Moneybarn ignoring emails threatening action

Henrique14

Hi. I have absolutely no experience with this so hoping someone can help me.

I took out car finance with moneybarn in 2020. Unlucky for me I lost my job due to COVID and couldn't afford the repayments after a few months so I arranged a termination of my HP agreement and moneybarn took the car back from me. 

Now as I understand it early termination of the HP agreement means I still have to pay back the amount owed minus the interest? This is currently around £7,300 as an outstanding balance. 

Moneybarn agreed a repayment plan with me and it was fine up until when I missed a couple of payments due to illness the last few months. 

The payment plan was cancelled and moneybarn said I needed to contact them again to setup a new one. Now, I've been trying to do this via email as I suffer with bad anxiety they made the notes on my account I can communicate via email due to my condition.

The last email from them was asking me to redo an income and expenditure form and send it back so I could setup the payment plan again, I sent this back on February 1st 2024. I've since sent about 4 or emails asking them about if this is setup now etc and all have been ignored. 

They've also been sending me emails and texts saying I need to contact them asap about my account or they may consider taking legal action. I've been trying to contact them but they've been ignoring. 

What's the worst case scenario here? I do not want baliffs at my door threatening to take my possessions as I'm trying to make Comms to sort a payment plan but seems like I'm being ignored. 

Can moneybarn just ignore my emails and take my to court or? As it feels like they are ingoring me on purpose in order to take legal action? 

​​​​​​​Any help appreciated..thanks 

born_again

 baliffs at my door threatening to take my possessions 

They can not do that without taking you to court 1st. They may send out letters saying someone is going to call. But you can simply not answer the door. There is nothing they can do.

As to set up, they may simply be looking at it & if they can agree to that amount. Further emails, will often be ignored as it is being delt with by someone.

Brie

First off you won't have bailiffs at your door.  Should anyone show up they won't have any legal standing and you are under no obligation to let them in and they have no rights to anything in your home.  Should someone make an issue of this have your phone ready and record the conversation.

Secondly it's less than 2 weeks since you sent your form back so likely they haven't even had a chance to look at it yet.  I'd give them at least a month.  And the emails and texts are likely automated so it's not like someone is sitting somewhere saying "let's get Henrique!"  You might want to ring to ensure they have received the form but even that might not work if the form was posted rather than emailed as it may not have been registered yet on your account. 

Do you have any information on how to pay them?  Is there any reason you can't start paying them the amount you can afford?  Any amount will confirm that you are serious about resolving this and will count in your favour.  The reason this works is that legal action costs money.  Their money.  And if you are making payments, however small, no court is going to give them much leeway, if any, to get nasty with you.

sourcrates

It does pay to do your research before coming onto a public forum and stressing about bailiffs, legal action and such like.
Its not going to happen, if you slip through the net, all Money barn will do is pass your account to a debt collection company, who you can pay the same as before.

Brie, above sums up the situation nicely, have a little patience, give them a chance to respond, or send a letter to them, even better, bite your tongue and pick up the phone, there is no need for all these "what ifs", nothing is going to happen in the meantime.

Henrique14

Brie said:

First off you won't have bailiffs at your door.  Should anyone show up they won't have any legal standing and you are under no obligation to let them in and they have no rights to anything in your home.  Should someone make an issue of this have your phone ready and record the conversation.

Secondly it's less than 2 weeks since you sent your form back so likely they haven't even had a chance to look at it yet.  I'd give them at least a month.  And the emails and texts are likely automated so it's not like someone is sitting somewhere saying "let's get Henrique!"  You might want to ring to ensure they have received the form but even that might not work if the form was posted rather than emailed as it may not have been registered yet on your account. 

Do you have any information on how to pay them?  Is there any reason you can't start paying them the amount you can afford?  Any amount will confirm that you are serious about resolving this and will count in your favour.  The reason this works is that legal action costs money.  Their money.  And if you are making payments, however small, no court is going to give them much leeway, if any, to get nasty with you.

Thanks for this.

Yes I've made two small payments in the last 2 weeks to show I'm trying to make an effort to not ignore the debt. 

I will give it a few more days. I was just worried as the emails and texts I had sounded very serious about them taking legal action if I continue to not contact them, although I guess these have to be automated as I have the proof I've made every effort to contact them with several emails. 

The last email I had off them today said 

"If you don’t act or contact us to agree a plan, our next step will be to review your account to determine the most suitable action. This may include referral to an external debt collection agency, or we may need to refer your account for possible further legal action"

It just got me worried as never had one of these before

sourcrates

Standard computer generated email, listing what they "may" do, not "will" do.

sparks_2023

Moneybarn are a high cost motor finance loan, I think.

As such they are probably dealing with a lot of people behind on their payments. So they might be snowed under.

They darkened my door for a time - but the dealer chose them and it was the only way I could get a car without paying a deposit - and needs must-ed at the time.