Black Horse & Close Assistance

hbslc

Once upon a time I built up 2 or 3 months of arrears on a Black Horse (BH) loan. I then started paying normally every month. In January my DD was refused, so i paid it manually. A few days late at most. Close Assistance (CA) are now chasing for the full arrears amount plus charges.

I have no idea what the full arrears are nor the charges. No assignment of the debt to CA has been sent.

I know BH are difficult & slippery at best. Does anyone have any experience of dealing with CA & BH. Any advice would be good, so that i can resolve this at the first attempt!

hbslc

* Bump * Would be good to hear your stories & for your advice!

moneysavingmumofone

Sorry i have no advice but hopefully someone can help you soon

hbslc

Further news. I have now received a dodgy looking notification of assignment letter from Close Assistance on Black Horse letterhead. However, I still don't know what the arrears are nor the amount. Any advice?

MissEyre

Hi,

Have you sent them a letter recorded delivery to formally request an account balance and breakdown? If not, I think that needs to be your first step.

hbslc

Okay - do you have a template I can copy?

hbslc

Can anyone refer me to an account balance breakdown request letter?

Ta

Battle_weary

We had dealings with Close Assist after our business went into liquidation and we couldn't afford the Black Horse personal loan car payments.

Close Assist are in some way linked with Black Horse - probably an in house debt collection agency.

We had a personal loan NOT HP - but when we tried to sell the car we found out that Black Horse had registered the car under HPI and on the DVLA website as HP.

We had numerous calls from Close Assist on behalf of Black Horse and even a house visit - where their representative Steve offered to take the car off our hands to "help us to reduce our debt". Luckily we checked into this further and found out from Trading Standards that BH should not have registered our car as HPI or on DVLA website.

We had quite a struggle and it took many months before the listings were removed and we were able to sell the car. Look at your policy carefully to see what type of credit agreement you have and even possibly do a S.A.R to see what charges and information are on your account.

hbslc

Close Assist are the in house debt collection agency of Black Horse.

I have now recieved a statement of charges etc... I am right there are no outstanding arrears. However, due to having built up 1 or 2 months arrears in the past they have charged me 3 lots of 'collection activity charge' which total £400. This relates to emails, letters & phone calls - throughout which they have ignored my questions & made their own assumptions.

Can i dispute these charges and get them written off?

Has anyone got any experience of this?

dementedhousewife

Hi
I used to work for Black Horse.... They now have an outside company doing the collections as they now have so many arrears They got rid of loads of staff ect..
Have you tried calling the branch you took the loan from?
If you try speaking to the branch manager you could try and get some of the
charges refunded...
I found Black Horse quite imoral... Hence my leaving

hbslc

Good on yer for leaving!

I took it out when i bought a car. Do i ring the dealer or just keep on at Black Horse until I get somewhere?