I have a thread on this also concerning a Barclays ltd co acct: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?323551-Offsetting-personal-debts-to-a-Limited-Company-account&p=3589318#post3589318

Credit checks for purposes other than the one originally intended (i.e. obtaining CREDIT) should be outlawed! Why should people be subject to credit checks to get a job? As ever, there can be exceptions where applicable, such as accountants not being able to file for BR or allowances under anti-discrimination laws to recruit for, say, a black female of African origin for a community support post where this would be justified. But, like the examples above, those exceptions should be limited to positions where your ability to manage debt would be relevant, not just to any job in the financial sector (such as support roles in IT, HR, marketing, creative services, data entry, etc.) The problem is, this country's government (regardless of party) has always been in bed with the banks and the big corporations and looking at America (the source of all the world's problems - from extreme obesity to the financial cri$i$) as the role model!

"Past performance is no guarantee of future performance" That applies also to consumers! Both ways (good and bad)!

Because, as ever, no-one wants to upset the financial sector so this sounds to them like a good compromise. Many people are not aware of the fact that debts can become SBd and, when presented with a threatening demand for payment, will probably just roll over and pay or set up a payment plan and keep paying for years! The CAB document linked to elsewhere makes no mention of SB at all and goes on to talk about token payments, the only purpose of which is to keep the debt from becoming SBd...

You CAN claim C Tax benefit if you are getting CB JSA I DID 2 ys ago as the JSA rate you get is the same. I had 6 mths on CB JSA only due to silliness on my part as was told I could claim both from the start (you only get 1 payment of course but get the other freebies too!) I said I just wanted to claim CB to speed things up I still got full HB & CTB so speak to your Council unless you have over £16k savings or a working partner @ home.

Frankly, anyone who accepts a 'friend' request from a DCA deserves to be hounded due to terminal stupidity! Only friends can post on your wall where others can see the posts & you can 'unfriend' people at any time if you were silly enough to accept them in the first place! FB msgs can be easily ignored along with spam!

What is it that worries you about saying you've resigned? There's nothing wrong with resigning, it's a personal decision that can be made for health reasons, family reasons, career development reasons etc. and no-one has the right to enquiry into your reasons. The only exception could be if you intend to claim benefits but even then I had no problems claiming after being sacked for 'gross misconduct' (I hadn't yet got the agreement, that came 6 months later). Given your history, I'm sure you would have plenty of arguments in your favour. If it's a question of finding another job, having resigned shouldn't be an issue, you can give any reason you want at the interview. Bear in mind it's customary to ask for references only when you've been offered a job, by which time they'd have made up their mind to hire you and, in my experience, City companies are more concerned with checking dates than anything else! It's also customary to direct all reference requests to HR who would do exactly that: verify dates. It is very unusual for City institutions to go into detail about the circumstances in which your employment ended, I say that from my own experience and that of several friends and former colleagues. Perhaps the best example is my friend P, who was having problems with his employers, an outsourcing firm X running a site within investment bank L. Rather than face a disciplinary, he resigned but then sought advice and put it an ET claim for constructive dismissal. He really had no case and had only been working for firm X for a year, however, firm X offered him a small settlement in 2008. In Jan this year he managed to get a job at another site run by firm X, this one within bank B. Firm X make a point of following an extensive vetting process for candidates and they required proof of what he'd been doing every month for the past 5 years, including proof of claiming JSA and asked me to supply a personal reference covering specific periods of travel, unemployment not covered by JSA and freelance work, yet they failed to spot the fact that he had previously submitted an ET claim agains the very same firm!!! He was offered a job within bank B, another investment bank. A few months later he was once more facing a disciplinary for unauthorized share dealing on his personal account so he resigned again! That hasn't stopped other employers in the financial sector from considering him and firm X (which happened to be the very same firm that took over the bank I was working for when I got sacked in 2003) has never been a problem in terms of references for either me, P or many others so don't worry about that side of things!

Neither. CRA is you credit file so you have to check it through Experian or Equifax.

I had one of them drawn up for me a few years ago & it included an 'agreed reference' which was a letter written by me saying I was great at my job etc & this letter was attached to the agreement so anyone who asked should be provided with that exact wording. The agreement was drawn up by my solicitor & the whole thing was done via ACAS & applied to any form of communication (ie if by email they were meant to type out the same wording). It can be hard to determine whether they are sticking to it or not but I had no probs finding work at the time even within a very close knit sector so it looks like they must have honoured the agreement! But there was never any issue about my work I was sacked for posting pics of my design work online so there was nothing much they could have said against me anyway (although @ the time I was accused of all sorts of things like theft of intellectual prop & violating the confidentiality of the company (a big bad investment bank!))

What's the consensus on this? I've seen other threads but can't locate them now (using mobile version on iPhone) do creditors get alerted when you look at your own file? I wouldn't want to awaken anyone… Thanks in advance…

EXCELLENT NEWS! I guess the 'Mrs. C' example applies to my situation so no dice for Sharklays! Many thanks to all of u guys!

Looking fwd to it - although I live in England it shows on the Sky TV Guide as ' the bank who lost £24bn'! Just £24bn? It would probably take £€$$ to sabe Greece!!! They got rescued with our tax £££, the Big Sh't in charge got his 6 fig pen$ion & after a££ the m€$$ they & others like them created, they still expected me to keep paying their credit card! But there was no tax money to rescue ME from their financial mess so I had to default! It's a funny old world…

So has my boss! She couldn't even pay her mortgage when BarCraps froze her PERSONAL account after finding out her COMPANY was going into liquidation! I also had accounts with Sharklays which I closed in early 90s due to their exce$$ive charges (I think they used to charge £25 since the 80s!) and other sharky practices... I only opened the company account there because my friends (director & company sec) have been with them since the 80s and that made it easier, banks can make even opening an account quite an ordeal, I already had a cheque for over £3k in the name of the company and nowhere to put it!

Thanks ims

I understand about liabilities for directors but that would be the other way round, i.e. taking on debt as a company; my boss had a problem like that precisely with Barclays as they had to liquidate a company in July and she had her personal account frozen by Barclays for a while till they made arrangements regarding the business O/D which was 100k and apparently secured on both partners homes so it couldn't just be passed on to the liquidators. The Egg card had nothing to do with the company, I don't remember when I took out the card but I'm sure it was before 2001 and the company was set up in 2008. I'm glad to hear they can't offset, :whoo:I thought that may be the case but life is full of surprises, especially when it comes to the financial sector! I do have a company Barclaycard with a very low credit limit but payments have always been up-to-date and Barclays were quite good when some fraudulent transactions were made on that card last year, they were the first ones to spot them and ring me to check the transactions, they were never applied to my card & they cancelled it & sent new one with different number. Thanks guys...

No, nothing like that has happened... YET! Apologies if I didn't explain things very clearly, I was just asking a hypothetical question as, naturally, it's something that concerns me as currently all my income is going into the ltd co account in the first place. No, Barclays don't seem to be aware of my debt to Egg, they may not have got around to looking into the many accounts and for all I know my Egg debt may even have been sold on as it's been nearly two years, I was just asking if there was any possibility of a set-off against a ltd co account... Thanks again for your prompt reply!

The debt is an old Egg card so definitely under the CCA. I last used this card in 2004 & it expired in 2005 when I was living in Spain for a year so I never got a new one, however, the card was being paid by DD. Egg was paperless from the start & they never had my address after I sold my place in 2004. I really really thought that, after 5 years of paying and not using the card (I didn't even have one!), the balance (2-3k at the most) would have been paid off but that wasn't the case. When I cancelled the DD in Jan 2010 it was still around £100/mth! I was never contacted by Egg as they didn't have my address or phone number, they sent a couple of emails asking me to log in & look at some 'important messages' but I didn't have my login details so I never did. Back then Egg was owned by Citi, I have an account with Citi with just about £100 which I re-activated by giving them up-to-date details, yet I never heard from Egg... A few months ago I got an email saying Egg had been sold to Barclaycard, it was a very generic, database-generated email as it didn't mention defaults or threats or any of your usual 'you should contact us' stuff. In fact, it said I 'should continue making payments as usual' (which I haven't done in nearly 2 years!). I have a ltd co account with Barclays since 2008, unfortunately my crystal ball wasn't working so I didn't know a) that there would be a credit crunch screwing the whole world in a few month's time; b) I was going to spend a year on the dole and default; or c) that after default Barclays would purchase Egg! I also have a basic account in my name with a few hundred quid which I intend to withdraw just in case. So far there has been no mention of the Egg debt from Barclays (or anyone else). I am currently invoicing my employers as a ltd co and the cheques go into the Barclays business account. A friend of mine is also a Director and signatory on the account. I have my main personal account with Santander who have offered me free business banking, however, they mentioned something about credit checks on the directors so you can see why I didn't open it. My friend and co-director doesn't know about my debt issues either (not something you go round shouting about, is it?) Hope this is his enough detail... Thanks!

Hi guys, I hope I'm posting in the right place, if not would the site team kindly move the thread to its rightful place... Is it possible for a bank to offset a personal debt against a business account in the name of a ltd company in which I am a director and signatory, bearing in mind there's 2 directors in the ltd co and 2 signatories on the account? Thanks in advance!

Offer £1/month, that's the general consensus when people are on benefits, even on much larger debts! Don't speak to the DCA on the phone, put your payment offer in writing explaining your circumstances as above.

Offer £1/month, that's the general consensus when people are on benefits, even on much larger debts! Don't speak to the DCA on the phone, put your payment offer in writing explaining your circumstances as above.

The CCA does NOT apply to mobile phone contracts! Your 'agreement' will be the one you signed when you took out the contract for 12, 18 or 24 months and has nothing to do with a credit agreement, I'm also with Vodafone, have had contracts with them since 2001 and they are in no way similar to credit card or loan agreements so none of the 'enforceability' issues are relevant.

All valid legal points but didn't the OP say the DCA had AGREED to remove the default from his credit file? Sounds like Aktive Krapital are not aware of the law regarding online applications made in recent years either and were fobbed off by the OP!

That's just the way it works! When I was claiming I got same letter & a form to claim income based a few weeks in advance. I completed it & sent back quickly. Next time I went to sign on it had been returned to JC as was 'received too early' & 'my circumstances could change' (in 3 days!!!) had to redo form as had been stamped & had to wait till expiry day to sand it but was processed promptly w/o break in entitlement so carry on signing on as usual & re apply for income based JSA the day after it runs out!

Why worry about that? It's the LL's problem! I would worry about eviction in case of repo!

[ £300 pw for a one bed is market rate....I think someone mentioned in this thread that they worked for HB and its only 2-3 months bank statements...... You must be in London as nowhere else would £300/wk be Market rate for 1 bed! In other parts of the UK that would get you a huge mansion! Be aware that regardless of whether you are awarded full HB or no it will be capped at the LHA ( Local Housing Allowance) for your area. If you are single or a couple you are entitled to the rate for 1 bedroom in that area. You can check online how much it is but Central London is the only area where it could be as high as £300/wk! The rate for NW London (Hampstead, Golders Green etc. ) is just £250/wk or £175 for Hendof, Finchley etch (I have friends in those areas). This is the max you could get even if awarded full HB (