New DMP - Natwest / FairfaxDrydens advice

Rob5342

If you don't agree with the investigator you can ask for it to be escalated to an Ombudsman for a final decision. They try anf put you off doing that by saying that the outcome is unlikely to be different but I had a complaint that the Ombudsman found in my favour on where the investigation found against me. 

SquirrelNuts

Hi ManyWays - yes it was a personal unsecured loan.

The vast majority of the house equity went to the ex, and what was left over I used on some F&F offers to some of the larger creditor balances and to create a small emergency fund.

I haven't responded to the FOS assessment yet - I have 2 weeks to do this.

SquirrelNuts

ok... having slept on this...

I am thinking to make a F&F offer direct to Natwest right now to settle the debt.

This will be the usual F&F letter but also with a paragraph to note that the FOS assessor agreed that inadequate checks were made and that I intend to escalate to Ombudsman, but wont if the debt can be settled now.

If Natwest agrees to this then happy days - thats another debt settled.
If not, or if they don't reply before the FOS deadline then I will escalate to the Ombudsman and see what the outcome of that is.

Any thoughts/ideas on this?

SquirrelNuts

Quick update...

I made a F&F offer to Natwest on the 10th March. The email was acknowledged, but I've had no response since from either Natwest or Drydens Fairfax.... complete radio silence

Today is deadline to escalate the Ombudsman so I have done that and also emailed Natwest to confirm the same. I also took the opportunity to ask for a response to the F&F offer.

All very frustrating!

sourcrates

Nothing moves very fast in the world of debt collection, not even when you want to give them money it seems.

SquirrelNuts

lol so true that!

Bronvahl

SquirrelNuts said:

ok... having slept on this...

I am thinking to make a F&F offer direct to Natwest right now to settle the debt.

This will be the usual F&F letter but also with a paragraph to note that the FOS assessor agreed that inadequate checks were made and that I intend to escalate to Ombudsman, but wont if the debt can be settled now.

If Natwest agrees to this then happy days - thats another debt settled.
If not, or if they don't reply before the FOS deadline then I will escalate to the Ombudsman and see what the outcome of that is.

Any thoughts/ideas on this?

I don't know if this helps but Drydens made lots of threats to me, I even received a letter that enclosed what looked like Court documents, but they were not stamped by the Court, I did not receive them from the Court and whilst I am sure they will blame some admin error, they never took the matter to Court.

I did a subject access request to the MOJ and the last CCJ they had was one many years ago that I knew about and that had long expired.

What you need to realise is nobody lent you any money, nobody earned the money you were assigned as a debt, it was created on the computer as part of the fractional reserve system (look it up on YouTube),

What they did was what I have seen called a "confidence agreement", that is, the financial industry will have confidence in your ability to repay if you keep up payments on loans.

Now considering the fact that you have defaulted on many debts it is unlikely that anyone is going to have any confidence in you for at least 6 years.

To me it is a good thing for them to go to Court because if they go now the debt will be over with in 6 years while they could wait until 5 years from default and take you to Court then, which would mean an 11 year debt.

The only difference a Court might make is if you have a large disposable income they might make a deduction but so what, if they did that you could just as easily do a DRO and fook them all. It will be over in a year and then all debts are done with.  

If Drydens come back to you then a letter saying you can't cope with this debt any more as it is causing you mental health problems and on the instruction of a debt charity you are currently planning to obtain a Debt Relief Order.  Obviously you should stop paying them anything first and you can even ask for "breathing space" but if you have super low or no income then do it.

Don't go borrowing money from family or friends, why ruin your reputation for these scum.

They took a risk and lent you money, if the banks want less bad debt they need to be tighter on lending criteria.

Recently I got two long dead debts bought up by companies that have featured on this forum many a time. They then instructed some other scum to collect it, all I can hope is that they paid a lot for it. £37k they must have been salivating, the debt collector has gone quiet, no more emails and no more letters. I don't mind if they want to send more, it just helps with the stats and it costs them money.

I might even call them up and waste a lot of their time, get one of the scum employees all excited about commission. It is almost worth the investment of £1 for a SIM to give them the number of but never to turn on the old phone I put it into.  However, I probably won't bother because I am interested in who they will appoint then have dumped the debt collectors they assigned.

If you choose to not participate in this game and build your life around not needing credit then you will have a much easier life.  Sure you won't be able to get a mortgage for an electric car or a house, but so what.

The warranty on an electric car is max 7 years and if it fails it costs tens of thousands to replace, if you sell it early then the manufacturer may disable all those goodies you paid for and you may end up paying a debt because the car value was less than the outstanding finance.

As for the house, well you already lost the equity on one house, next time you may end up being forced to sell the house to pay for the care home or social care.  That sadly is the likely outcome for a lot of people.

I may sound smug in my social housing property with a lifetime tenancy, but at least I can leave my Tenancy to one of my kids for a similar deal in my will without bereavement tax, not that there would be any equity as social care costs would eradicate them.

fatbelly

SquirrelNuts said:

ok... having slept on this...

I am thinking to make a F&F offer direct to Natwest right now to settle the debt.

This will be the usual F&F letter but also with a paragraph to note that the FOS assessor agreed that inadequate checks were made and that I intend to escalate to Ombudsman, but wont if the debt can be settled now.

If Natwest agrees to this then happy days - thats another debt settled.
If not, or if they don't reply before the FOS deadline then I will escalate to the Ombudsman and see what the outcome of that is.

Any thoughts/ideas on this?

That's OK

Use the National Debtline standard letter as a basis

Your offer should be a low one, say 20% ±5%

rachelmc_4

Did you get any further with this? Similar situation with NatWest for a family member. Last of the debts that I’m trying to sort out 

SquirrelNuts

My F&F offer was rejected outright with no counter-offer (offer was around 30%).

I then shared an updated statement of affairs to Drydens  with a higher offer of around £70 a month repayments. Reply was this had been accepted,although the account was still on hold due to the ongoing investigation.

Since then the Ombusman has made a decision not to uphold my complaint (that was around two months ago)

Not heard anything since. All other creditors are being dead quiet too, so I'm just cracking on with the monthly DMP payments.