Help with Statute barred (Lowell)

samhancon

I had 2 credit cards in 2015, one was Vanquis and the other Capital One, both were low limits, I was in a secure job and things were fine. in 2018/19 I lost a family member, my job and things got really bad and I had to move house then COVID etc…

I couldn't afford the balances on either and to be honest forgot about them.

I got a letter a couple of weeks ago from a company Resolvecall saying that someone would be visiting regarding a debt, then the visit came, it was for Vanquis, knowing the last communication with them was in 2019 I told him that the debt was over 6 years old so go away.

I am still not in a position to pay anyway so I checked back on my old email address that I used back in 2019 and there was emails from both the company collecting for Capital One and Lowell then Resolvecall.

I sent an email template to them both stating that the debts are Statute Barred and I do not Acknowledge them, the company dealing with Capital One told me that yes, it is statute barred and the account was now closed, resolvecall told me that they had closed the account and passed it back to Lowell.

I then sent Lowell the same email and received an email on Friday telling me that although no communication or payments were made since Early 2019 to Vanquis, they took over (I assume bought) the debt in November 2020 and then issued a default against me so therefore it is not statute barred and would continue to pursue.

Any advice on where I may stand with this?

fatbelly

A 'fresh' default does not reset the clock where there was an earlier one, as there would have been. Now you could research when that was but it will no longer be on your credit file as it is more than six years ago. You could complain to the FOS, and ICO, who may or may not be helpful. Or you could just ignore Lowell knowing that if they were ever stupid enough to start a court claim, you could defend it

A debt, once statute barred, cannot be resurrected. LA 1980 s 29(7)

samhancon

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81915510#Comment_81915510

I'm not sure if there was a default before then, according to clearscore, Vanquis closed the account in October 2020 after missed payments, it then passed to Lowell who opened the account then closed it again and set up a new account with this default on.

The last payment to Vanquis was back in 2018 when I did one of those online repayment option plan freezes, that expired in February 2020, from that point there was no communication between me and them.

There has been no communication between myself and Lowell until about a week and a half ago when I sent the SB letter.

fatbelly

Yeah, sorry, I was getting confused between the two cards. So ignore the Capital One card and concentrate on Vanquis.

Normally Lowell would acquire already defaulted debts. So that would indicate a default prior to November 2020. Is there a Vanquis entry on your file? It may be worth getting statutory reports from the three credit agencies.

It may be that something odd has happened here as Vanquis were owned by Provident, who got into financial difficulties. If they sold accounts without a default then Lowell may have a legally persuasive argument that their default in Nov 2020(?) is the one that counts and you have another 8 months to get through without a court claim before this goes SB, assuming that your recent email did not restart the clock. Unless you live in Scotland!

sourcrates

I seem to re-call the proverbial hit the fan pretty quick when Provident got into trouble, and a lot of their credit accounts were sold to raise capital, some of these may not have been defaulted due to the companies urgent need for cash at the time.

The problem is when a debt gets sold, sometimes the original entry, containing the default date may be removed and replaced with the entry from the new owner, now that default date is not always accurate, and if you were not monitoring your reports, you may have missed it altogether.

samhancon

I don't live in Scotland, I used to when I opened the Credit cards funnily enough but live just over the border now. My recent email was the standard Debt Barred letter and stated that I do not acknowledge the debt, so it should not have restarted the clock.

My worry is that now I have sent this, that they may pursue through the courts with only 7 or 8 months left.

The other reason that I thought it may have been Statute Barred was the fact that their emails were going from give us the full balance of £1845 to desperation of we can give you a massive discount of something like 60% off the total

fatbelly

Again, normally that happens after a default, but may not have happened here.

Before a court claim there has to be a formal Letter Before Claim giving you 30 days.

Vanquis do still exist, in a revised form. I might be tempted to do a Subject Access request to them for the history of your account. I don't know what others think. Or just ignore until a LBC.