Sorry, just a question for the legal buffs. In a scenario where a house is repossessed 2 years ago and judgment is awarded the same time as repossession, does that mean that a DCA acting on behalf of a lender has no further legal recourse to chase the debt ie Threaten court action etc. These are my own circumstances and the letter received today gives 14 days to repay the debt. they go on to threaten legal action if no reasonable settlement proposals are forthcoming. This is a "real" debt and I intend to pay it, although I disagree with the figure they are stating. It would be nice to know if I can use this decision to my advantage

Very interesting. Just got a letter today from Kings Legal re a mortgage shortfall (GMAC repossession about 2 years ago). Will keep you posted. (any help, pointers, always appreciated) FMB

Coming from a car insurance back ground, we used to advise callers that we do a credit check. If they objected, no problem, we ticked the box on screen but they couldn't then pay by direct debit. The insurance company should inform you that a check will be carried out, and they should also make it clear that the check should leave no "foot print". hope this helps

Hi, all. What you mention has/is currently taking up a large part of my family life. Several months ago I received a court order basically asking for an attachment of earnings. The courts had granted Drydens/Halifax a £54k CCJ due to a property that was repossessed 12 years ago. This was done nearly a year ago without my knowledge. I submitted an N244 and got a shot at defending the case. I was an easy defense and they didn't show up. It was set aside, an AQ was sent out and I requested docs under CPR 18, due to their counter claim to strike out my defense. Now I'm not sure what to do. The defense was based around the limitations act, the figure owing being wrong> Because the debt had been passed from company to company they didn't stop adding interest after the first 6 years. The docs received from drydens have no mention of any figures re original purchase, sale or interest. They did manage to include waffle about the transfer from leeds permanent to halifax. There is a land reg doc and a terms and conditions doc. Don't know what to do next but thats another issue. Secondly Assett Link have CCJ'd me, again without my knowledge last year. They too have sent me the front part of the CCA, and a list of charges that have been typed out on what looks like excel. no other docs. This case has been very frustrating due to the threat of bailiffs seizing goods. This case went through Cardiff County Court which is not far (1 hour drive?). They made no attempt to contact me, I say this because when the case was transfered to Swansea for enforcement Swansea courts found me in no time at all (I'm not hiding by the way! I have never lived in cardiff). My first N244 was a complete disaster, being sent back on 2 occasions due to fees. The court kept asking for different information, some of which they had already received, such as child benefit proof ect. I ended up paying the whole £75. I was working away so I request a telephone hearing. Letters from the court arrived stating that the case was to be "Ex Parte". No hearing was forthcoming. And I later found out, that my defense was struck out due to my non attendance in court. I found this out from Assett link when I called them about the CPR 18 request (which was late). Since then I have been made redundant so despite the mass of paperwork re jobseekers and the myriad of different benefits, grants for retraining, sorting out training providers etc, I have sorted out another N244 but was then rejected on grounds that I didn't have correct paperwork regarding job seekers entitlement. I have now got to wait for a letter from the government to say that im on benefits, before I can submit it. The original poster has a very good point. The courts are only interested in money, but the individual judges/magistrates IMHO are human enough to see the truth. We are not America, where money can almost guarantee justice. On setting aside judgments, It is achievable if you can get it into court in the first place.

To answer the first poster, huggy41, it is her first name and she had to supply her passport to get account in the first place. Account was with A&L aswell

Hi all, don't know where we stand on this one. My wife when we met called herself Alyson. The correct spelling on her birth certificate and passport is Alison. She has had credit cards and bank accounts in Alyson, and it seems that she has been using this spelling since she was a teenager. She had been with one bank for 16 years. In 2005/2006 our business went under for various reasons and we ended up losing our home and she/we defaulted on a personal loan to A&L. The loan was in her name and she subsequently received a CCJ in her absence. We were not aware of the CCJ until recently when we first decided to start cleaning up our credit files etc. We have a copy of the original agreement dated October 2004 and it seems in order but the name is in Alyson, so is the CCJ. There is PPI insurance on the loan. Is this enforceable? Our experience of A&L has always been positive, and we are not avoiding this debt, but any leverage is always welcome.

Question: Could a DCA sending you an unsubstantiated or inaccurate request for money/debt be found guilty in the criminal sense of the word? 2 points from my own experience 1. You receive a letter/notice/warrant/ccj etc for £1,500. The particular debt is statute barred. DCA should know this, and a lot call themselves solicitors. They are making a false representation (by omission). This is surely fraud under the Fraud Act 2006. Sending a letter that they know is statute barred, on the hope that people will not challenge is theft/fraud on a large scale and they are using the courts to do the work for them. 2. As a former mortgage broker (as the name suggests) It was drummed into us that selling insurance had to be 100% accurate and above board as mis-selling for financial gain was classed as theft (fraud section C under the Theft act 1968. Could we also be looking at extortion? Obtaining money by menaces doesn't necessarily mean violence. Seizure of goods, bailiffs, impacted credit rating all add up to menaces. Should we be calling the police about threatening letters over debts that are known to be bogus? And as an added measure, should we be addressing parliament/local MP about clarifying the position of DCA's. This could stop a lot of unenlightened people getting ripped off. Proposed Battle plan. I think we should be looking at an "open letter" in the Telegraph asking these questions. Questioning MP's and the Minister for Justice Jack Straw via email from all CAG members will hopefully get this issue in Parliament. Ideally, we need quotes, anything in writing from senior police and even the CPS (crown prosecution service) The upshot is a direct challenge to DCA's, send the message that we are openly looking for a fight, and equally important is the media perception and public awareness of CAG. I good test case and I can see no reason why we cant crush this evil trade at source. Opinion The increased awareness of CAG will hopefully get more of the general public interested in their rights. I certainly wont harm the libel case fighting fund, and I like one of the suggestions that adverts can be placed on the site, but a subscription would remove these adverts (sorry didn't make note of your name:)).

Sorry, let me just supplement that last question............. Halifax- "can you county court Mr Smith for me" Drydens - "sure why not? how much?" Halifax "£54k" drydens "ouch. ok" where was my information checked before it was acted upon? Drydens as data controller should have had some sort of oversite on this surely?

Thanks palamino, I was thinking more on the lines of data protection. Should they and the CRAs also be sure of the data before the act/process or publish?

Hi all. Yesterday 6th of October, after years of being chased by the Halifax and its cronies, I have finally had the debt set aside and is now statute barred. It’s not the end of the tunnel but with the information and support from this website I feel I can now accomplish pretty much anything. This case was set aside on simple grounds. The DCA Drydens had basically taken over the debt from 1 of the preceding debt collection firms (there had been about a dozen) and managed to get a CCJ on me October 27th 2007. I only became aware of it in July 2008 when I had a notice regarding an attachment of earnings. I filed an N244 and had the court case as above, yesterday. Grounds for setting aside were numerous but the magistrate stopped me on the first one. They had charged me interest over the full 12 years. Now comes the interesting bit. When I sent the N244, I included a letter setting out some of the history relating to the loss of my property in 1996 and the fact that I hadn’t received any information about the original CCJ plus a load of other stuff (not massively relevant here). Drydens reply was to request an adjournment so they could request the files from their clients to answer some of the allegations. I didn’t let them adjourn and it was subsequently set aside. They never even turned up. My question is this. Under the Data Protection Act, or any other act for that matter, are they liable for compensation considering they went ahead with a CCJ without any facts? They stated this much in writing when they tried to have the case adjourned to request the files from their clients. I may be confusing this with something else, I have read many, but not all of the posts on this site, but sometimes find it hard to find relevant information again afterwards. The CCJ was for in excess of £54,000 and I have some “real” debts I would like to pay off. Any help advice, as always, greatly appreciated

Payment protection on car insurance payment. Supposedly to cover in the event of a job loss etc to cover premiums. Same as what’s sold on other products such as furniture etc. Problem was, if you had a 12 month policy and lost your job after say 3 months, you would be required to pay the premiums as normal and reclaim them at the end of the policy. This was under the General Insurance Standards Council. Not sure if companies are still flogging them, but I know they were between 1998 and 2004 when I was in the industry. Can open, worms everywhere?

Hi, having worked for a car insurance company, and I think this is standard, claims are to be reported straight away, points at renewal. Your case is slightly different because you have effectively gone back to a provisional license. You need to inform your insurance company of this, and they will advise you on what to do.

OK - Insurance company A insures 10 bricklayers and 10 hairdressers on the same day on the street, driving the same cars. 12 months later 8 of the bricklayers have had claims and only 2 of the hairdressers have had claims. Costs for the 8 bricklayers will go up because of the claims, but the cost for the other 2 bricklayers are also up slightly because "statistically" they are more likely to have claims based on that data. the hairdressers may even decrease. The 2 bricklayers that don't have claims suffer even though they could be the best drivers in the world, conversely the 8 hairdressers that didn't have claims could be the worst. This is direct stat analysis. There is a claims data base that I would say all insurance companies subscribe too. It contains claims for all drivers in the UK and is a fraud prevention tool. The pool of data is quite large because insurance companies tend to market to a certain demographic: Sheila's wheels are women in general so they have a broad range of data on women drivers whereas diamond tend to be more competitive on young 18-30 drivers so their data is precise. Another issue is the attitude of drivers pre and post claim. We have all jumped behind the wheel of a car and driven to where we want to go without thinking about it. It becomes second nature. After a bump however, your driving attitude changes, you were hit by an idiot so you are more aware and more cautious, which is understandable. But while you're looking to see if any idiot is going to hit you,you drive into the car in front of you. Once again the stats bear this out. The insurance industry has enough problems with the mis selling of add-ons. And trying to get money out of these companies following a claim can be a nightmare. The issue of non fault claims costing you more money, as annoying and frustrating as it is, isn't going to change because it is proven theory. Going slightly off subject, insurance companies don't make a lot out of insurance. The one I worked for was making £3 per £100, and that is a very profitable company, the sister company was paying out £101 for every £100 it was taking in so it was running at a loss. Insurance companies make their profit by selling add ons such as legal cover, payment protection and personal accident cover. The breakdown cover sold with a lot of policies was not as good as the cover you can get outside your local tescos. And don't get me started on claims....... Formermortgagebroker

Hi all, first post and not good news. Before becoming an independent mortgage broker, I worked for 6 years in a national car insurance company. This was always a tough one to explain to customers, and I’m sure your initial response will be the same, but here it goes. Statistically, you are more likely to have a fault claim immediately following a non fault claim. I know, I know, I know – but think this through… how do car insurance companies calculate their premiums? Statistical analysis of claims data. E.g. a barman will pay a higher premium than a bank worker because they have a higher claims ratio. Not necessarily because the bar worker is going to have a drink, but they work longer and later hours. This “homogenous exposure” is used and is backed up by reams of data that is constantly being updated. The statistics don’t lie and the client is always free to shop around. Formermortgagebroker