This topic was closed on 10 March 2019. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

This topic was closed on 10 March 2019. If you have a problem which is similar to the issues raised in this topic, then please start a new thread and you will get help and support there. If you would like to post up some information which is relevant to this particular topic then please flag the issue up to the site team and the thread will be reopened. - Consumer Action Group

When we switched to N Power elec 5 years ago, in the 1st year they sent us a huge bill to pay. As we couldnt afford to pay in one go we asked for a meter to be put in so we could keep tab on what we were using and they took £2 a week towards bill. They then increased this to £10 a week from Sept 2009 (without telling us and i only found out the other day after ringing them to see why we were using double the elec than what we used to). The original debt bill started coming down and we got a bill this month for just over £200 left to pay from the original debt from years ago. A man came to read the pre pay meter on thursday and the units were more than what they had estaimated on bill and the bill we got today has now gone back upto £700!!!! I told the woman the other day that the meter man had been and would this change the amount in any way and she said no, that each time we top up it sends them a reading of what we have used. If my calculations are right, if we had a debt and money comes off it every week for the debt, and the electricity we use comes off the meter, surely they shouldnt be increasing our bill??? Im going to ring them on monday but was wondering if this has happened to anyone else or if anyone has any advice? Thanks Michelle x

Our mortgage is with Northern Rock and a few years ago when my partner was unemployed, we fell behind with 3 payments and they demanded the full amount back or court action. in the end it was decided we could revert back to usual paymentsif we did a tomlin order. This is the first month in over 2 years that we need to ask for a payment break just for 1 month. Do you think the tomlin order could stop our request going ahead? Any help would be great x

Aktiv Capital say they have a debt of mine for £230 which is from 2000 or 2001. It was taken out in my old address down south which I no longer lived at, at the time the credit was taken out. They have no info on what was taken, which store etc, just that it was for something called time retail. The first time someone contaced for this was in 2005, somehow they traced my name to my nan and grandads house and phoning them( they got the number from bt). I have told them numerous times that it is not my debt and it looks as though fraud has been commited but they are not interested. When I bought my house a few years ago, they started sending the letters to my new address, even though I rung to dispute, the letters just wont stop. They send the account to every debt agency under the sun, Im just sick of the harassment by letters and now scotcall have sent a letter that they are sending someone to my address this week. An advisor at Aktiv spoke down to me last year and she said unless I can get a copy of the council register from my mum and dads from 2000-2001 with my name on, then i am liable for the debt and that it must be mine. I said that my name wouldnt have been registered anywhere as I was in between addresses. What can I do? Surely after 7-8 years they have no right to harass me still when its not my debt? The constant harassment must have cost them more than what the debt is....... Any help would be much appreciated thanks xxx

Just got back now and it went our way!!! We were in the room with judge about 5 mins, he just said to pay what usual monthly pyts were plus an extra £30 pm to cover arrears. no rep from black horse even turned up. When we originally asked for the court date to be changed the other month I sent a letter about why we had fallen behind on payments ie unemployment and blackhorse not helping us and this seemed to have gone in our favour as the judge said he had read it and knew we couldnt afford to pay all arrears in one go. Im made up. we get paid weekly but the judge said we would have to pay one amount a month, we said whens best for blackhorse, the judge was smiling saying he decides when we should pay and not blackhorse!! and we start paying from october. Couldnt have gone any better. Were made up. x

gotta go, ill post outcome later. thanks anyway

we are prepared, we have all the bfigures, what we have paid etc What time is the hearing? 12pm Did you admit the sum when you returned the Acknowledgement of service or Defence? yes How much was the initial loan? 12k but with interest works out 17.5k How much did you pay? 6.5k How much were (default or penalty) charges? to date they are £1200 Was there any Payment Protection Insurance? no as self employed so told wouldnt help me if i had

spoke with national debt line and they didnt give us any good advice, just sent us a pack saying fill i&e in and send to court and some photocopies saying its upto judge to decide what happens, we had to ask the judge to postpone the last court date as we couldnt make it. Black horse/secheri clark and mitchel solicitors originally said we cant postpone as they have too many court cases (but it was granted) and new date is today. So we are representing ourselves, we sort of know what we need to say but dont know whether the judge will listen about unemployment period, that the car needed 2k of work doing to it, and the provident loan interest was so high we missed car pyts. In May this year we contacted black horse and said we would start payments again and asked for the reference number to pay to, they said they wont give us the details as its going to court. We asked again in July and they said the same, so we were unable to pay anything. I dont if this is any good to mention but last year when we hit teh difficulties we asked if we could pay weekly and they said no, it has to be in one lump sum.

Black horse taking us to court today for return of goods (car) as we fell behind with payments due to becoming unemployed for 2 months last year, they wouldnt help us reduce pyts and having to get provident loan of nearly 2k to fix car. They have added £1200 charges and interest onto it as well and want us to pay the court cost of £335. In the print they have put they will accept usual payments we used to pay but also a substantial amount each month to cover the charges. We can affprd the usual payment but cant afford anymore to cover charges at moment as money is tight. Any advice on things to say when in court or anything I should know before going there? thanks

national debt line said to contact the solictors about changing the date. We asked and they said no! Ive sent all the paperwork back with a covering note saying what the sols said. just hope thats ok

I know someone who has dealt with mercers and they offer repayment plans for customers with difficulties to pay 1% of the balance for 6 mths then to be reviewed again. Not sure what your balance is but they stop interest after 2 payments which could help a lot as the balance will be frozen otherwise the balance will just go up every month with interest. I dont know how big your balance is and whether this info will help you. from what ive heard, the reason some companies dont accept token payments anymore is because the debt is not being repaid back enough and they are getting so many letters and complaints at not accepting token payments its taking time to reply personally. Do you know how many months arrears your account is in? and what % of the balance have you offered as full and final?

Hi, has anyone not attended a court hearing but been allowed to continue making monthly pyts to the creditor? Ive got another thread on here about not being able to attend court as were out of the country on this date, Ive filled in all the info on the court forms and i&e and enclosed a covering letter about the reason we fell behind due to unemployment and that blackhorse wouldn't help. I have also given our debit details for weekly standing orders to be set up which will cover the usual monthly payments. Do you think this will help us keep car and continue with payments? the solicitors have said they are not attending either and its not compulsory for us to attend but national debtline have said cancel the holiday and go to court? any advice or info would be great

i have just filled out the claim form for the courts with the income and expenditure which shows we can continue making the original pyt amts. I have also enclosed a statement about whats happened, why we fell into debt from unemployment and that black horse wouldnt except anything lower than mthly agreements. This is because we cant make the court date. So you think that will be ok?

thanks for the advice. We contacted national debt line who said that we have to attend the court date, even though we are abroad with family, they said to cancel the holiday or see if sols can post date court date. Called Sols and they said they cannot canx the court date as they have too many people they are taking and no spare slots, and that we dont have to attend the court as they dont, they just send the documents to the court and dont actually have someone there, and that we can send our documents too if cant make it. Does this sound right? or are they trying to get one over us? just read national debtline infopack and it says if we dont go the court, the courts will usually say to give car back??! Any help again would be great:-?

PLEASE HELP!!!! My boyfriend has had a letter from the Court stating that a hearing is taking place in 2 weeks for return of goods. He went to Switch Car (without me) and signed up for a Galaxy for £11595 on finance, but the repayments meant total payable was £17695. He paid for the first 2 years and has paid off £6117 alltogether (half of what the car originally cost) but when he got into difficulties when unemployed they didnt want to know they wouldnt accept lower payments, even when we told them that the car was always breaking down and spent 2k fixing the car, they were not interested.They have even added on £1267 in charges and interest and want £12,825 now. The solicitors taking him to court are Sechiari, clark and Mitchel. The witness statement says: I, Robert Fyall of finance house hereby state I am legal recoveries controller, at the time of making this statement, the claiments records show outstanding balance of £12825 (he has also enclosed agreements of what my boyf signed when getting the car and copies of dfn). The order requested is 1)An order for delivery of the goods 2)The arrears of installments and half total amount payable under hire purchase agreement 3)The costs of this action However the claiment will accept a return of goods order suspended upon payment of the outstanding balance no less than £292 per month plus contribution for the arrears. I also request the claiment pay the costs of this action of £335 Can anyone help on this? ?He can start paying the £292 again but cant afford anymore at the moment due to losing overtime. We cant even attend the court date as our family is taking us away that week. Should I contact CAB?

Thanks for the reply, you have made me want to keep at it rather than just giving in to their "fob me off" letter. I took the loan out in June 2004 and it ends June 09, I remember the lady being overly keen in me signing for the loan (prob so she can hit targets) and I know she did not go through ppi with me, as I would have said no due to the previous problem I mentioned in first post. I'm going to do a second letter and send it off tomorrow. Ill keep everyone updated. Thanks again for the advice. Missy x

I sent them the first letter saying that I had no idea ppi was on my loan for the last 4 years until I had a look at my loan info on internet banking and saw it noted that I have insurance. I sent the first letter to them 2 weeks ago and they replied this week saying: 'they have reviewed case and sent copies of where I have signed under where its been ticked for loan protection, I had 30 days to cancel and never, its my responsibility to check what Ive signed for' and 'I realise that there is a lot of paperwork to read when taking out loan, however, i do believe there is a certain amount of responsibility on your behalf to read any documentation when signing legally binding contracts'........ This is the company that gave me a quote on a loan the year before this one and said if I sign paperwork they will keep that quote until I decide if I wanted to go ahead, then the next day that loan was in my account...... which took 2 months to sort out. What should I do next? They say to contact the F.O.S....??? Any help would be great

We fell behind with our mortgage payments (60k secured and 14k unsecured) a little bit last year due to my boyf coming out for work (only one and a half months of pyts behind), one month I managed to pay half of the mortgage rather than none, the following month I was unable to pay anything. I kept in constant touch with them, telling them why we couldnt pay etc as didnt want to hide away from it. We then got a dfn in the post demanding the 14k unsecured loan. I called saying we couldnt pay this and kept up with all other monthly pyts. In january I got a letter from Northern Rock saying the arrears on the account had been put back to nil on their system (to help us) and the missing pyts would be included in the owed amt £74k and to keep up with monthly pyts. The same day I got a letter from a solictors saying they were taking us to court to get the 14k unsecured loan.I called Northern Rock saying that I thought everything was ok as the arrears back to £0 and they said even though they have sent that letter they are still persuing the 14k unsecured. I said that the letter quotes the secured and unsecured loan saying just keep up with pyts but the lady just kept saying we are taking you to court and a ccj will be issued. As I work within finance I said that if I got a ccj I would lose my job (as we have regular cred chks), after a while she said she will put it through as a tomlin order were the unsecured will be made secured against the property, and we dont need to do nothing, the sols and courts will sort between themselves. But a court letter has come this week and Im getting so confused and when I ring NR Im always in a queue. Do I fill the court forms in? does this mean theres no tomlin order? does my ltr from northern rock prove everything should be ok? Im stressing so much over this its making me sick, esp that I could lose my job. Any help or advice would be great . p.s sorry to ramble on but wanted to get everything in this post.

Is it my local branch or a head office / complaints department? I told lloyds that under no circumstances did I want ppi on my loan due to probs they caused over this on another loan they put into my account that I didnt want. Ive noticed I can check my loan details online and saw that I have had ppi on my account the last 4 years!!!!!!! (the previous loan was a loan that I enquired about and was asked to sign paperwork saying the rates would be held for me if I went ahead, then the next day the loan was in my bank account. I complained and it took 2-3 months to sort out due to ppi being out through (which i have proof on statements). Due to this I made it clear that I didnt want ppi on this loan and the sneaky things have put it on which Im fuming about) Any info would be great Missy x

hi, 2.5years ago we bought a car through switch car financed by blackhorse. After everything was signed and sealed we went to pick the car up few days later and then we started experiencing problems which cost us lots in the garage, and as self employed taxi driver, losing out on work when off the road. at one point we were off the road for 3 weeks, which cost 1k to fix and loss of earnings. this is when we started getting into debt with the car and couldnt repay on time every month. the charges are really high and we are being threatened with legal action. a nice gent from black horse actually knocked yesterday saying we needed to pay something or the cars being repossessed. we need advice on what to do, the cars sitting up the drive not being used because its due for the mot as as my boyf is not working now we cant afford to do it up. is there anyway we can write the debt off or sort something out? someone sarcastic at blackhorse said ages ago that they could take and sell the car for about 1k but means we have to pay rest of balance still (about 11k) - we bought it for about 10k (y reg galaxy) and already paid over 6k back (which has just covered interest). any advice on what to do would be great. thanks xx:confused:

Sorry if the below is a bit long winded but need to put everything in for you to get the full picture....... My boyf is a taxi driver and his Galaxy Ford broke down on 27/10 and was towed by aa to local garage were he usually gets work on his car done. She said they were busy and they wouldnt be able to look at the car until monday (30/10). We called them on 30/10 in evening and were advised that they were in middle of ordering part (turbo) to be delivered the next day....... days went by and no contact. then on friday when we rung again to pick up they slipped up saying the man had just popped out to pick the part up and that the car will be ready saturday pm and that the price is £600 alltogether. Saturday 4pm we rung and the phone kept being redirected to her mobile which she wasnt answering, and we couldnt get any contact at all, also sunday morning she answered the mobile and cut the call on us and never returned our message! This morning they said the mechanic went home sick on saturday and no-one else would take over the job in case they did something wrong and the original man would get blame???? and the car would be ready 5pm tonight (11 days after taking it to garage) we have just rung up and they said the bad news is that they fitted a 2nd hand turbo and it filled with oil so they have to order a brand new one which is coming tomorrow, but the good news is that they will still only charge us the original £600......................... I feel that they are saying this just becasue of the bad customer service and delay but at the end of the day as my boyf uses the car as his taxi he has lost over £1100 in earnings due to garage taking so long. does anyone know anything we can do or whether there is someone we can call to inspect the work to check everything is correct in what they are saying as to why its taken this long??? or to check dates on invoices were they ordered parts for? Im thinking someone on here must know something we can do because we are now behind on bills because of their incompetence!! Any help or advice would be appreciated x

thanks for that advice,i forgot about energy watch and will remember them if I dont get any help. Ill give SP a call this week and will keep update of whats happening.thanks for the advice x

My boyfriend and I bought our first house and moved in end of Nov 04. We were with scottishpower until June 05 then moved over NPower. When with scottishpower we paid dd every month for amount they requested each month for gas (even tho it was capped off - we paid each mth so we could claim back end of term) and elec. When we moved to Npower we started getting letters from SP asking for hundreds of pounds that we apparently owed them for gas and elec. I requested the funds back from the gas we had paid as we hadnt used gas, they made out we had used gas and that i was wrong, they sent people out to check meter was same as when we moved in.....then denied sending anyone out at all- they made my life a missery................ it took 13 months to get money back (chq rec 1/8/06) after numerous letters/4 debt agencies harassing us/phonecalls/being signed off with stress. Then they were asking for 300 for elec saying that we had used this on top of what we had been paying!!!! Again after a year of debt letters,phonecalls, stress ect, someone actually listened to me when i called and helped me sort the case out. they worked out we couldnt have used that much elec and sent me an amended bill for £21. I called up and said they had a cheek asking for that and the least they could do was write off that amt after what they have put me thru which they did. Today ive come across all the old paperwork, default ltrs, debt agency ltrs and ltrs threatening to send someone to home address regarding the gas and elec. After 13 months I have proved I was correct all along but after everything ive been thru i feel as tho i should be entitled to some sort of compensation, esp since the amount of money i spend on the phone to all diff companies, sending ltrs, emails, stress etc.Moving into your first house should be happy for us but instead it was a missery with letters and numerous phonecallsand threatsof bailiffs. Im going to photocopy all the paperwork and send to SP requesting compensation for what they have put me thru. Does anyone have any ideas or advice as to what i should put in the letter? Sorry to ramble on but wanted to give you the full picture of whats happened. missyx

Im posting this thread on behalf of my sister. She has just started renting a flat above a shop that has been refurbished. She had a look at it and decided to move in. Shes signed the contract and paid the deposit and the landlord advised that work still needs doing so workmen may be round. when they moved in, once all furniture was put in they could see the floors are wonky/slanted. The wardrobes cant be put at end of bed as they were tilting towards the bed. The fridge in the kitchen is the funniest, it looks like its drunk slanted to the side. The heater and washing machine dont work. There is no tv ariel. They asked landlord to install one and he said he hasnt time to get it done for a while and now said they cant install a phone line. My sister works long shifts and is pregnant, she was in bed the other morning when there was a knock at the door, she tried to ignore it as was tired. Then she heard a key in the door and the builders let themselves in to finish some work. Shouldnt they have rights were the landlord has to give notice if builders are entering premises? also when she got home fr work later that day, the cushions were on one side of the couch and mud on the arm of sofa which looked like someone had lay down and put their feet up. She has mentioned all these problems to the landlord, is paying £550pm rent (which is top price in that area) but he says she is in a better flat than whats shes paying for and that he's in the right. any advice or comments on what she can do. thanks