That letter courtesy of The Shadow is not one I had in my files anyway, so I suspect it is of very recent vintage. It will suit the needs of this case perfectly. It is a disadvantage that you do not know when the last payment or written acknowledgment of the alleged debt occurred. Without this information, you will not know on which date the alleged account becomes statute barred. You can send a subject access request to the original creditor to find this out, but there will be a £10 charge for doing so. The SAR could also show you whether a compliant default notice was ever issued prior to termination. There is always a slight risk that this SAR could bring up a compliant agreement, but with Sharklycard it is extremely unlikely. In the end, it is your call. A lot depends on your overall situation which only you know, and it also depends on whether or not you have any rough idea when the last payment might have been. SH

If you didn't make a formal CCA request, I would take this bit out - "Prior to the issue of proceedings I had delivered a request for the production of the agreement mentioned in the Claim Form and on which you rely. That request was ignored." Yes, send both letters to the address for correspondence. There are no negative consequences for filing a defence, as a defence can only refute what is contained in the Particulars of Claim. At this stage you have no paperwork, so your only sensible course of action is to submit a holding defence and try to obtain the paperwork necessary to determine whether or not there is any debt, and, if so, whether or not that debt can be enforced through the courts. If there are unlawful charges on the account statements, that is likely to mean that any default notice issued was inaccurate. As the account has now been terminated, that would leave the creditor unable to claim for the balance, and only entitled to any arrears. There may be opportunities for negotiation as the case progresses. It is far too early to say at this stage. SH

This is the typical response to a Sharklycard CCA request. The required document has not been retained by the original creditor. All that remains is this illegible microfiche copy. The fact that it is completely illegible renders it unenforceable, and it is almost certain that even if it had been legible, it would not have contained the prescribed terms. It is Sharklycard's responsibility to retain the relevant paperwork. Due to laziness and a desire to cut costs to the bone, they have blatantly failed to do so. There are thousands of cases similar to this one. It is Crapbot's responsibility to ensure that any alleged debts they purchase come with the relevant paperwork. Due to the fact that they can bully so many people into donating money without paperwork, this is rarely a concern to them. On this occasion, it will be. Needless to say, do not waste time with them on the telephone. They will use any such contact as an excuse to attempt to bully you, and you can gain absolutely nothing from it. There is a letter template which specifically deals with this situation. I had it on my old PC, but that died before I could get everything off onto a flash drive. I am now trying to build up my collection again. I will try a search, but if anyone else knows where the letter can be found, could they please post it here? 42man and cerberusalert are brilliant with letters. SH

This is Crapbot Farcical! Expect them to totally ignore legitimate requests made under the CPR. If this happens, they can be challenged again at the Allocation Questionnaire stage, or, in the case of CPR 31.14, you can make a formal application to the court. Here are the relevant links. Have a read of these and you will be prepared for what comes next. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/131499-directions-n150-n149-allocation.html http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/159445-getting-them-reveal-their-3.html#post1771008 The AQ is likely to be the next thing you receive, but that will only happen once you have submitted your defence. We can start preparing the defence now, but it is unwise to submit it until Crapbot have defaulted on your CPR requests. This can then be included as part of your defence. If, by some miracle, Crapbot actually do send you some paperwork, please let us know. SH

The wider ranging but less powerful CPR 18 then needs to be used to attempt to gain other information which will be needed in ascertaining whether or not this claim has any justification. Examples are, statements which will be needed to calculate the amount of unfair charges or other excess monies which have been added without there being a contractural justification, the amount of insurance (possibly mis-sold PPI) added to the balance, and the evidence that this alleged debt was securitised in the UK. PART 18 - FURTHER INFORMATION - Ministry of Justice I would send this - In the XXXX County Court Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME) Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER) Dear XXX CPR 18 - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below. The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought. 1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened. True copies of any notice of assignment and default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold. 1.1 If copies of any of the above documents are to be relied on in court rather than originals, a copy of the Notice of proposal to adduce hearsay evidence required under s2(1) of the Civil Evidence Act 1995 together with proof of the authenticity of the document(s) as required under s8(1)(b) of the Act, including but not limited to: (a) a copy of the procedure(s) used for copying, storing and retrieving documents (b) a copy of the relevant log entry showing the time and date of the scan or copy, the name of the member of staff making the copy, the method used for copying, storage and retrieval and time and date of destruction of the original document(s) © copies of internal and external audit reports covering the entire period from the date of the copy to the present to demonstrate that the procedures have been complied with (d) copies of Quality Assurance accreditation certificates covering the entire period from the date of the copy to the present to demonstrate that the procedure(s) and audit process(es) comply with the appropriate quality standards 2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to: a. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.(AMEND TO THE COMPANY NAME) b. .Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable). c. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers. d. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied. e. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement. f. The Deed of Assignment g. Evidence of securitisation in the UK h. The termination 3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court. I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim. Yours sincerely, XXXX (type, don't sign). Don't expect these requests to be complied with, as the word "compliance" is not in the DCA dictionary. If they do not comply, they can be challenged again at the AQ stage, or, in the case of CPR 31.14, you can make an application to the court. These are the relevant links. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/131499-directions-n150-n149-allocation.html http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/legal-issues/159445-getting-them-reveal-their-3.html#post1771008 Send CPR letters, or indeed any communications, to the address given as the "address for correspondence". Use Special Delivery if you can afford it. SH

CPR 31.14 allows a defendant the right to inspect documents mentioned in a statement of case. The question is, what counts as a mention? Does it have to be a direct mention, or can it be indirect? The CPR are not specific here. PART 31 - DISCLOSURE AND INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS - Ministry of Justice Going back to the PoC in this case, the credit agreement is clearly mentioned. The word "assigned" appears in the PoC, in the context of the account being sold to an agency, so I would treat this as the Notice of Assignment being specifically mentioned. The use of the word "sold" is interesting, as it implies a default and termination. Can we therefore include these as part of a CPR 31.14 request? In the absence of any clear direction, I would certainly do so as there is no potential downside. A request for these will be included in the Part 18 request anyway, and the court will need to order them to be disclosed if the case is to be fairly heard. If I was fighting this, I would send the following - Dear Sir, Re: (Claimant's name) v (Your name) Case No: CPR 31.14 Request On (date) I received the Claim Form in this case issued by you out of the (Name) County Court. I confirm having returned my acknowledgment of service to the court in which I indicate my intention to contest all of your claim. Prior to the issue of proceedings I had delivered a request for the production of the agreement mentioned in the Claim Form and on which you rely. That request was ignored. Please treat this letter as my request made under CPR 31.14 for the disclosure and the production of a verified and legible copy of each of the following documents mentioned in your Particulars of Claim: 1 the agreement. You will appreciate that in an ordinary case and by reason of the provisions of CPR PD 16 para 7.3, where a claim is based upon a written agreement, a copy of the contract or documents constituting the agreement should be attached to or served with the particulars of claim and the originals should be available at the hearing. Further, that any general conditions incorporated in the contract should also be attached. 2 the assignment 3 the default notice 4 the termination notice You should ensure compliance with your CPR 31 duties and ensure that the documents I have requested are copied to and received by me within 7 days of receiving this letter. Your CPR 31 duties extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for the originals of the documents I have requested, the better for you to be able to verify the document's authenticity and to provide me with a legible copy. Further, where I have requested a copy of a document, the original of which is now in the possession of another person, you will have a right to possession of that document if you have mentioned it in your case. You must take immediate steps to recover and preserve it for the purpose of this case. Where I have mentioned a document and there is in your possession more than one version of that same document owing to a modification, obliteration or other marking or feature, each version will be a separate document and you must provide a copy of each version of it to me. Your obligations extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for any version(s) to include an obligation to recover and preserve such version(s) which are now in the possession of a third party. In accordance with CPR 31.15© I undertake to be responsible for your reasonable copying costs incurred in complying with this CPR 31.14 request. If you require more time in which to comply with this request you must tell me in writing. You must tell me before the time for compliance with this request has expired. In telling me you require more time you must tell me what steps you have taken and propose to take in order to comply with this request and also state a date by when you will comply with this request. In addition your statement must be accompanied with a statement that you agree to an extension of the time for me to file my defence. Your extension of time must be not less than 14 days from the date when you say you will have complied with my request and you must state the new date for filing my defence. If you are unable to comply with this request and believe that you will never be able to comply with this request you must tell me in writing. Please note that if you should fail to comply with this request, fail to request more time or fail to agree to an extension of time for the filing of my defence, I will make an application to the court for an order that the proceedings be struck out or stayed for non-compliance and a summary costs order. I do hope this will not be necessary and look forward to hearing from you. yours faithfully, xxxxxxxxxx More to follow. SH

OK. I thought it sounded as though it was, but it was best to find out. The first essential is to send out the Acknowledgment of Service. Don't forget to do that, whatever you do. I will be back with a post about CPR letters in a few minutes. Did any documents come attached to the claim form? SH

I would telephone the court, quoting the case number, just to verify that this is a genuine claim. If it is, then you need to send off the Acknowledgment of Service saying you will be defending all of the claim. I'll read through the thread again to make sure we get the CPR letters right. SH

Right. I have now read this thread through and here is what I would do if I was in your position. 1) Forget about paying lawyers. You need to handle this yourself. 2) Send the following letter to both sets of leeches - - HARASSMENT WARNING - WARNING: PROTECTION FROM HARASSMENT ACT 1997 WARNING: COMMUNICATIONS ACT 2003. s127. Telephone Number: ******* Re: Harassment by Telephone Date Dear Sir/Madam Alleged Account Number ******** I am writing in relation to the telephone calls I have received from your organisation, which I deem to be personally harassing. I have requested that these calls stop; however I have today received yet another unlawfully harassing and distressing call from *****. I now require the telephone number listed above to be completely removed from your systems. I am in the view that your renewed calling puts you in breach of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This is a private telephone line, operated on a contract with the intention of receiving and making personal phone calls, I have not authorised any other member of my family to receive calls from your organisation using this PRIVATE TELEPHONE LINE. By using this telephone number without my permission you are interfering with my ability to use my own private property for the duration of any call. It is my right to require that this telephone line, which is licensed solely to myself, be kept clear for my own personal calls. It is consequently my view that you are committing the tort of interference with contract insofar as for the duration of each call you make to me without my permission, you are interfering with my contractual right to receive and make personal calls on my private telephone line. Continued interference with my contractual rights in this manner will result in legal action. If you continue to harass me by telephone, you will also be in breach of the Communications Act (2003) s.127 and I will report you to the Office of Communications, Trading Standards and the Office of Fair Trading, meaning that you will be liable for a substantial fine. Further to this, if it is your intention to arrange a call from your 'Doorstep Collectors', I note that there is only an implied license under English Common Law for certain people to visit me on my property without express permission; the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v. Sheppard and Short Ltd [1959] 2 Q.B. per Lord Evershed M.R.). Take note, I revoke license under English Common Law for you, or any of your representatives to visit me at my property and if you do so without my permission, you will then be liable to damages for a tort of trespass. You would also be conspiring in a trespass if you sent someone to visit me nevertheless. Any trespassers you attempt to send therefore will be dealt with accordingly. Be further advised that any further telephone calls from your company will be recorded.. Yours Faithfully, (Print, don't sign) 3) Go here - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/195265-complaining-oft.html and read about Complaints to the OFT. Fill in one form for each shower of crud and send it off. 4) Read this article on the CPUTR 2008, and make a complaint to Trading Standards, one for each dung heap. http://www.consumerforums.com/faq/76-consumer-protection-from-unfair-trading-regulations-2008-draft/430-aggressive-and-misleading-practices- 5) Then, send the following letter - Dear Sir, Re Reference No. xxxxxxxxxx You have made repeated contact with me concerning an alleged debt with the above reference number. I have informed your organisation on multiple occasions that this alleged debt is NOT mine. The Office of Fair Trading Debt Collection Guidance states - 2.8 Examples of unfair practices are as follows: a. sending demands for payment to an individual when it is uncertain that they are the debtor in question, for example, threatening debt recovery action to 'the occupier' or sending a payment demand to all people sharing the same name/date of birth as a debtor in the hope that contact with the correct debtor will be made. A formal complaint concerning your actions has been made to the Office Of Fair Trading, and this complaint will be added to should further unfair practices occur. You can also regard this letter as the initiation of an internal formal complaint. I therefore require a copy of your complaints procedure which you are obliged to supply. Failure to satisfy this complaint will result in it being escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You are also in violation of the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Specifically, you are in violation of Section 7, Aggressive commercial practices, which states - 7.—(1) A commercial practice is aggressive if, in its factual context, taking account of all of its features and circumstances— (a) it significantly impairs or is likely significantly to impair the average consumer’s freedom of choice or conduct in relation to the product concerned through the use of harassment, coercion or undue influence; and (b) it thereby causes or is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise. (2) In determining whether a commercial practice uses harassment, coercion or undue influence account shall be taken of— (a) its timing, location, nature or persistence; (b) the use of threatening or abusive language or behaviour; © the exploitation by the trader of any specific misfortune or circumstance of such gravity as to impair the consumer’s judgment, of which the trader is aware, to influence the consumer’s decision with regard to the product; (d) any onerous or disproportionate non-contractual barrier imposed by the trader where a consumer wishes to exercise rights under the contract, including rights to terminate a contract or to switch to another product or another trader; and (e) any threat to take any action which cannot legally be taken. (3) In this regulation— (a) “coercion” includes the use of physical force; and (b) “undue influence” means exploiting a position of power in relation to the consumer so as to apply pressure, even without using or threatening to use physical force, in a way which significantly limits the consumer’s ability to make an informed decision. Attempting to coerce a third party, who has no knowledge of, or liability for, any alleged debt is clearly a violation of this statute. A complaint has duly been registered with Trading Standards, which may be added to should further harassment occur. I have been advised by your employees that reporting your conduct to the Police would be futile as this is a civil matter. I am afraid you are mistaken. The Protection From Harassment Act 1997 is part of criminal law and I reserve the right to bring action under it should you continue to harass my family or myself without any due cause or reason. As I am the not the debtor you are seeking, you have absolutely no right to be processing my data at all. You can regard this letter as a formal demand under Section 10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 that you cease processing my data. I require a written response from you within twenty-one days that you have removed my data completely from your systems. Should you fail to comply with this demand, a complaint will be forwarded to the Information Commissioner's Office and legal action may be instigated. I look forward to your reply that this matter is closed and that no further action will be necessary. Yours Faithfully, (Print name, don't sign) The first letter is an amalgamation of two templates, the second one is just something I've put together off the top of my head. SH

CPR 18 Request - In the XXXX County Court Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME) Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER) Dear XXX CPR 18 - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below. The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought. 1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened. True copies of any notice of assignment and default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold. 1.1 If copies of any of the above documents are to be relied on in court rather than originals, a copy of the Notice of proposal to adduce hearsay evidence required under s2(1) of the Civil Evidence Act 1995 together with proof of the authenticity of the document(s) as required under s8(1)(b) of the Act, including but not limited to: (a) a copy of the procedure(s) used for copying, storing and retrieving documents (b) a copy of the relevant log entry showing the time and date of the scan or copy, the name of the member of staff making the copy, the method used for copying, storage and retrieval and time and date of destruction of the original document(s) © copies of internal and external audit reports covering the entire period from the date of the copy to the present to demonstrate that the procedures have been complied with (d) copies of Quality Assurance accreditation certificates covering the entire period from the date of the copy to the present to demonstrate that the procedure(s) and audit process(es) comply with the appropriate quality standards 2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to: a. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.(AMEND TO THE COMPANY NAME) b. .Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable). c. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers. d. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied. e. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement. f. The Deed of Assignment g. Evidence of securitisation in the UK h. The termination 3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court. I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim. Yours sincerely, XXXX (type, don't sign).

CPR 31.14 request Dear Sir, Re: (Claimant's name) v (Your name) Case No: CPR 31.14 Request On (date) I received the Claim Form in this case issued by you out of the (Name) County Court. I confirm having returned my acknowledgement of service to the court in which I indicate my intention to contest all of your claim. Please treat this letter as my request made under CPR 31.14 for the disclosure and the production of a verified and legible copy of each of the following documents mentioned in your Particulars of Claim: 1 the agreement. You will appreciate that in an ordinary case and by reason of the provisions of CPR PD 16 para 7.3, where a claim is based upon a written agreement, a copy of the contract or documents constituting the agreement should be attached to or served with the particulars of claim and the original(s) should be available at the hearing. Further, that any general conditions incorporated in the contract should also be attached. 2 the assignment Although your claim is for a sum which is not more than £5,000.00 and will in all likelihood be allocated to the small claims track for determination upon my delivering a defence, at this moment in time I have not delivered my defence and the case has not been allocated to a track. In consequence the provisions of CPR 27(2) are of no effect and you should not seek to avoid compliance with your CPR 31 duties by claiming otherwise You should ensure compliance with your CPR 31 duties and ensure that the documents I have requested are copied to and received by me within 7 days of receiving this letter. Your CPR 31 duties extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for the originals of the documents I have requested, the better for you to be able to verify the document's authenticity and to provide me with a legible copy. Further, where I have requested a copy of a document, the original of which is now in the possession of another person, you will have a right to possession of that document if you have mentioned it in your case. You must take immediate steps to recover and preserve it for the purpose of this case. Where I have mentioned a document and there is in your possession more than one version of that same document owing to a modification, obliteration or other marking or feature, each version will be a separate document and you must provide a copy of each version of it to me. Your obligations extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for any version(s) to include an obligation to recover and preserve such version(s) which are now in the possession of a third party. In accordance with CPR 31.15© I undertake to be responsible for your reasonable copying costs incurred in complying with this CPR 31.14 request. If you require more time in which to comply with this request you must tell me in writing. You must tell me before the time for compliance with this request has expired. In telling me you require more time you must tell me what steps you have taken and propose to take in order to comply with this request and also state a date by when you will comply with this request. In addition your statement must be accompanied with a statement that you agree to an extension of the time for me to file my defence. Your extension of time must be not less than 14 days from the date when you say you will have complied with my request and you must state the new date for filing my defence. If you are unable to comply with this request and believe that you will never be able to comply with this request you must tell me in writing. Please note that if you should fail to comply with this request, fail to request more time or fail to agree to an extension of time for the filing of my defence, I will make an application to the court for an order that the proceedings be struck out or stayed for non-compliance and a summary costs order. I do hope this will not be necessary and look forward to hearing from you. yours faithfully, xxxxxxx.

I would send both a CPR 31.14 and a CPR 18 request. CPR 31.14 allows you to request a copy of any document mentioned in the statement of case. Here, you can request the agreement and the notice of assignment. See here - PART 31 - DISCLOSURE AND INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS - Ministry of Justice As the default notice is not mentioned in the statement of case, but is essential, I would send a CPR 18 request as well. See here - PART 18 - FURTHER INFORMATION - Ministry of Justice I will print the letters in the next two posts. SH

Whatever you do, keep hold of that letter. The telephone calls may not be evidence if you didn't record them but that letter certainly is. Find out about the CCA request here - http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/86-debt-collectors/581-cca-request-letter SH

Interesting question, as there is another case where Crapbot have issued a claim with two accounts combined (trumpetmaest). jockeylad, if you don't want Crapbot to be able to personally identify you, it might be a good idea to edit your post and change the numbers to xxxxx. It is very unlikely that there will be another claim with that exact amount of money. SH

A pre-contractural application form is not the same thing as an executed agreement, although Crapbot will probably pretend that it is. Can you see if the prescribed terms are on the document? SH

Did you ever get a reply to your Subject Access Request? SH

Whatever you do, drum it into your mum that she must not engage these cretins on the telephone. I will repeat that - DO NOT ENGAGE THESE CRETINS ON THE TELEPHONE. The only exception to this rule is if you have a recording device such as the trueCall, and you are deliberately engaging them in dialogue because you believe they will say something which may be useful to you. Have you got any recording equipment? Have you sent off the telephone harassment letter? SH

Right, first things first. Any payment of more then £1 a month is outrageous. As the government claims that benefits are "what the Government has calculated as the amount you need to live on", even £1 a month is too much. It will take you below the level of income that you need to live on. CAB are cretins and far more trouble than they are worth. Ignore them. The first issue here is that overdraft with the NastyWest. Where are your benefits being paid? If they are being paid into an account which is linked to the NastyWest or any other alleged creditor, make sure that you open another account with a totally unrelated bank and get the benefits paid into there. It is your first step to recovery. The Sharklycard - how old is it? If it was taken out before 2007, send a CCA request because most Sharklycard agreements are unenforceable. CCA for the loan as well. As you are unemployed, I have to ask the obvious question of do you have assets over £300? If not, at least give the new Debt Relief Orders consideration. If you don't get a job or any other changes for a year, all of this crap will get wiped out. There are negative consequences for your credit file, but that is already shot to hell anyway. As most of this alleged debt seems to be from cell phone contracts and an overdraft, there is no hope of getting any relief from unenforceable agreements (Sharklycard and possibly loan excepted). SH

Absolutely and emphatically not. You were not trying to deceive anyone by claiming to be someone you weren't. SH

They already know they have the right address and the right person. The fact that they are offering 40% discounts proves that they know exactly what the situation is - that they have no chance of enforcing the alleged debt through the courts. Does anyone seriously think they would be offering discounts if they could get a CCJ with interest and bleed the alleged debtor like a leech for years to come? No, they are chancers pure and simple. They are trying to make it seem as though you donating money to them is actually an act of generosity on THEIR part. The important fact here is that they only breach the guidance - * continuing to press for payment after a debtor has stated that they will not be paying a debt because it is statute barred could amount to harassment contrary to section 40 (1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970. once you have stated that you will not be repaying an alleged debt. You do need to send them the letter. SH

Interesting. My only question here would be - If the papers were issued from Hull and not through Northampton, would they show up on the Northampton County Court Website? I think you would need to get in touch with the issuing court to find out whether it is genuine. Is there any tell-tale wording on the document, such as the aforementioned "Notice of Court Action"? Did you receive a proper "Letter Before Action" from Westcot before this? SH

Report them to the OFT as they have breached the guidance. Then, if you feel like it, inform them that you have reported them to the OFT as they have breached the guidance. Mr. Ton is spot on - they have absolutely no right to your personal information, and if they want to collect on an alleged debt, they have to prove that it is your debt. SH

The first step is to ascertain whether or not this is a genuine court document. You say that you think it is, so assume for now that it is. It is much better to waste time replying to a court form you later find is false, than it is to ignore a form which turns out to be genuine. You say the form has come from Hull? So, it wasn't issued through the Northampton Bulk Centre? In that case, there should have been documents, including the agreement itself, attached to the claim form. Were there? What you need to do is acknowledge service first of all, to give yourself time to make the proper CPR requests and submit a defence. If you have no scanner, can you type in the exact wording of the Particulars of Claim, leaving out any exact amounts which could positively identify you? SH

I don't suppose you recorded this "conversation" by any chance, did you? It would make fascinating listening if you did. SH

If Patchy got a letter from them yesterday they must already have his address, so there is nothing to be lost from writing to them. Send the statute barred letter, and have no dialogue with them after that. If they continue to harass, they are in violation of the OFT Debt Collection Guidance and the CPUTR, and can be reported accordingly. SH