Thank you Uncle Bulgaria, sound advice. We had a uk debt collection company contact us last year in Australia regarding another debt (not proud, the whole leaving the UAE was messy) and it was a relief to deal with someone who was willing to compromise and meet us half way. We paid off the debt over the course of a few months and at the end of it we requested confirmation that it was paid off and we never heard another word, was very disappointing so I don't even think that debt has been cleared in the eyes of the bank. Very frustrating to deal with.

Hi there, sorry if this has been covered a million times before. We left the UAE four years ago after living there for three years. My husband's company often left him unpaid for weeks or months at a time, making it impossible to keep up rent/school fees etc so in the end we left. At the time we had a couple of credit cards and made offers to them to pay them at a rate of 1000 dirhams a month until we were in a position to repay the debt in full and requesting they freeze the interest. They flat refused, insisting on immediate repayment or a travel ban. When I explained we were already out of the country, they threatened my husband with interpol. We moved to Australia and the emails went back and forth for a while, with them threatening hm but never agreeing to our offer. In the end they went quiet but recently it seems the debt has been handed over to a debt collection agency in Dubai and we're back to square one. Again I've offered 1000 dirhams a month, even though we can't honestly afford it, but we do want to resolve the issue. Again they've refused and have now said they will be getting legal with him...threatening to contact his employer (even though they think he's still in Australia). As we're in the UK, I want to know what they can do. Can they insist on having the debt repaid in entirety immediately? I know from experience with the other credit card that they can get very dirty (they phoned and emailed my husband's friends on Facebook telling them about the debt as well as emailing and phoning his employer about it). Like I said, we want to resolve this and really don't want this haunting us for the rest of our lives...