Hi, I have received a letter to tell me that Black Horse are taking me to court and some forms that I have to fill in and send off. With what I still owe them for my car, court fees, solicitor's costs and late payment/interest fees I owe over £13,000. Can I still stop this going to court if I offer to pay them a set amount every week or is it too late? If this does go to court, will I have to pay the whole £13,000 within a set amount of time? I've really made a mess of this. With the wages I'm on now I could pay my monthly bill as it stood with them, plus extra to chip away at my arrears, but I think I have left it too late. Any advice would be really appreciated. Sorry for letting it go this far.

Hi, I'm hoping for advice about my Bank account. Again. A year or so ago I went through the procedure of reclaiming my illegal bank charges (thanks to the people on here) and was very happy with the result. Unfortunately I came out of work a while later and had to go back into my overdraft to pay the bills and put food on the table while I was looking for another job. I was £800 into a £1,000 overdraft, but Lloyds TSB sent me a letter to say that I no longer had this overdraft and I had to pay the money back that I somehow now had borrowed without their permission. As I was under stress and struggling to get by, I buried my head in the sand and ignored them. Very stupidly.They say I now owe nearly £1,500 because of the charges. I have my wages paid into my girlfriends bank account now because when I first started work again, Lloyds would have swallowed my wages up right away for the first few weeks. I am earning not bad money now and would love to start again with a clean slate after paying my debts off. Can anybody advise me how to best approach this situation please? Could I arrange to pay them back a few pound a week? Can I have any of these charges removed? Sorry for messing it up after I have already been helped on here. Thanks. US.

Hi, I'm hoping for advice about my Bank account. Again. A year or so ago I went through the procedure of reclaiming my illegal bank charges (thanks to the people on here) and was very happy with the result. Unfortunately I came out of work a while later and had to go back into my overdraft to pay the bills and put food on the table while I was looking for another job. I was £800 into a £1,000 overdraft, but Lloyds TSB sent me a letter to say that I no longer had this overdraft and I had to pay the money back that I somehow now had borrowed without their permission. As I was under stress and struggling to get by, I buried my head in the sand and ignored them. Very stupidly.They say I now owe nearly £1,500 because of the charges. I have my wages paid into my girlfriends bank account now because when I first started work again, Lloyds would have swallowed my wages up right away for the first few weeks. I am earning not bad money now and would love to start again with a clean slate after paying my debts off. Can anybody advise me how to best approach this situation please? Could I arrange to pay them back a few pound a week? Can I have any of these charges removed? Sorry for messing it up after I have already been helped on here. Thanks. US.

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I had six penalty points on my license. As I was a taxi driver until recently, this obviously meant that my insurance was very expensive. I have bought a house since I was given the points, but didn't inform the DVLA because I was told I would have to pay a fee to have my points removed from my paper license. I sent my license to the DVLA to inform them of my change of address after my points ran out and have just recieved a nice, new, clean license in my new address FREE of CHARGE. They make enough money from us already.

Great discussion. Thanks. I was told over the phone by a woman who seemed pretty uninterested in my situation that I only had one more chance (to have a meeting with one of ther people after I cancelled my first one when I got a new job and couldn't make it). She said that if I 'messed up again' they would send the file back to Black Horse who would begin legal action. I didn't come home for the meeting (did some overtime instead) and I'm going to phone Black Horse tomorrow to tell them I want to pay £100 and another £100 when I get paid on Thursday, and then catch up with my account. If they want to start being nasty over it, I'll have to do what other people here have done and park the car elsewhere and offer nominal payments in court, etc. I think I've paid just over 1/3 of the agreement so they can't repossess it anyway without going to court first. I called Close assistance to try to cancel my appointment because I would be in work, but the woman is pretty aggressive in the way she handles customers and she just wouldn't listen, so her colleague ended up coming to see me for nothing. They messed up last week and sent the same fella out after I'd already cancelled it with them. He can't be happy. Maybe he should get a different job.

I've got Close Assistance coming out to visit me tomorrow too. They want me to be at home at 17:00. I have been offered overtime tomorrow so I really want to do it and start getting payments for my car back in order. They want me to lose money and possibly even my job just so that they can come out and make money on me! They are very direct and won't speak to me about it over the phone, insisting on a home visit. Hopefully I will be able to get my payments to Black Horse sorted out now, but I'm sick with worry about Close Assistance. I'm hoping they will send my case back to Black Horse now. Printer isn't working either. I'll have to get a copy of that letter typed out for tomorrow.

Kirkby on Merseyside mate. Everton Football Club are going to build a new Stadium here and Tesco want to build a new Superstore. There are rumours of Planet Hollywood, a Casino, Cinema and other businesses. There is not a great deal here at the moment and housing has always been pretty cheap until this news surfaced. Now prices are increasing and new businesses have started moving in already.

Can somebody move this to the *WON* section please?

My girlfriend pays for our License because I told her when we bought a house together that I refused to pay a penny towards it and if she was stupid enough to pay it, that was up to her. I really want to stop all of my family paying this disgusting tax, but they are all convinced by the BBC's threatening adverts. There isn't actually much on TV that I will watch, and only one programme on the BBC that isn't even shown anymore (Tribe). I download most of my stuff from the internet as it's unavailable in this Country. As you can view programmes on certain websites though, I'm sure they will try to include having an internet connection soon and expect more money from us all.

I have been offline for a while, so I couldn't say this sooner. We recieved a letter from Lloyds TSB saying they had done nothing wrong, etc. This brought us to the point of applying for court claim proceedings to begin. I didn't have the funds available so I thought I would have to wait a while before proceeding. To my surprise, I then recieved another letter from Lloyds TSB saying they would pay me £440 even though they still had done nothing wrong and I had not contacted them any further. Although I could have got slightly more from them had I held out, I was in dire straits and needed the money so I accepted the £440. They charged me £30 again this month though, so I will have to start all over again! Also, we got the ball rolling with my Uncles claim with them roughly the same time as my own. I was successful a couple of months ago and we were worried that he woule be one of the first to lose out, but he has just recieved £2,600 from them. And they have asked him under no circumstances to show the letter to anybody else. Does anybody want to read it? We are both still going to complain to the Ombudsman.

I just thought I'd add something on to this . . . There is a massive ammount of investment about to be pumped into the town where we live, creating plenty of leisure, recreational and shopping facilities and of course the jobs that come with them. It's great news for this place, but as I predicted back then, the local authorities are evicting an astonishing number of people. More than ever before. I really think that the value of property is going to rocket here, so if you have the right to buy they will evict you as soon as you give them a chance, meaning that whatever extra value added to the property is theirs, not yours.

Cheers dave. (Sorry I've not replied sooner, I've been offline for a while). I am going to do it this Monday. Thanks mate.

I have 6 points on my license from about a year and a half ago. I am led to believe that these points are only 'active' for three years, but the DVLA leave them on your license for a further year. I don't understand what the meaning of this is. Surely if they are 'inactive' they should be removed, shouldn't they? The ponts were written on my license by a Police Officer (who for some reason didn't write down that I had also paid an on the spot fine, which I might look into to see if there is a reason for it). I am thinking of informing the DVLA that I have changed my address (and possibly lost my license) to see if I recieve a clean copy. Has anyone else done this before? Thanks. UtterlyScrewed.

Yes, thanks a lot fellas. I feel even better knowing this now. it seems like another string to our bow.

I tried to make an appointment with my local GP a couple of years ago as I was travelling through South East Asia shortly after the Boxing Day Tsunami. I had about Three Months time before my departure when I first went to the doctors and was told that I had to prove that I was no longer in the Army as I was not entitled to treatment after having numerous appointments cancelled and being fobbed off by them. Eventually when I got past the staff and spoke to a Nurse a few days before I left she said that I was being unreasonable and I should have given them some time to sort it out. I asked if Three Months would be enough because that is how long I had been trying to see them. I do not have discharge papers as I have moved house a few times and not kept track of them as I was glad to be out of the Army and saw no reason to keep them. Can I still not see a doctor, even if I really need one or is there a way of replacing my papers? Oh, I travelled to Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Australia with no innoculations after tye Nurse blamed ME for coming to see them at the very last minute without phoning in advance! UtterlyScrewed

I'll make a start on this one tomorrow. Thank you very much. I think I will be upset when I run out of claims to make! UtterlyScrewed

9/14 days gone. These days can't go by fast enough.

Hi, I am currently claiming charges from the TSB and I've spoken about other things I'm doing elsewhere on the forum. I was just wondering if it was possible to get details of an account that I closed about 2/3 years ago when I was unhappy with the service that was being provided? I can't remember if there were any charges as I was unaware of this whole situation back then, but I will go through the process even for the sake of getting £1 back. Any money I could reclaim would be great, but it's not just the money is it? I don't seem to have any record of account numbers anywhere. Thanks in advance. UtterlyScrewed

Really? I thought the TSB dragged the whole process out for as long as possible. I think I might actually hold my breath. Cheers Leach. UtterlyScrewed

She has been to the Doctor today mate. She is going to start going to Counselling. It looks like this whole thing has been a blessing in disguise now. The arrears are being sorted out once and for all, Mum has admitted she needs help and hopefully we can get together and buy the house with the right to buy so that her and my Sisters future will be financially secured. I am dropping off to sleep as I am typing after my sleepless night last night. Haha. It's been worth it though. Thank you all once again. I hope somebody else can read this discussion and realise that the sooner they share their problems with their family, the sooner things will get sorted.

Hello. We have just found out that my mum pays the same ammount of Council Tax as my girlfriend and I do even though my Dad passed away in 2001 and she is the only adult in the house. As they have been aware of this for obvious reasons (like the Electoral Register) she has never questioned them and assumed that what they are charging her is the correct ammount. Is there any way that we could claim back the five years worth of 25% single adult occupancy for her? Considering the fact that we need to pay around £3,000 to overturn her eviction for missed payments, I'm sure this money would be very useful to her. Thank you. UtterlyScrewed

Thanks to everyone who replied. We went to an advice centre today near where we live (similar to C.A.B.) and they were absolutely fantastic. I don't want to get too carried away here and think we have cracked it, but they have now said that if we pay the arrears (£2,400) and 12 weeks rent in advance (£63pw) plus she signs the tennancy agreement over to me so I look after the rent in future then they can move back in in a week or two. So far, due to the kindness of neighbours and relatives we have about £2,000 and a couple of relatives are looking to cash in shares tomorrow for the rest. We are not there yet, but I feel a lot better than I did this time yesterday. I cried in bed last night. I've just left my Mum with tears of relief running down her face. What a difference a day makes. On a side note, I have told the guy who dealt with us that I would like to volunteer some of my time to help them out, even if it would be just distributing leaflets to raise awareness. My girlfriend works for a credit card company and she has decided to leave and look for a job with the C.A.B. or even just start off with voluntary work for a similar organisation. Thanks again for all of your encouragement. Now I can't wait to get stuck into the next job. Capital One I think. UtterlyScrewed

Hello. My Mother's house was reposessed today by our local council. She and my 11 year old Sister are staying with relatives tonight and then moving into our house tomorrow. It is my Mum's fault to be honest. They have tried getting in touch with her plenty of times but she has been ignoring them and has had her head buried in the sand since losing my Dad to Cancer a few years ago. She has been depressed and ignored a lot of the letters. She owes around £2,400 in rent arrears but was paying £70 rent per week +£9 extra toward the arrears which was deemed acceptable. At Christmas she missed a couple of weeks payments and this has lead to the current situation. I was told by the guys reposessing the house that if I had known about the situation and spoken to them even five minutes before the reposession began they could have sorted something out. I have asked if I could pay the £2,400 in full today to stop it happening but the reposession had started and so it was too late. I was told that I could pay the ammount and then it would be up to the descretion of somebody in our local council buildings. I went to speak to her and she denied that It was her decision to make and that it was unlikely that we could keep my Mum's house even if I paid the arrears and paid the next few months rent in advance and set up a direct debit to my own bank account or even use my own house as a guarantee. We know that this has not been their fault, but it seems harsh that a depressed widow trying to raise a little girl on her own will be evicted from the house she raised her family with as it is the home she shared her life with my Dad with before he passed away. Is there any way that this can be overturned seeing as I can pay the arrears in full? Thank you for any advice you can give us. UtterlyScrewed.

I sent a letter by first class recorded delivery to the TSB on 21/02/07 with a list of charges as advised on Martins Money website. I didn't have to wait for statements fortunately as I have internet Banking set up. I recieved a standard letter Two Weeks later that I'm sure most other people on here have seen a copy of, that basically told me to not bother. I then sent my Second letter to them by first class recorded delivery on 13/03/07 telling the Bank that I would be taking court action if they do not reimburse my charges. The total ammount I am looking for is £471.82 including interest. While I am waiting to hear from them I am sending letters to Capital One, Barclaycard and Black Horse and explaining to all of my relatives why they have to do the same. Cheers. UtterlyScrewed.

Hello everyone. My debts aren't exactly huge, but they are all over me. I feel like I can't breathe right now. I will post details of what I am doing so hopefully somebody might be able to help me and others can learn from what I have said. I have spent the evening with my family who have been evicted from their home and I've been looking at my baby Nephew and Neice thinking that we cannot allow them to go through this. We have to get out of this mess and more importantly, teach them to never get into it. Right now I feel very extreme. I am extremely angry, frustrated and I feel like I could go over the edge. But I will do everything I can for myself, my family and everybody on here to hopefully make it better. Apologies for such a depressing introduction. I'm sure you will understand though, as many of you will know what I am feeling right now. Anyway, Let's get after them. PaulM.