I'm quite lucky in that this has never appeared on my credit file. To give a brief history... I left university in 1999 and didn't defer the payments in the years directly afterwards. It defaulted and I left it for a few years. Wescott picked it up in 2005ish and we agreed a £60 per month repayment. I made it every month, but in August 2009 CapQuest advised they were now in charge. It turns out Wescott stopped passing on payments in March so SLC switched collectors. I've managed to get Wescott to pass on the missing payments now. I get annual statements from the SLC showing 'agency cheques' every month, so it seems that the DCA don't buy the debt. I've asked to pay SLC directly but can't be bothered to press it. SLC said to me a couple of weeks ago they'd like to get this finished off, and asked if I'd like a settlement figure. I said it would be too much, but I'd be interested in hearing their offer. They just gave me the balance figure and said they don't offer inducements for early settlement. (Really good offer!) It's on a 3.2% APR, so there isn't much incentive for me to change things. Then CapQuest sent me this out of the blue.

I'm told (regularly) that Student Loans are different to other kinds of debts. The DCAs say that they don't buy the debt, just collect on behalf of the student loans company and pass on the payments. The SLC say that they won't do reduced settlement figures on student loans, so I'm guessing that CapQuest have no power to offer anything. I reckon the Student Loan accounts got caught up in their bulk mailing offer and because they are different their percentage reduction formula didn't work. Idiots.

I'm not sure it is cynical. I simply called them and advised I'd like to take up the offer of £0.00, so it couldn't be interpreted as an indication I could pay more. I'm assuming that mistakes are allowed, and I can't use it as a stick to beat them with. I detest them though, so may send it on to Student Loans for their thoughts

Hi there, I've got an old, matured Student Loan account, which has been collected over the last few years on a monthly agreement by CapQuest. The wrote the following letter to me today: Dear Mr *******, As you will be aware your account is currently on an arrangement plan to settle this outstanding balance, which under your current payment plan will take approximately 51 months to settle your account. The reason for this correspondence is that your account has been selected to offer you a substantial saving on the outstanding balance. If you contact us before 13 Feb 10, we can offer you a settlement figure on the monies that you owe. If you pay £0.00 over a 1 month period your account will be cleared and we will close your file. If you wish to take up this offer you must make contact with us on 0870 084 3514 before 13 Feb 2010. All you have to do is call us and quote your reference number ****** to one of our team, stating you wish to take up this settlement amount. If you are unable to take up this offer there is no need for you to do anything. We thank you for your commitment to pay your account by instalments, your account will be monitored and if we have any future offers we will contact you at that time. Now this seemed like a good offer(!), so I called them and advised I wanted to take it. Unsurprisingly they advised it was a mistake. My question is, in the world of black-and-white, have I got a written settlement figure here that I can hold them to? Any advice appreciated

I really appreciate your advice. Am I right in thinking that the N244 form is for a court order to force the creditor to produce the credit agreement? Or is it for a claim to have the agreement declared unenforceable? I assumed that I completed the form to force the creditor to produce, and if they couldn't I then had to take court action against the agreement??? What is the court action that is in progress? It'd be very useful to contact the person for feedback.

Hi there, I've read this thread with a huge amount of interest, and would like to thank the contributors who have given advice and the benefit of their knowledge in this matter. I have issued the two requests pursuant to the Civil Procedure Rules part 31.16(3)©&(D) found at the beginning of this thread, and have had nothing back from Barclaycard. Bearing in mind the danger of applying for a court order and then being subject to the creditor's costs in producing a signed credit agreement, I was considering the following course of action: Advising the creditor that the account is in dispute and no further payments will be made until they have produced the documents requested (it is not in default at present), and then waiting to see if they threaten to sue us whereby I assume I can make a further request for the documents? If anyone can advise me whether this is a sensible course of action I'd be very grateful, and whether I can take pro-active action to protect my credit report?

That's really helpful, thanks very much. In the event that they ignore the letters and do nothing, leaving the information in the credit report, are you confident that the Information Commissioner will support you and instruct them to remove it? I don't mind if the process is a lengthy one (months, not years), but if eventually I can have the information removed I'll be happy and fight them to the end. Is there any (data processing) legislation you know of that you could threaten them with court action over?

It's good to know that others are trying to achieve the same thing! What sort of letters have you sent to the credit reference agencies and the DCA? If you could paste in your letters it would be really useful to know

Has anybody managed to get their credit file cleaned of a default that wasn't supported by a signed CCA?

Many thanks for your help. I thought when the account is in dispute they are not allowed to: * You may not demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. * You may not add further interest or any charges to the account. * You may not pass the account to a third party. * You may not register any information in respect of the account with any credit reference agency. * You may not issue a default notice related to the account. Is this not the case? I'm quite keen to take pre-emptive action (through the courts if necessary/possible) to have the agreement declared unenforceable and then pursue them to purge the credit records. After all, is there is no agreement then how can then say I am in default?

Hi there, I've started a new thread following the advice of a kind poster who responded to our post on a different thread. My partner has had a Barclaycard for over 10 years now, and we have been on the receiving end of some shocking customer service for the last 12 months. We've had enough, and thought we'd fight back a little! We sent them the following request for a copy of the signed CCA on the 3rd November 2008: Dear Sir/Madam Re:− Account/Reference Number **** This letter is a formal request pursuant to s.77/78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. I require you to provide me with a true copy of the credit agreement relating to the above account, together with any other documentation the Act requires you to provide. I expect you to comply fully and properly with this request, within the statutory time limit. You are reminded that should you fail to comply with my request, the provisions of s.77(6) will apply. If it is your view that you are not the creditor, s.175 of the CCA 1974 applies in the case of a simple assignment, and places a duty upon you to pass this request to the creditor. In the case of an absolute assignment, you are a creditor as defined by s.189. If you contend that you purchased the rights but not the duties of any agreement, you are reminded that s.189 of the Act is clear that an assignment is of both rights and duties. Your attention is drawn to ss.5(2), 3(b),6 and 7 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUTR). I enclose a cheque in the sum of £1.00, which is the statutory fee. Note that these funds are not to be used for any other purpose. If you are unable to comply fully and properly with this request, you should confirm this in writing at the earliest opportunity, and certainly within the statutory time limit for compliance, and return the fee. We look forward to hearing from you. We received nothing back, and sent them another letter on the 4th December 2008: Dear Sir/Madam Re:− Account/Reference Number **** You have failed to respond to my legal request to supply me a true copy of the original Consumer Credit Agreement for the above account. On 3rd November 2008 I made a formal request for a true signed agreement for the alleged account under consumer credit Act 1974 s77/8. You have failed to comply with my request, and as such the account entered default on 17th November 2008. The document that you are obliged to send me is a true copy of the executed agreement that contained all of the prescribed terms, all other required terms and statutory notices and was signed by both your company and myself as defined in section 61(1) of CCA 74 and subsequent Statutory Instruments. If the executed agreement contained any reference to any other document, you are also obliged to send me a copy of that document. In addition a full statement of this account should have been sent to me detailing all debits and credits to the account. Furthermore you are aware that the Consumer Credit Act allows 12 working days for a request for a true copy of a credit agreement to be carried out before you enter into a default situation. This limit has expired. As you are no doubt aware section 77(6) states: If the creditor fails to comply with Subsection (1) (a) He is not entitled , while the default continues, to enforce the agreement. Therefore this account has become unenforceable at law as you have Failed to comply with a lawful request for a true, signed copy of the said agreement and other relevant documents mentioned in it, Failed to send a full statement of the account and Failed to provide any of the documentation requested. Consequentially any legal action you pursue will be averred as both UNLAWFUL and VEXATIOUS. Furthermore I shall counterclaim that any such action constitutes unlawful harassment. Please note you may also consider this letter as a statutory notice under section 10 of the Data Protection Act to cease processing any data in relation to this account with immediate effect. This means you must remove all information regarding this account from your own internal records and from my records with any credit reference agencies. Should you refuse to comply, you must within 21 days provide me with a detailed breakdown of your reasoning behind continuing to process my data. It is not sufficient to simply state that you have a ‘legal right’; You must outline your reasoning in this matter and state upon which legislation this reasoning depends. Should you not respond within 14 days I expect that this means you agree to remove all such data. Furthermore you should be aware that a creditor is not permitted to take ANY action against an account whilst it remains in dispute. The lack of a credit agreement is a very clear dispute and as such the following applies. * You may not demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. * You may not add further interest or any charges to the account. * You may not pass the account to a third party. * You may not register any information in respect of the account with any credit reference agency. * You may not issue a default notice related to the account. I reserve the right to report your actions to any such regulatory authorities as I see fit. You have 14 days from receiving this letter to contact me with your intentions to resolve this matter which is now a formal complaint. I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter. I look forward to hearing from you in writing. We have received no response still, and have received the statement as usual. Come January they will start to collect on us - is there any advice anyone can give us as to the next step in this process?

Can anyone help?

Hi there, I've been reading a lot of forums on this topic and was hoping somebody may be able to summarise what to do if a creditor has no signed CCA for a credit card? In my case, my partner has a credit card taken out in the late nineties, and we haven't borrowed anything on it for five years. Barclaycard have given us awful customer service when we spent 12 months recently trying to get them to correct our address as statements were being sent to a household halfway across the country. We have now had enough! We sent the CCA request letter on the 3rd November and have received no response back. Today we sent the letter on this forum stating that the account is now in dispute, no further payments will be made, no credit reference information should be added etc. If they can produce no CCA, and start collecting heavily when the first payment is mssed (January 2009), what exactly are our rights? Can we simply state this is unenforceable, and pursue them to remove anything on the credit report?