Right ok ive just signed up to noddle and a couple of things have shown up with the welcome account. According to welcome my starting balance on 30/06/03 was £7124 with monthly payments of £170, despite me definately not paying since May 2007 at the latest they have me as upto date up until December 2007- at £170 a month since June 2003 that would mean i had paid £9180 back, yet according to the credit report i still owed £4155! Anyway the account now says settled with a £0 balance and Lowell have not entered anything. I should be getting my Experian report next week so i'll see if thats different. Also the address for the welcome account was wrong, not sure if that matters or not.

I get letters from time to time from 1st credit for an old bank account i had well over 10 years ago chasing me for an amount which was all charges, i assume Lowell are similar to 1st credit so i shall file all their letters in exactly the same place!

OK thats great thanks i'll get onto that and let you know when they get back to me, i'm also getting an up to date credit report to see if Lowell have entered anything.

Hi thanks for the quick reply, i'm not entirely sure when the last payment was made, it definately was no later than May 2007, would i be best contacting Welcome to find out?

Hi everyone first of all i have tried to look through the welcome finance posts but cant find exactly what i'm looking for. I had a loan with welcome many years back (2003) and ive not paid anything since 2007 when i lost my job. Up until then i had paid over £7500 for an initial £5000 loan and i last spoke to them on the phone in 2009 when they said i still owed over £4000. I recently checked my credit report with experian and welcome have entered a 6 evry month for over 5 years (no default entered) up until last month, it now says balance £0 and above it says DEBT ASSIGNED TO CAIS MEMBER. I have now started receiving letters from Lowell Portfolio asking for the £4000. So i need to know firstly if i can do anything about Welcome not defaulting my account thus making it almost SB and secondly can Lowell now start entering things on my credit report. Any advice would be great thanks.

I have to say from my experience the people at the enforcement office in Port Talbot are an absolute joke. They are far too trigger happy when it comes to passing your account to the bailiff and despite both them and the courts insisting that distress warrants cannot be recalled this clearly is not true. It really annoyed me that they wasted time and money pursuing me for what they believed to be £10 - £15 arrears! Nearly as much as the fact private bailiff companies can get away with charging huge fees for simply posting a letter or knocking on your door- why is this allowed to happen??

Ok i went to the court today and thankfully, after a lot of talking, the court has agreed to cancel the distress warrant and allow me to carry on paying £5 a week. At first the fines officer insisted that neither she nor the magistrates had the power to cancel the warrant and that i would have to deal with Excel. I told her that the magistrate previously told me i would face a custodial sentence if i didnt stick to the payment arrangement and after speaking to the clerk in the court they agreed that the warrant shouldnt have been issued. Just shows that you shouldnt just accept the first thing they say and if you keep pushing you can get the right result. I hope this is helpful to anyone else in a similar situation.

Just to add the same magistrate who mentioned the prison sentence also suggested i "go without food" to pay off my fines, thats the kind of people we're dealing with!

Hi i received the court letter yesterday stating a distress warrant had been issued, it was issued on 5th November- i caught up my £10 arrears on 6th November. The original agreement to pay £5 a week was made in february and i have paid every week without fail up until a few weeks back when my partner went in to hospital. In february the magistrate mentioned a 23 day prison sentence if i didnt stick to the arrangement so i would have expected to be summoned back to court rather than have a distress warrant issued.

If i can't get anywhere at the courts, rather than the bailiff breaking in and taking the few things of value and still having hundreds of pounds to pay, if i no longer lived with my partner would the bailiff then have to leave her alone? That is my only concern right now, i don't want her and our 2 small children to have the distress of bailiffs bashing down the door and taking the few things that she owns.

Ok quick update went to the court today and the usher told me there will be a fines officer there on thursday and that i should ask him to be put before the court again to explain my case, hopefully this will get it out of the hands of Excel if he's right.

Ok thanks for the replies, i was looking to speed up the process of having my case sent back to the courts if the bailiff sees i have nothing of real value rather than spend the next 6 months worrying when theres a knock at the door. I guess all my hopes rest on the court office tomorrow, i'll let you know if i get anywhere with them.

Does a bailiff collecting unpaid fines need to make a levy? I was under the impression they had the power to force entry and take goods if i refused them entry, of course i wouldnt refuse entry if my partner had something in writing declaring that all goods belong to her.

Regarding Excel and the distress warrant, there is'nt much in our house of any value and anything we do own belongs to my partner including the car, although she would struggle to prove this due to no longer having receipts. Could she file a statutory declaration to prove ownership of the goods? I have seen a form N245 mentioned on another thread would this work for us?

Thanks i'll go in the morning and hopefully get my case back in the hands of the courts so i can carry on paying. I'll keep you posted once i know more.

I should note that i am in the process of setting up a limited company with a friend but we don't see ourselves actually taking home any money until the new year so i don't see excel holding off until then.

Hi thanks for the quick reply, no my partner seems to be over the worst of it now, after the surgery she was bed ridden for a week so i could'nt really leave the house and the fines just slipped my mind. I am self employed but have been struggling for a while now, i have tried to reason with the enforcement office in Port Talbot but it was a complete waste of time, they just keep telling me to deal with excel. It's so frustrating as i am not actually in arrears now and the only reason i missed £10 worth of payments was my partners health issues. I'm off to my local court tomorrow to see if the fines people there can do anything, i've not yet called excel as i know i won't get anywhere with them.

Hi everyone i've received some excellent advice before on here and hoping for a bit more advice. I have an arrangement with the magistrates court over unpaid motoring fines which i pay £5 a week based on my circumstances, i missed 2 payments last month when my partner had gallbladder surgery in hospital and i had to look after her and the kids so it just slipped my mind. I received a further steps notice from the courts and went and paid 3 weeks straight away bringing my up to date (i didnt call the enforcement office). My partner had a few complications and had to go back to hospital and i missed 2 payments again (big mistake) which i caught up once again. I have now received a letter from the enforcement office saying they have accepted my payment but have now passed my account to excel civil enforcement. I also got a letter the same day from excel saying i now owe the full amount (£652) plus enforcement costs (£85) within 7 days. I obviously cannot pay- the court knows this hence me paying £5 per week, so i am wondering is there any way i can get this transferred back to the courts due to my partners ill health or will i just have to wait for the bailliff to come knocking? I think the enforcement office have been harsh considering i am not actually in arrears. Any advice would be great thanks.

Well the choice i had at the time was to open an account or be unable to trade, as there was no info from you or anyone else regarding a suitable alternative, so i'm happy to be accepted by NatWest. I'm sure i'll find out in due course if they can be trusted or not but like i said if you have lots of alternatives please post them for the benefit of the other people in my situation. As for a PG requirement do you mean personal guarantees? if so then no there was no requirement.

Unfortunately when one is turned away by all the other banks one does'nt have much choice, although i and many others would like to know of any other banks you know of that accept people with adverse credit for a business account? That was the whole point of my original post...

Update to my original post i now have a business bank account with NatWest! I went to my local branch and spoke directly to the business relationship manager- i dont know if this makes a difference but all my online applications with other banks were declined. I also had a step account with natwest in the past which i didnt manage very well but this didnt go against me which i thought it might. It took around a month to get the account open, with a lot of calls chasing the business manager for updates but finally the account is up and running, so my advice to anyone in the same boat as me(ccj's, defaults etc) is to get down to your local branch of NatWest and speak to the business relationship manager- it worked for me!

Yes thats my last resort account if all else fails! Does anyone have any info on the N&P building society account? I've seen this name crop up a few times on other forums where people have struggled with the high street banks.

Hi Chris thanks for the reply, I have read about the exclusive account linked to the fsb, I think it is run through co-op. I imagine we would be credit scored regardless of our fsb membership thus I am a bit reluctant to shell out the £200 membership fee but I will certainly try and get a bit more info on this. Thanks for the Yorkshire idea also, thats one I have yet to approach.

Hi all myself and a friend have just set up a ltd company and we are struggling to open a business account because of poor credit. My own bank Lloyds TSB have no issue with me but my friend failed the credit check so theres nothing they can do, I have a chequered history with Natwest so i assume a Foundation account is out of the question. I have been refused an account with a few other banks in the past including Halifax, Barclays, Santander because of my own credit problems. Can anyone advise me of a lesser-known internet bank or building society that will give us a basic account with no borrowing? all we need is to pay money in and set up a couple of direct debits. Thanks in advance for any help Andy

Thanks for the help so far ill be calling excel first thing to try and get a breakdown of these so called fees, today was the first time we have had a visit by the bailliff since the payment arrangement was made in 2009 so dont see where they get that figure from. The only items i can remember being listed were a samsung tv (old bulky style not lcd) a cheap dvd player and a microwave, there was around 10-12 months between our last payment and receiving the threatening letter. Having had dealings with bailliffs myself in the past i suspect they are just trying it on and the last thing they would do is take me to court and have their ridiculous fees put under scrutiny, at least thats what i am hoping anyway