Selling of Debt

Umbrella10

I have a couple of old debts,  i was paying them through Stepchange but i did not update my budget in time so Stepchange cancelled on me and the companies were not receiving the payments i was sending.  Stepchange started refunding my direct debits.  It seems that now the bank has sold my debt as i am getting letters from someone else who i do not know or have a contractual relationship with, how can that be right?  I have asked for a full and final settlement but have been refused -  how can it be right not to sell my debt to me instead of selling it to a third party?  How can i be sure it is not a scam when a random company makes contact? 

Brie

One way to check whether it is a scam is to look at your credit report.  If you had a loan with NatWest (for instance) and owed £1234 and that has been marked as you now owe nothing but there's a new creditor on your report - Dukes or Lowells for instance and they are showing as you owing them £1234 starting at the same time that amount dropped off the NatWest debt then it's unlikely to be a scam.  That said you could send them a prove it letter just to be sure.  

It is quite natural for a creditor (bank or someone else) to pass your debt for someone else to collect.  It might be for them to just do collection but not own the debt in which case it might get passed back to the original creditor.  Or the company may have bought the debt for a fraction of what is owed and the original creditor will consider your account closed.  I believe you are more likely to get a full and final settlement if a debt is with the original creditor still OR it has been sold but not if it's simply farmed out to someone for collection as they won't have the authority to make that kind of deal.  

fatbelly

When a company sells a debt, it is normal to be written to by both the seller and the buyer so that you can be sure the transaction has happened.

If you have just been written to out of the blue, you can send a prove-it letter. If they are genuine they will either have the original agreement or be able to get it.