I've had my letter and cheque returned to me as I left the payee blank on the cheque. Any idea of who the cheque should be made out to? Is 'Santander' appropriate? Anyone done this before?

Thank you, fkofilee. andyorch - sorry about that.

I'm having trouble finding an up to date address for Santander. Can anyone help please for the sending of the SAR?

Yes, credit rating is a mess due to the default. I will do the SAR if that is my first step.

£2.5k approx. has been paid back.

Hi I had a Santander account a few years ago. I stopped using the account in 2012 at a zero balance and notified them of such an action in branch. They said they'd keep it open for me unless I chose to close it. Fast-forward to today and I have accrued thousands of pounds of bank charges as the account was 'under-funded'. £5 a day was added in debt and this happened for two years. We even, now I know stupidly, paid off a lot of these charges - and that's all they were, bank charges, not a single penny was for any purchase of mine. This totals £2500. I attempted to notify them by writing, phone and in branch that I felt these charges were unfair and asked for the account to be closed. They wouldn't do it until the balance was zero. Finally, last year, they agreed to cease the £5 a day charge and I stopped paying them. I now have debt collectors letters for the final £1k-ish. That's £3500. Would anyone be kind enough to give me a step-by-step guide to reclaiming with template letters, etc? I've recently been made redundant and cannot even claim JSA as, working on a zero hours contract for the past three years, apparently I've not made enough NI contributions. Thanks for any help.

I was perhaps hoping that the creditors had broken some law in accepting payments from a third party. Thanks for your reply.

I have recently discovered my mum has paid off various debts of mine without my knowledge. The predominant two are Santander current account and Post Office credit card. I know my mum can barely afford this. My question is, is there any way I can recall the numerous payments as I (the person in debt), didn't make the payments? I'd like to get the money back for my mum. Obviously if I can't, I will repay her but that will take about a year and if there's a way for me to sort it direct with the firms themselves, that would be ideal. Thank you.

I'll get a letter to the University drafted and sent off on Monday, regarding asking for a copy of the contract I signed. I don't recall ever signing anything re: tuition fees, but it's probably the case that by my agreeing to going on the course resulted in my agreeing to the small print, rather than actually signing. Thanks for the advice so far.

Hi (sorry if this is in the wrong forum) I have an issue with tuition fees at the moment: I attended a course at a University and dropped out after six weeks. The tuition fees were £3600 (or £1200 a term, a term lasting thirteen weeks). This was in October of 2009. Today I received a call from 'Credit Resource Solutions' or some such, stating I owed £1600 for the six weeks of tuition I received. They claimed I was liable for the full term's tuition. I am more than happy to pay for tuition I received, which would total somewhere in the region of £600. However, I am not happy at having to pay for tuition I haven't received. Is there anything I can do? They claim the University are requesting the full amount, stating I am liable for £1600, so I don't know if I can simply 'dispute' the debt by going to the University rather than the DCA. Also, any general advice on how I go about paying the money owed? Do I give my card details over the phone, or is there a safer method? Any advice on either matter would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: Sent a 'Prove the Debt' letter (again, although the first was not sent to BCW) a fortnight ago. Last Saturday, I received a letter in reply, offering me a 'once-only opportunity' to pay off the debt, reducing it by half to approx. £112.xx ish. Lovely. So I pay them and thus the 'debt' off, then get letters from Red and Lowell demanding the same sum...

Hi New poster here, but do need some advice. I'll try and be as concise as possible, but it is a fairly long story. Back in 2004, I acquired a debt through 3 Mobile due to refusing to pay for a monthly contract that was unusable (couldn't get reception, calls were hanging, etc). They continued to charge me despite my protestations for the remainder of the contract. In 2005, I inherited a sum of money which meant I could pay off the £225 debt with 3 in order to get them to stop hassling me. I paid them in February of that year. I heard nothing from them and haven't since. However, in 2009, after moving house three times, I received a letter from 'Lowell Portfolio' claiming I owed them money to the tune of £225. They said they were collecting on behalf of '3'. Obviously, I was astonished that a) they thought this debt was outstanding and b) they'd the gall to contact me after so many years. The problem of proof immediately sprang to mind, as I only keep correspondence from companies for three years, so the letter I had confirming payment to 3 had long been recycled. I decided to ignore the letter. About a week later (this was in March 2009), I received another letter demanding the money. This time I wrote them a letter and asked for them to provide proof of the debt. I didn't hear from them for six months, but in the meantime, a new company, 'Red', got in touch via post to claim I owed them the same amount! This is when I began to get annoyed. Several letters from Red arrived in between my sending a letter to Lowell and them getting back to me. I ignored them all thinking I'd deal with one company at a time - the postcodes of both companies matched anyhow, so they're probably one and the same. In September 2009, Lowell got back to me with a letter and what they called 'proof' of the debt. What they'd sent me was my final statement from '3', stating my balance of £225. To me, this isn't proof - they've simply got hold of my last statement (a copy of which I received at the time before I paid off the debt) and stated I still owe it. I was livid, but I decided to leave it a week before I replied. During this time, I saw the Watchdog programme featuring exactly the same issues that I was having with these collection agencies. I couldn't believe my luck, until the stories all hit dead ends and every person featured still owed the money by the end, despite all stating they had cleared the debt years ago. The letters continued from Lowell and Red before I sent them a letter requesting that they halt with their harrassment and prove that I owed the money. Again, I didn't hear from them - in fact, I still haven't to this day - yet just three weeks ago, I received a letter from a new company to me, Buchanan, Clark & Wells. They have sent three letters in as many weeks, the last one stating they will be sending an 'agent' to my house if I don't pay up before the 19 February. Now, I really need advice on what I should do next. I don't want to pay, as a) I don't owe any of these companies money - the debt was cleared and b) even if I did pay, I have a feeling the other two DCAs would continue to harass me for cash. I'm not scared or concerned by their threats, just seriously annoyed. If they do this with elderly or vulnerable people, they must be making a mint - how do they get away with it? What would you lovely people suggest I do next?