LINK Financial - 7 Day notice letter

exponential

Hi all.

I have received a letter from LINK financial regarding a debt they have purchased in my name dated 22nd July and received on 25th July.
They state the following:

Despite our best efforts to collect this sum through communication and negotiation the balance of £xxxx.xx remains unpaid.

We give you 7 days notice that the account will be passed to Messrs Kerns Solicitors without further reference to you.
If you want to avoid this course of action contact us urgently to discuss settlement or an alternative dispute resolution on phone number supplied.

I sent a letter to these people on 1st July outlining my financial position.

Should this letter be taken seriously or is it a ploy to get me to phone them?

I really don't want to speak to anybody and would much rather continue communication via letter only.

fatbelly

What sort of debt is this?

Do you recognise it as yours?

Ever been a period of 6 years when you didn't acknowledge it?

Any other debts?

exponential

Hi fatbelly

This is an unsecured debt and I do recognise it as mine.

This debt is one of 9 creditors of which I allowed to default after years of struggling to pay.
All 9 have now defaulted.

I'm trying to manage everything by myself and it's hard work.
Not entitled to assistance as I am self-employed (director) and am not claiming any benefits.

fatbelly

Ok. This particular letter doesn't mean anything.

The important one will be the Letter Before Claim, which comes with a 30-day limit

If this is a Consumer Credit Act debt, I'd be inclined to do a formal Cca request pretty soon

But on the bigger picture you need to be giving us a statement of affairs to avoid 100 questions and a drip-feed of information

Brie

Yes it is a ploy to get you to phone them.  Try to resist this as they can be a pain to shake off once the phoning starts.  But yes it does need to be taken seriously.  But the wheels can sometimes grind slowly so just because they've given you a very short amount of time and legal action is likely to still be a way off.  

And you are entitled to assistance but you need to go ask for it.  By this I mean going to a debt advice agency to get them to help you manage things.  Creditors sometimes tend to take people more seriously about their debts if an agency is involved.

StepChange and, I believe, NationalDebtline will help by setting up and handle a debt management plan on your behalf.  Community Money Advice (CMA) and Christians Against Poverty (CAP) will help organise things but leave you to do the actual payments to the various creditors.  Citizen's Advice may be able to help you do something similar.

The first 2 organisations tend to deal with things over the phone or online while CMA & CAP tend to be more face to face. 

I'm working on the assumption that you want/plan to pay things off.  There are other debt solutions if you don't/can't.  

DebtCamel has a great take on how to choose the solution that is right for you.

Debt solutions - what is your best option?

Best of luck whatever route you decide to take.

sourcrates

OP`s other thread here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6604479/what-happens-if-you-cant-afford-to-pay#latest