Hello,
While I was at university, we were all given iPads on loan in our last year and I made the mistake of leaving mine in a classroom one day.
I informed the university as soon as I realised and was pretty much told by at the time not to worry as they could likely locate it.
Of course, it never turned up, or at least was not logged on their system to have done, and they started emailing me after my graduation (June 2016) asking me to return or pay for it.
I informed them I didn’t have it to return and could not afford to pay them the sum of £500 for it. I ignored their invoices and eventually they passed it on to STA International to pursue from me.
I am still receiving letters from STA every few months, big red capital letters telling me I have however long to pay before they escalate it.
I just would like to know, are these safe to ignore?
Of course all manner of things such as CCJ’s and whatnot has been threatened, but I’m not sure whether these are empty threats or whether they really have the power to do anything.
It doesn’t seem to have escalated past the ‘URGENT’ letter stage for quite some time, and their most recent letter (received today) gives me 5 days to pay apparently.
Yes, I did fail to take care of the iPad. But, I am also of the opinion that for the £9k a year I spent at that institution, I don’t deserve to be pursued like this. For that money I’d expect to be gifted an iPad, not bombarded with threatening debt collection letters. I am simply loathe to give them another penny of my money.
If anyone has any insight to STA and whether this is likely to go any further please let me know!