Wow - they actually did take me out of the dialler by the look of it. iQor letter arrived this morning... only a week after the phone calls! The letter talks about IMMEDIATE LITIGATION, but since I've been firmly told they're NOT going to pass the case back OR take me to court, they shouldn't be sending out false threats. Anyway, I can now reply with my I&E and my offer of £1, and we'll see. Meanwhile from reading other threads looks like claiming overdraft fees back is quite tough compared to credit card - any advice on best approach?

These are just ideas... Ask them for the exact date they sent it out, in writing. If it's over the statutory time limit (May to July? could be), point this out to them and ask them to send it again, seeing as they're in breach. Also point out that you can't proceed until you have a copy, irrespective of where it ended up, so could they send a dupe. If they want another £1, give it to them. Make it very clear that you are not going to discuss the debt until you have a copy, and if they go to court you are quite prepared to ask for a stay until you jolly well have one. Ask them why they are actioning this now and not 18 months ago as you have already demonstrated you are co-operating by asking for a copy of the agreement. Has some sort of interest been running for the 18 months? [They do lie about calls at least, if not post - I caught them at it. They never answered my complaint at all, their client did, and moved me to a new DCA, so I was rid of 'em. ] DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM ON THE PHONE - they delete calls and deny they ever happened. I also had one of 'em calling from their mobile, I suspect so it wouldn't be recorded.

Two calls from iQor today. Both reasonably polite but that's possibly because I controlled the conversation from the word go. Apparently letter was sent out on 1 Nov. Now, since the OFT guidelines state they shouldn't be ringing until I have received the letter I can make a specific complaint to Trading Standards that they are deliberately flouting this specific rule - which I think is just the kind of complaint they can get a handle on? So, 3 calls in 48 hours so far and it's not 9pm yet so we might get another one...

Pumpytums: CC companies take a view on cases depending on amount owing, previous payment history, whether they think it's an easy one to enforce, etc, etc, and also will do some bulk deals which is why they sometimes keep or sell the "wrong" cases. If they know they've dropped the ball on a case they'll almost certainly sell it because then it's someone else's problem and they can get on with fleecing other punters. Some organisations are better at knowing their own customers than others. In practice I don't think MBNA have a good enough view of their customers to be making the right decisions so it's pretty much a lottery.

I am looking to keep it and I have an arrangement with mortgage arrears now. I found new job in nick of time which allowed me to make arrangement and take off market. Therefore CO fairly meaningless UNLESS something major happens. I do have one big unsecured creditor still to sort who so far have done nothing (via incompetence) and are probably going to be quite upset when they find out they're behind others in the CO queue as a result. You never know, they might try for something silly in court and courts are not always on the ball in terms of our rights, so I am thinking about absolutely worst case over next five years here.

I think he's trying to say you need to work out your cost of living and your income first and worry about paying unsecured debt second - that's what your I&E is for - think about what UNSECURED actually means. You don't gotta do nothing until a court orders it despite what debt collectors might say or (illegally) threaten. Your right to food and shelter is protected in law but every day you will have a phone call from the banks trying to take it off you. Working out your monthly budget is where CCCS and National Debtline etc can give you loads of advice - if you don't know where to get started at all, start there! We were totally lost until CCCS got us started with the basic facts. Once you know your basic cost of living then you can think about what to do with the rest of the money, if there IS any left over, and if there isn't, you don't pay anyone - simple! Open a new bank account starting from zero and then you can start your thinking afresh - otherwise trying to separate your ins and outs from your overdraft will make your head explode...

Questionable. It was on the market for over six months at 5k under what I paid, so following disbursements and conveyancing would be slightly out of pocket - ASSUMING it sold. It didn't, and the best semi-offer we had was at 15k under so perhaps it was on at too high a price. That was last year so am almost certainly underwater now as it's a middle-income-squeeze sort of house.

Hi, just posting about the last "difficult" creditor I have. I had a massive paycut, followed by a year of ZERO income, which is how I got into this situation. (Full detail on Intelligent Finance thread) Long story short I wrote to both in Dec 09 with full I&E and offering £1 until I returned to employment. Neither really responded other than with a DN followed by CCJ from Egg Loan in short space of time, and a second DN (!) from Egg Card. (They defaulted me sometime in 2009 already.) At least that stopped the fees+interest. Both are in five figures. I think these are now with totally different companies in effect, as these bits of Egg bought by different people during the Crunch? Egg Loan have now obtained a Charging Order and immediately accepted £10 per month over the phone the following week. I'd been offering them that for over two years, including post CCJ, so I can only assume they need to waste their money taking me to court for accounting reasons. Egg Card have been totally quiet since the DN. It hasn't been chased by anybody. Around April I phoned to see what was happening and the guy on the phone did a lot of muttering of "what... who... who did that... doesn't make any sense..." when looking at the notes and promised to get back to me. Never did. I am now employed again at under half of my former income, but still have the same massive mortgage AND a years' arrears on it to clear, so there's nothing in the pot for unsecured. We're living to a budget that is slightly under CCCS's figures and doing OK, and as above has been in front of a court. I don't know whether to approach Egg Card or not - what are the consequences if I don't do anything? If I do approach them will I just end up with another set of court proceedings almost immediately when they realise they've dropped the ball? On the other hand I don't want to be straight with the other creditors in 5 years' time, and then find I have to start all over again with someone that has bought an old debt. I should add there is PPI on some of the balance. I made a complaint about it which they declined almost immediately, and the letter was very much of a tone of "you can't prove it" - but that was followed a month later by the letter that went out to LOTS of people about PPI asking me to claim. I did a lot of silly things with money when I had it, but I certainly was never daft enough to sign up to PPI, so I'm certain I have a case. When I phoned about the letter the regulator made them issue I was given a lot of hoo-hah about not being able to sort it until my arrears were cleared, and then crisis mode took over and I parked it until I saw some pursuit of a final defaulted balance. (Which I never have, so far!) Do I have a problem if I've complained about it once and not pursued their nonsense "final reply" in any way? Any limitations on complaining "again" - although this time it would be coming off the balance rather than being given to me in cash. Suggestions please... but not urgent because I'm paying the tenner on the loan OK and as I say there is NO collection activity on the card. And finally - would a SAR force them to release the call centre notes on my account to me? Whatever he was reading sounded fascinating...

The DCA in Manchester was Robinson Way - was basically on hold with them for about three months and now I SEEM to have been passed on to iQor. No written confirmation yet.

No equity in my case. I'm at a bit of a loss as to why they've pursued a CO - I presume it was some sort of accounting write-off practice as they've now instantly agreed to a tenner a month on a balance in five figures without even asking for I&E... which is what I was offering for the two years previous.

What happens if it is related to a CO (if that's what you meant by "secured to property")?

When you say Summons - is it an actual court form from Northampton with a case reference number etc etc or is it some sort of final notice threatening legal action? I would certainly ring the court with the reference number as it sounds like it's a bit out of the blue. Do you have any CCJs already? Could you give a bit of background on the Santander story? (but remember - they might read your post!)

Hi - thought I'd start a thread as these are my second most painful creditor after MBNA. I thought I'd diary these last awkward creditors as much to share victories as to pick your brains as I've had quite a few complaints and things upheld so far. Background: We got into difficulties in Autumn 2007 when the company I worked for stopped paying me without bothering with any of that redundancy stuff and eventually went into liquidation. I was then out of work for about 3 months until started own business which did OK in 2008 but folded in 2009 (our main customers were banks - you see the problem!) For that 18 months I was on about 40% of previous salary. From Summer 09 to Summer 10 I had ZERO income and we were both living off a just-under-average wage with a very over-average mortgage, and threat of eviction. The house was on the market for a lot of this period. I found this new job in the nick of time and we're now paying the massive mortgage at the same rate, plus arrears on top, so there is nothing in the pot for unsecured debt until the arrears are cleared (2015 or so!) My issue is that I.F. were the first to know I had problems, way back then. They spent a year telling me they "would stop charges and payments if I could agree a repayment plan" - which I did on the phone verbally about once a month, with many many different departments, and was always told confirmation was coming, but conveniently never formalised at their end. All I was doing was servicing interest. Eventually we got to the point that the interest was going to push me over the limit. This was August 2008 so was still earning then, but struggling badly as the mortgage company would not come down though my income had halved, and I was still foolishly paying full whack on other debts. I phoned and agreed that I would paid £50 per month off if they would stop the £28 charges - I had agreement there and then and a reference for the payment, etc, etc. They added the £28 at the end of the month. At this point I phoned and told them that after a year of paying out money but standing still on the debt we needed to do something else. They passed me around a few teams and eventually I just stopped paying as I couldn't see what else to do given that they were clearly going to keep piling fees on anyway - I might as well spend the money on stopping other accounts going into crises. They phoned for a while and eventually stopped, but the Default was a long time coming - to ensure as much interest as poss went on meanwhile of course! In early 09 we got into full crisis and started missing payments on the mortgage, so at this point I just stopped paying unsecured creditors as I had no other choice as I saw it (obviously older and wiser now!), and I opened a Basic account elsewhere. I should actually have gone to £1/month with unsecured a lot earlier than I did, in retrospect. The stupid thing is that if I'd agreed something useful in 2007 I'd probably still be paying it now as would have prioritised - so they've done it to themselves. I have written to I.F. twice with a full I&E and explaining financial difficulty - once in December 09 and again in September 2010 as we have a definite arrangement to service our mortgage arrears. New job is under half of 2007 salary and our mortgage amt hasn't come down as much as you'd expect - still paying >6%! I've had no reply at all other than form letter to tell me I was in breach of T&C as not paying salary in - about a year after I'd stopped - and the final Default Notice. I have had no sensible reply from I.F. themselves in all of that time. They passed me to our friends Blair Oliver Scott without bothering to tell me. B O S phoned me a ridiculous number of times, even after a phone harassment letter, but eventually accepted my I&E and even sent me slips to pay in. I thought this was a victory but the very next week I found myself with some other outfit in Manchester. (Will have to dig name out.) They were quite good and immediately understood it was can't pay not won't pay. I wrote to them explaining I wasn't happy with the fees & interest from 2008 onwards and they put the account on hold, and wrote to me (twice!) saying they'd written to I.F. That was three months ago, and so... today... ... I had a text from iQor. (For anyone Googling iQor 0845 1460186 - 01772 832188 gets you through without paying the 08 charges - have added that to saynoto0870.) I phoned to find out which creditor it was - after reading about them here I've no intention of sending them any personal financial information. So far I had quite a good conversation. I started by explaining that this had been going on > 2 years and I knew the law backwards by now, and I was down to a basic bank account so I couldn't pay by Debit Card over the phone even if I wanted to, so it would be best if they listened. I offered them £1 per month and explained history as above without giving too much detail. She said they couldn't accept £1/month under any circumstances so I asked her not to waste her time and money and just pass the account back to IF - apparently that's out of her control too. I have advised that I am not doing anything until I see written confirmation from either I.F. or iQor that the account is now with them, so we'll see what happens. She wanted me to write in with I&E immediately but there's no way I'm doing that until I have something in writing from them, especially since they don't have a form for it. Says to me they're not really interested and just want material for later bullying. ("You could spend less on etc etc.") I'll see what their initial contact letter says when it gets here. If I don't have one I will ask for calls to stop twice, politely, and then send out harassment letter. There's no question that I had an OD and that it was around £1400 on a limit of £1600 when trouble started, so I'm not looking to make this unenforceable. However I am now wondering what sorts of fees and interest I should look to get back. Presumably anything after the point I told them I was in trouble is on shaky ground? There were several occasions before that where I was charged £28 on going over by £1-2 which I'm now thinking I might ask back on principle. And - should ALL of the £28 since I opened the account be reduced to £12? BTW it started out as an offset account, but after several charges for nonsense and acknowledged errors on their part - but no money back! - I wrote to them and told them I was going to move my mortgage away from them unless they could do something for goodwill. They didn't, so they lost the mortgage business. So - given that we've been going in circles for almost three years - what would you do next? I'll post updates on what happens with iQor. First thing is to wait for the letter. Meanwhile: my partner has a Halifax overdraft which is over the limit entirely through interest and charges added after we told them we were in difficulty. It was well under when we started. We've had a number of "we can't accept £1" letters threatening legal action, and that is all - no actual replies to correspondence. This week we've had a B O S letter and we've replied pronto explaining that so far Halifax have done nothing to address the situation and we will be contesting the balance, meanwhile here's £1 - we'll see what happens. We also included the phone harassment piece as they were calling work number, home number, and mobile, in rotation, every day. Calls to the home have stopped because they were in working hours and I was repeatedly answering them - luckily the bill is in my name, so I threatened them with Ofcom action as they knew fine well they couldn't speak to her at that address at that time of day but kept calling, which constitutes harassing me. Seems to have worked. Are calls to workplace ever acceptable? Anyway, there you go. Any thoughts welcome on either situation, thanks!

Wow - when you say long-running you mean it. Have you tried phoning the adjudicator at the FOS and asking directly what they meant? It does seem they've contradicted themselves there. They're generally quite good on the phone once you manage to get a call returned. Otherwise - is anyone pursuing you at the moment? If not I think it's a case of just putting it in the box and not worrying about it.

Oh - and once you've written to them DO NOT discuss on the phone. Just politely explain that it's now potentially a contempt situation and everything must be in writing. I've come to the conclusion that the worst possible thing you can do to the wazzocks phoning you from firms like this is stay polite - nothing annoys them more.

Well - here's something to keep in mind - if your circumstances are worse now, play them at their own game... YOU apply for a variation to the Court and ask for REDUCED payments. You do need to warn Restons that your circumstances have changed, because if you miss a payment without having given them the reasons they'll have a much stronger case for going to court. Someone else here can probably tell you more about that... there might even be a template letter? In your application mention that you're doing this to defend yourself against direct approaches from Restons and that you have already been on the wrong end of one. I know Courts can seem stacked up against us but the one thing they don't like in my experience is creditors taking the Mickey once they've already got a Judgement. It's a waste of court time and with courts closures they don't have the time to waste. Meanwhile just reply to Restons and explain that they need to go through the Court for a variation upwards. Also mention that you are in worse circumstances than you were so they stand little chance of success. You could even mention that since you have had a drop in income you were thinking of applying for a variation downwards. They already have your I&E from the first time around so just tell them your exp has not changed and your income is now zero (or whatever benefits you get.) No need to give them more info than that. I attended one of my CCJs in person so I could ask some dumb questions and learned a lot... mostly that the Court is there to protect us. The DJ and the duty sol both told me that they would rather not deal with the instalment amounts at all and prefer the creditor to reach a payment schedule with you directly to save Court faff, BUT there is no obligation for you to agree to anything unless Ordered by the court. She even said that if Egg (yeah, them!) wouldn't listen to reason then I should apply to the court for a payment variation and just ignore Egg. If they then apply through the Court you can probably ask for a stay on the basis of pending Bankruptcy? Come to think of it your sponsor will need to do something with the existing CCJ won't they?

Thanks mathmagician. We are considering changing our telephone number anyway as pretty much the only people that use it now are these kinds of people. If we then get calls to a new ex-directory number we can cause some trouble under the DPA. Definitely no objections in going to court - will relish the opportunity to submit all my unanswered post as part of response. I have a case for charges, but I would like to have established a conversation about what I can afford before I invest days on totalling those up - given that I'm unlikely ever to pay the full balance and I have already been offered a reduction to 40%. Unfortunately it required me to make payment per month that is more than my minimum payment was - nearly £400 a month! "I have done everything in my power to reach a reasonable settlement" - I like that phrase, thanks. Meanwhile - they called again this evening and I tried assertiveness-with-swearing - I managed to get an address to complain to. Aegis Limited PO BOX 1070 26 Anfield Road Bromley BR1 9QG I doubt they can enforce the debt - that's why we're not in court yet - but I at least want to get one complaint in front of the Ombudsman for the benefit of other people here, hence me going through channels rather than just ignoring things. I do owe them some money, just nothing like the amount they are asking for.

If AIC call and threaten legal action then I would just politely point out that you cannot use the phone for formal warnings of court action, and you look forward to receiving the written confirmation. If they start shouting just hang up and write a letter to AIC explaining why you hung up. Don't get sucked in. I've lost the thread of the thread a bit - is this in regard of something where there is already an arrangement or is this after nine months radio silence?

Hello all. A slightly unusual case here in that I have not made any substantial payments to MBNA in over two years now and yet I still seem to be nowhere NEAR going to court. I have actually reached the point I would rather go to court for the sake of my sanity. (Already have a charging order against me from another creditor so I have nothing to lose in terms of credit score - nor do we particularly care about our borrowing power, as we have learned our lesson thoroughly.) In total we had 11 creditors (secured and unsecured) + mortgage, and we have now reached arrangements with 8 of the 11. I was a high earner and then suddenly a nothing-at-all earner hence the problem. This was two years ago and I returned to work only four months ago. Our combined income now is less than my income alone was previous to 2008, but we're actually quite happy at how things have panned out and we managed to keep the house (we now have massive arrears but a written agreement to deal with them, based on my new employment, which we have kept to so far.) I'm posting for ideas on what to do next for the sake of our sanity, because MBNA are driving us nuts. We have a monthly budget and SOA that has stood up in court, which MBNA have a copy of. And yet the phone calls will not stop. So far I have been through the MBNA internal process - which took over a year - and nobody would even accept even my offer of 50% of minimum payments. Eventually I stopped paying anything to try and force a sensible conversation, which was the right thing to do I think, as it forced a default and got me out of limbo. I was then passed to RMA (same thing - they only seemed interesting in me making a single payment of £10k plus and weren't interested in any kind of sensible conversation.) Then passed to AIC, and I still feel angry now describing those conversations. I did all the right things with CCCS's help (thank you CCCS!) and demonstrated that a token offer was all I could afford. They grudgingly accepted, whilst simultaneously declining my complaint about the behaviour of a Mr X in the Glasgow office. MBNA then upheld my complaint about same despite claiming to have "lost" the recording. Something fishy there. Furthermore AIC then POSTED MY POSTAL ORDERS BACK TO ME. At no point did MBNA tell me anything about who my debt was actually with - and AIC were claiming to have bought it and "I shouldn't be speaking to MBNA." This was a lie. Next up, Optima, who sent me one 14-day letter full of mistakes. I phoned MBNA and asked if my case was now with Optima and they told me it was still with AIC. Since by this point I was wise to these tricks I ignored it to see if I got a proper letter later on. I didn't. That was it from them. Then... Aegis. Been dealing with them for about four months now. Originally the calls were about once a week and we'd go in a little circle where: * I would be asked for the full balance * I would point out it was over six months' income (never mind deducting outgoings) * They would make a demand for several hundred pounds per month and I would point out a similar problem with that plan and ask if I could speak to a manager or write to someone with my I&E so we could move forward. * At this point they'd usually do something like ask me to borrow money off relatives, lecture me about how irresponsible I'd been, or tell me I was being uncooperative. At this point I would politely point out that they were getting well outside the Code of Practice by now and then politely end the call, after being sure to ask that my willingness to have a SENSIBLE conversation was on the notes. Not that they ever read their own notes. I could cope with that. However, now it's once or twice a day. I have now given them approx I&E over the phone, in order to give myself some ammo for a complaint. They have no excuse for phoning and asking for the full amount every day. Now we have a different farcical conversation in which they agree that I can't afford more and in the same conversation tell me that I must pay more and they can't accept less than £100/month. I've tried polite. I've tried angry. I've tried every angle I can think of. At the end of every conversation they promise to escalate to a manager and see what they can do, but then they don't, and they call back 12 or 24 hours later. In every call I then ask that if they can't accept my best offer, which is supported in consumer law, then they need to pass me back to MBNA so we can sort it out. About half the time they agree to do it, and don't. So I am going to write a harassment complaint along the lines that it constitutes harassment if you are simply phoning to annoy the hell out of me rather than enter constructive discussion. Has anyone else tried this angle? We've used the FoS for other things successfully, so we're quite happy to go through the whole escalation process if we need to. Meanwhile, yesterday I phoned MBNA collections to tell them that Aegis were not helping either me or them, and this was MBNA's opportunity to a) stop a complaint b) start some repayments now, since at least offer £10 rather than £1, but they weren't interested. The main problem I have now is finding an address so that I can complain to Aegis in writing. They won't give it to me over the phone and refer me to MBNA. Is this right? I expect my long-term problem is that now MBNA won't take me to court because they realise I'll simply agree the amount I've been offering all along, and a CO isn't going to help when there is an earlier CO on the property already... so they are relying on harassment and all the other fun tactics we are familiar with instead. Is there any way -I- can force an agreement over the defaulted amount? I'd rather be paying an agreed amount rather than firing off £1 into uncertain territory monthly, but I can't even get a two-way conversation going at the moment.

I'd just add for anyone else reading - we've had dozens of these from Mercer's, seems to amount to a form letter for them. So it might be that there hadn't even been a human being look at this case when you got the first letter.

Hi, just wondering if there's an update on this case. We're in the middle of an, erm, "discussion" with Barclaycard where similarly a zero balance in 2004 mysteriously becomes a statement out of the blue in 2008 with 300-some pounds on. They ignored our letters for a year then ignored the complaint about ignoring us for six months until we enforced through the FOS. The enforced reply comes in three parts which contradict one another and don't in any way explain how the balance comes to be there. So it's taken 18 months to get a non-reply, so far. Maybe we should write and say we think it's fraud? Because if we can't explain it, and Barclaycard can't, what else can it be? In this case we don't even have statements between zero pounds and >300 pounds... Meanwhile Mercers... well, you all know about Mercers. I shall say no more.