Aktiv Kapital (UK) - Who Are They?

squidge60

i had a letter from these muppets months ago out of the blue (tbh i thought it was a scam with a name like Aktiv Kapital ):rolleyes: they claimed i owed £550 to new look i was furious rang them (the address i had supposedly lived at i hadnt)and i havent heard a word since .how come these xwats get away with just sending random letters :mad:

Paddyob_2

I just want to give GeorgeUK a big thank you for all his help as he seems to know a lot about this type of stuff which is very useful!! He seems to be able to help everyone and I don't know what I would do without his help!!

I have now sent a further letter to Aktiv Kapital advising that my letter of 13th January 2009 still stands and my debt is time barred therefore I want no more correspondence from them as I am reporting them. Hopefully this will keep them off my back and give me some breathing space and a good night's sleep at last!!
:beer:

altaf_2

They are truly consters preying on unsuspecting members of the public in the hope that thy will fall for their con.

These clowns Activ or debt managers are a joke. I have received 10 or so letters from them it was until the 8th letter that they were going to issue court action and george UK said dont ignore them so i didnt. Thankfully i sent them a letter asking them to prove the debt. it is now 3 WEEKS LATER AND I HAVE NOT HEARD ANYTHING. HOPEFULLY THAT WILL BE THE END OF THAT.

My advice dont send them any money. NO NO NO
Ask them to prove the debt using the excellent standard letters on this site
dont even send them £1
ignore the first few letters from them just to wind them up

There are so many con artists around. PLEASE BEWARE. example. you get an email from some1 from overseas who want to buy something from you. they send you a cheque, but the cheque is more then the amount you have asked for. you recieve the cheque, bank it then wait 2 days. the amount turns up on your statement as having been cleared. You get an email from the fraudster that the money has been taken from his account. You then send him the money. Then one week down the line you find out that the cheque has bounced and you lose the money you sent him because you have been victim of the scam. Believe me this nearly hapenned to me. Thats why i am issuing a strong warning to everyone Please be careful of cons like Activ they are fraudsters. Look at the language they use on the letters they send.

ASK YOURSELF THIS:

Which debt recovery company you know will offer you a discount (without prejudice) ?
Has any debt collectors been around like they said they would,
Which debt collector just sends letters without explaining what the debt is for?

I don't wish to see anyone being a victim of this scam. Someone must report them before they strike again

GeorgeUK

Ricky - The debt becomes statute barred 6 years after the date of the last payment or written acknowledgement if the debt (5 in Scotland). 6 years after the original date of default (even for Scotland though not sure why), any default issued should not appear on your credit file for creditors to see as the CRA's can only display the last 6 years worth of information. This means if the date of default was more than 6 years ago and the company threaten to send out a default notice, it shouln't have any affect on your credit rating as other creditors will not be able to see it.

Ikweb - When the CCJ was issued, it was assumed that the CCA was in order as it was not defended. You may be able to get the CCJ set aside as you never lived at the address. Most times though a DCA would just continue with trying to get another CCJ when the case is reheard - this would be when you would need to state that the debt was unenforcable as they are unable to provide a copy of the CCA. I have not seen much mention of this on the MSE boards, but you may want to look on the consumeractiongroup forum - this is where i have seen a few posts about getting the CCJ setaside and defending on the basis of unenforcability. Not sure how it all turned out though.

Paddyob - If you have made a formal complaint to the company and nothing has happened, it is the OFT that should be informed next. The only way they should be chasing for a debt which has had not payments made or acknowledged in writing in 6 years is if there is a CCJ for the debt. If there isn't then hopefully the OFT will be able to deal with them. The registrytrust holds records of all CCJ's and i believe the cost is £8 per search.

Ricky38_2

Hi George,

Thanks again, what a goldmine of information you are.

Does this mean this debt is time barred?
Another one for you,
Today I received a copy of my signed cca from a dca that I had requested.
I had signed for £800 of debt on 27/6/1999 I had paid this down to approx
£400 before defaulting due to redundancy.
This must have happened in late 2001
I had been paying to this account for a year and the figure they are after
is £1625.
How in hell did they arrive at this figure even at 8% per annum it can't go from £400 to £1650 in just over 7 years.
I don't want to phone them.
Am I obliged now to keep paying this debt even if they have the cca as the debt is fairly old.
I must be able to get this figure reviewed by some independent body as surely a figure of 4 times the defaulted debt cannot be justified.
Any Ideas?

Ricky.
p.s. I'm only paying this debt at £2 per month which is nothing, do you think I should just shut up?
I am however peeved that they can basically add on what they like and would rather tell them to get stuffed.

Ricky38_2

altaf

Hi there,
I agree that this company are scum and sharks but unfortunately they are
very real and have been around for a long time they buy up mostly old and potentialy time barred debts, and basically set about a ruthless campaign of intimidation to frighten vunerable people into paying up.
Aktiv Kapital also trades as Thames credit as well
They don't care how they get it
Like myself until recently I wasn't clued up and a lot of people phone them
( big mistake ) and give them details like phone number's , d.o.b. etc which then
help update your credit file and the next thing you know its a debt collectors
feeding frenzy.
If you get letters from them don't as I did ignore them use the template letters (never phone them)and ask for your signed consumer credit agreement or if you think it is time barred use the appropriate template letter.
I have had a lot of good fortune with this procedure lately and thoroughly recommend it.
If however you know the debt is your's and what the debt is for and you are sure it isn't time barred
then it is really up to you how you wish to deal with it although there is still a good chance the dca doesn't
have your signed cca.
Aktive kapital are very real although on a scale of 1-10 they are a 2
compared to some of the more aggressive debt collectors.
This is from my own experience.

Ricky.

GeorgeUK

Ricky - if there was a period of 6 years (if the debt is covered by English law) where no payments were made towards the debt and you did not acknowledge the debt in writing, then the debt is statute barred - even if you started paying again after 6 years of non payment. If there has not been a period of 6 years where no payments were made then it is not statute barred.
eg
1/12/1999 - stop paying
1/12/2005 - debt is statute barred
14/10/2006 - payments restarted
As there has been a period of 6 years where no payment was made, the debt is still statute barred. The status of the debt has not changed.

Your signed copy of the CCA should have certain terms in it for it to be enforcable. Some DCA's just send an application form and think you will be fooled into thinking this is enough. Have a look at this thread and make sure all the terms are there that are required. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=6815188

A DCA can only charge you interest on a debt if it has been agreed in the terms of the agreement. If this is not the case, then they should not be applying interest and charges. If the debt was still with the original creditor, then they could aply interest as long as the CCA was enforcable. I would look at reclaiming the charges too.

So basically what you need to look at are the terms on the CCA they provided to see if it is enforcable
If there was a period of 6 years where you did not make any payments towards the debt
If you can reclaim any bank charges or charges from the DCA for the last 6 years. (Have a look at the reclaiming charges board)

I would possibly send a subject access request (SAR - cost £10) to the DCA requesting a copy of all information they hold on you. This will include a copy of all transactions for the last 6 years so you should see a breakdown of how this amount was arrived at. It should also have a copy of the T&C when you signed the CCA so you can see if they were allowed to continue to charge interest (no more than that agreed with the original creditor). They have 40 days to provide the information and hopefully you will be able to see if the debt is actually enforcable before you send the request.

It might help if you gave a brief timeline of events for this debt. When you defaulted, if payments stopped - when, when payments restarted, when you started paying the DCA etc

Ricky38_2

Hi George,

Many thanks again for your advise,
I have worked out that all the debts I have must be statute barred as all of them are from 1999-2001 this is when I stopped paying due to redundancy.
I never had anymore debt after 2001 as my credit history was by this time
ruined.
I have to the best of my knowledge ignored or fobbed off most of the attempts by any dca even the ones that managed to obtain ccj's which I
might add are now over 6 years old or more and effectively not on my credit file anymore. ( I live in Scotland.)
I never acknowledged any of the debts except the ones which the court
papers required me to sign for during the ccj procedure.
Stupidly however in approx Feb 2008 I went to a debt advice centre who
told me to bring every thing outstanding, I was getting some real pressure over some bigger debts which in effect could have bankrupted me.
As a house owner with a sick wife and 4 kids I couldn't take this chance
as I had a lot of equity in my home.
Anyway the end story is they secured with all of my debtors a token payment plan which I have payed for the last year. ( none of the debts have ccj's with them )
So the debts I am now paying are all really time barred, I'm sure they are time barred in Scotland after 5 years.
Should I be paying them?
Or have I shot myself in the foot by allowing the debt advice centre to contact the dca,s and agreeing token payments a year ago?

Ricky.

GeorgeUK

Once a debt becomes statute barred, making apayments again does not change the fact that it is statute barred.

Just to verify:
You stopped making payments towards the debts in 1999-2001
You did not make any payments towards these debts until 2008?
If so, then these debts will be statute barred and you need make no payments towards them.

The Scottish equivalent of a CCJ is a Deed.
If any of the debts have a court order stating that payment must be made, then it is only these debts that may need to be paid. I would check with nationaldebtline as i am not sure of the legalities. If an English CCJ had not had payments made towards the debt for 6 years, they would need the court's permission to enforce the order again. With a Deed, i'm not sure if this is 20 years.

Ricky38_2

Hi George,

I can confirm that none of these debts has a ccj attatched, I defaulted
them all in late 2001 and made no admission or payment to these debts until
the start of 2008.
The debt advisor I now feel after joining this site has been feeding me
some dodgy advise, he told me when I originally asked about statute
barring " They can chase you forever " and when I asked about how
long an inhibition order lasts on a property and he told me " For as long as you own the property " this I now know is totally wrong it is 5 years.
Remember my recent posting where a dca sent me a copy of my
cca therefore the debt is mine, this is one that took out a ccj and an inhibition order for a much smaller debt so I have to be careful what I do next
What do I do NOW?
If I refuse to pay what will they do now?
George I'm afraid you may have to do a step by step with me on this one.

Ricky.