that they can get their grubby paws on someone's ££.  Once they have received a copy of the email they should retract their notices.  Hopefully you will have something from the original debtor about the write off as well as they should help.   

sourcrates

Hi Andy, seems you have been through the mill a little bit.

PRA Group are a multinational debt purchasing company, they buy up large portfolio`s of bad debt in bulk, its very likely that the debt was already defaulted when they bought it.

If they bought the account in 2018, its reasonable to suppose the original creditor initially defaulted the account the same year (to confirm the default date, it will be clearly stated on her credit report) so the default will automatically be removed after 6 years, in 2024.

There may be two entries for the default, one from the original creditor, and one from PRA, or just the one entry from either of them, there can be a number of variables, as long as the original date of default is shown on all entries, all is as it should be, and it will drop off her file on the 6th anniversary.

What you are seeing each month is just the credit reference agencies status update of the original default, defaults are reported for 6 years in total, regardless of whether the debt is re-paid, ignored, written off, sold or whatever, the default stays until its removed by limitation.

So there are no grounds for complaint, as what you are seeing is normal procedure.

The good news is they are not chasing the balance, so once its gone from her file in a couple of years time, the credit history will start to improve.

Hope that explains things for you.

BananaHammock

Hi guys, that all sounds perfectly reasonable. I'll go and have a look at the original date the account was defaulted and then I'll sit on my hands rather than firing off a grumpy email that would make me look a bit dim. That was the whole reason I posted here first as I've been an avid reader for a while but have never posted, and I hate making myself look daft! Thanks again, both. Much appreciated.