Hello everyone, So, back to those reputable lovable rogues Lowell Portfolio.. In September 2011 I obtained my partners Equifax report which showed a debt to Lowell Portfolio 1 for £341.44, dated 10/09/2008, defaulted 21/11/09. OH didnt recognise the debt, Equifax told us it originated from O2. OH contacted O2 by phone on 6th September 2011 to be told they told they could not find any reference for the debt and his ‘normal’ O2 account was completely up to date and always paid on time. They referred me back to Lowell. I then sent a letter to Lowell requesting the original consumer credit agreement. They replied on 8th June 2012 to tell me that “Following investigations we have concluded that the debt is not linked to you. As such we have removed your personal details from our database”. They refunded me the statutory fee. I have this evidentiary letter. I then spoke to Equifax to have the entry removed and Lowell (via Equifax) informed me that only O2 could remove the “incorrect link”. Basically they ech blamed each other. Equifax will not act without theirs or O2s instruction. At the same time I obtained my credit report from Callcredit. There was, as of 15th June 2012, no entry relating to any default whatsoever. Its still to this date not on Experian. We assumed it would go with the deletion of the OHs details from Lowells database. But when we went for a mortgage a few weeks ago, we were refused on the basis of this unsettled debt. We appealed but they wouldnt have it; whilst the debt is still on there they wont look at us regardless of whatever evidence we have. To make matters worse, Lowell have searched the OHs Callcredit file back in October this year, even though the debt was not listed there at the time of their promise to remove his details. Clearly as a last ditch attempt to keep the (now statute barred) debt alive. They have also searched Experian, but not listed the debt. Never any contact with him directly I might add. Surely, in light of the letter stating the debt is not his, we have some legal right of redress to force them to remove the entry and cease the unwarranted searches on his credit file? Any ideas on what to do? I dont want to have to wait a year for this to expire from his file when they cant prove it was his in the first place. I would instruct a solicitor if I thought it would scare them, but they dont seem to behave in a way that would respond to it. As horrendous as this may sound to some, I'd pay it if they agreed to remove the default completely but I doubt they would consider that either! Thanks in advance for your input. Ry

I sent a CCA request dated 05.09.11, arrived 09.09.11 at 8:23am In response, they sent back, arriving on the 19th the attached, which is basically a copy of the agreement and a copy of some T&Cs which have a wide obscure bar through the middle of them. See the attached. I was going to write back but a few days later the SAR arrived, with the same documents but this time no such bar. The SAR letter stated that a statement of account would arrive separately, which it did at the end of the month, but note that this was not in response to my CCA. As I said before I then wrote back and said 'hang on, stuffs missing from the SAR request' to which they replied they had given me everything they have.CCA response 2a.pdf Welcome Default a.pdf Welcome Default Letter a.pdf CCA response 1a.pdf

Hiya DonkeyB Sorry, exactly how is it 'bingo'... I'm a idiot... Ryjayel

Oh and yes all letters I have, including recorded delivery receipts for most - some might have slipped into my business accounts so I will have to look through.

Hi Everyone On 08/09/11 I sent them a CCA request On 10/09/11 I sent them a SAR - mainly because I wasnt sure the CCA would help much as we were blind as to the nature of the debt. They replied to the CCA with an agreement with a band through the middle of it saying "CPC View Evaluation", suggesting they hadn't bought the software they were using! It came with a copy of T&C's. The SAR then arrived with the following: Default Notice and accompanying letter (never received in the first place!) Copies of ID taken at the time of the loan DD Mandate and other bits of gumff Credit Agreement and T&Cs (this time without that band through the middle) Five pages of contact notes on his account I then wrote back to them on 6th October stating that they had omitted from the SAR: Notice of assignment if any (they maintain the debt I think but have instructed IND to do all the talking) Any and all PPI docs - all of which were noticeably absent Collection charges breakdown etc etc Fees levied by others DPA fair use notice List of 3rd party agencies data disclosed to All statements throughout the period Termination notice We then received a loan statement shortly after, from Mack Hall Then we received a letter from Welcome stating they gave me all they have, refused to give me commission and broker details and thats that! Then another loan statement in April of this year and several chasing letter from Mack Hall etc. I believe the NoA was February of this year, threatening court action via their litigation agents IND. Should it have a particular layout? Then a letter from Welcome introducing the FSCS and asking if I wanted to pursue a PPI claim via them (because of Welcomes financial problems) I sent another letter in the June stating they had failed to comply with a legal request (SAR) and they never bothered to reply. Finally - the N1 court claim arrived. Incidentally, that 'tick' in the PPI box on the agreement, is a computer generated one (the one that looks like the division sign). He wasn't even told about the PPI, they never discussed options with him! I'm going to have to speak with Welcome about an extension to submit my defence, its too much to do before the week is out. Ryjayel

hiya all and thanks for weighing in! yes the cca in post 7 was send after my SAR. Although I had to follow up with a letter demanding a full one without an obscured area. I will post the DN this afternoon. He was never given a choice over the ppi! he couldn't have the loan unless he took the insurance. thanks for the point to carey vs hsbc. I will read up on that today! can anyone point me to any defence construction posts?

Yes sorry, the original thread was about two balances, the HFO one has since died and the Welcome Finance claim has progressed to this stage. What I need to do is put together a defence for MCOL and sharpish as I only have until Sunday to do it. Can anyone help point me in the right direction based on my defence points above? Much appreciated. Ryjayel

the claimant claims for sums due under a/various credit agreement/s related only to money regulated by the consumer credit act 1974 entered into between the claimant and the defendant. the agreement/s was/were terminated upon the defendant failure to comply with the terms of the agreement/s. the claimant complied with section III and IV and annex b of the pd pre action conduct. and the claimant claims: personal loan account number xxxxxx balance of 3854.00 as of 19/2/09 interest under s69 of the county court act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 19/2/09 to 7/8/12 of 1068.56 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of 0.84 and costs.

Hello Thanks for the replies, nice to know there are other voices out there! The claim is by Welcome Finance, submitted by Hegarty LLP. IND have sent threat letters. The date of the summons is 7th August, so 5 days is 12th August, 28 days from there is this Sunday 9th September. I have done AoS with intention to defend all of it. My defence is as follows thus far: The PPI of £496.65 was a fait accompli - He was given no option by the broker, it was mandatory if he wanted the loan. The offer of settlement was rejected entirely. The SAR request was not responded to properly the first time, I had to write again to get a proper copy of the agreement and then again to chase missing items which was duly ignored. No default notice was ever received and the one in the SAR is pretty standard. The APR (variable) was 65.57%, then there is a second box that says 'rate of interest per annum' and that is 60.10%. But the statement we subsequently received after the SAR gave a current address says 48%. I'm not up with calculating APRs and interest but so far as I can see its all a little 'made up on the spot' and I'd like to investigate further. There are £90 worth of charges for telephone calls (£10 a time) There is £40 for unpaid DD's (£20 a time) We have offered a very 'generous' settlement of the £3854 (all in one go if needs be) they are claiming before court interest and costs, that has been point blank turned down. The negatives are that the credit agreement appears sound (except the iffy APR), I have a raft of paperwork from the SAR. Should I scan and upload the credit agreement, the default notice and the statement for everyone to see? Thanks Ryjayel

Sorry - Also I think perhaps the location of this thread is a little off the beaten track now - is it more appropriate for me to move to another section?

Hi Brig Its been a while but Welcome Finance has reared its ugly head again, so I'm looking for more advice if you have a moment... I wrote to Welcome again after all the above, explaining they had omitted certain documents in my SAR, such as the PPI insurance documents relating to the loan and a breakdown of all the charges relating to the account etc. They duly ignored it. I have now received a County Court Claim for the original defaulted amount of £3854, plus interest and costs bringing the total to £5087.56. I have logged onto MCOL and entered my acknowledgement and intention to defend. They have supplied a photocopy of the agreement, the default notice (which was never received) and a statement of account showing all the charges they have placed on the account such as Capitalisation and telephone costs. So far as I can see, the £3854 should not be that high because of the PPI (£496.65) and all the exorbitant fees for telephone calls (£110) etc etc. However, what I want to avoid if at all possible is a CCJ being issued. Is there any point in taking it to court if that is what is going to be the outcome and a stain for six years? Should I write to the claimants solicitors, explaining my position and suggesting that we come to some sort of payment agreement. Should I argue the PPI and charges now, or wait until after an agreement is reached (if!). I run out of time at the end of this week (its been a difficult month ), so how do I deal with this with the court? Do I still need to assemble and provide a defence in the meantime? Finally, as the amount is over £5k (just) do I have to apply to have it moved to small claims track? Is that even an option? Anyones contributions to this situation is gratefully received! Thanks Ryjayel

Welcomes loan statement demands £3854, which is from back in 2009 when they stopped adding interest to the loan, which would infer they sold the debt on. The jump from that to £6773 and DCA Mack Hall have chased it a little, stating the pursuer as 'Cattles' would suggest the same but Welcome are the ones that have lodged the default. I'm happy to agree a figure, if the PPI and the default is removed.

Ah Thanks for the swift reply Brig Let me clear some bits up: 1) HFO was indeed a different loan and they claimed it was not statute barred despite my insistance. However it has dissapeared from all credit files after the six years so HA! 2) Moving back to Welcome, now the only problem in an otherwise shamrock green credit file! The loan taken out was £2000 plus £496.65 PPI. States Total Amount of Credit £2496.65 HOWEVER - there is also an acceptance fee of £75!!! What a cheek! So the total is £2571.65 and the statement says the loan is now on a 0% Annual Interest Rate... He was NEVER told the PPI was option, might not be needed etc etc, it was placed there, he was told it was an essential part of the loan take it or leave it. I will send exactly such a letter to Welcome as recommended (swapping out the Cur or Madman bit lol). Do I holdfire on the PPI reclaim? The FSCS have writen to him explaining that as Welcome Finance are actually in default, the FSCS are now in charge of the PPI investigation. Any compensation will be taken off the debt (fair enough) but you will only be awarded 90%. Why is that? Also completing the form admits owning the debt so should I wait? Ta muchly, cracking advice very gratefully received. Ryjayel

Hello Brig I have been a busy bee over the last six months and have removed all defaults with the exception of this remaining one. What I need is to soundboard how best to tackle this default (see above) if you can offer advice and a path that would be great! I SAR'd Welcome Finance and they sent a signed CCA etc etc. When I wrote and asked for the rest, they said they had nothing more to send. It shows four payments made, then defaulted, which was registered in Feb 2009. To wait for it to become statute barred is a long time so I need to approach it in a way that achieves the best possible outcome to restore some creditbility to his credit report. Ideally, I would like to wipe it but thats not going to happen. Second best would be to have the debt reduced back down to its original sum, the default removed and payments to be made to settle the account with green lights on his credit report. Is this realistic? There is a photocopy of a default notice sent in February 2009 but he never received it. Last year they sent him a personal loan statement, now that they have his current address from the SAR, which shows: PPI £496.65 Interest £1561.95 Telephone chg £90.00 Letter £10.00 Unpaid DD £40.00 Default sum fee interest £8.48 Total £2207.08 in charges, interest and PPI alone! However, whats confusing is thats where the statement stops but the default says £6773. I have no explanation for the sum demanded. The original loan was £2000 plus PPI (which wasnt optional by the way!). I can only assume the difference would be trumped up charges by the DCA as the Welcome statement stops in May 09. So my question is this: What would be the best way forward? Should I write explaining what was missing from the SAR (again) and demanding to know why the default is for £6773 when the statement stops in 2009 at £3854 (sent to him April 2012). Should I demand the remainder is removed and offer to set up a payment plan if they agree to lift the default? Do I send a letter stating that he never received the default notice? Should I lodge a cmoplaint with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme regarding the PPI as Welcome themselves are in default and the FSCS are managing their affairs. (or is this admitting liability that he shouldnt admit to so early?) I'm sorry to be confusing and exhausive but its rather a mess and the FSCS being involved doesnt help matters! Thanks again Brig Ryjayel

Yes Equifax is much the same, although the defaults and settled agreements were not all six years old. I have emailed experian/Equifax as they do not show previous reports on their online system as they were paper not electronic (if that makes sense!). I have also sent off to Call Credit for their report.

Thanks Brig, I will do all of your advice items. Its truly bizarre, the bank have obviously used Experian as there are registered searches (three at a time!) checking identity. However, there are now NO defaults registered with the experian online report but 18 months ago there were two and two happily settled agreements. Now there is just one; his mobile phone. Where have they all gone??? I dont understand why they have dropped off/disappeared when we have given exactly the same information on previous addresses etc for both reports. There is no GAIN, no CIFAS on experian or Equifax. I am becomming convinced the bank are just making stuff up now but I will CCA the DCAs but I thought that applying for reports was sufficient! I did a CCJ check, but not on any previous addresses, should I run through the last few just to be safe, I'm not expecting anything to be honest. I've fired off a load of letters, demands, emails ref his online equifax and experian reports. Funny thing though - both Experian and Call Credit will not provide instant access to his online report, like they dont believe he is who he professes to be and they need to double check? Experian even sent a PIN no through the post so we had to wait three days. If the CRAs think he's lying what hope do we have convincing others? Ta!

To give more detail, the warning said his name was genuine but 'other information' was the problem.

Hello All! So I am in the process of dealing with partners debt, liaising to negotiate reduced settlement etc. I had thought them very suspicious but all the paperwork is in order and he owes the money. So today I visited my bank to open a (second) business account (my credit file is now thankfully squeeky clean) only for it to be 'referred'. I was told (and shouldnt have been but he was trying to help and has known me for some time) that it was because my boyfriend is showing as potentially fraudulent as as we live at the same address I am now implicated! He couldnt tell me anything more than that, and thats come as such a shock. Yes we knew he had debts but when I applied for his credit files the CIFAS section was totally empty. I have my boyfriend writing a comprehensive list of all the addresses he has lived at for the last ten years so that I can go back to the CRAs and ask for any and everthing flagging up, I will then also run CCJ checks on every address. My question is why is this happening and where can I go to get help? We have pinged an email to CIFAS themselves, even though his file appears to us empty of warnings. Any ideas who to approach? Do I need full on legal help? Should I put through a notice of disassociation, even though we live together we do not share bills. I'm really very worried, as the bank did say that somtimes if they think I'm also 'up to no good' it may trickle back and affect the currently very good relationship I have with them and the head office may re-evaluate me being a customer of theirs. To be frank, I'm panicking...so anything at all I would be very grateful for...

Hiya Brig Just to update, have received the SAR for the defaulted account. Its contains the original agreement which I also requested through the CCA letter, five pages of notes, a default notice, and copies of photocopied bank statements, proof of ID etc. I am missing: any documents relating to the PPI Details of collection charges added Details of fees/charges from any agencies (being that MH have weighed in, in the past) No DPA document No list of agencies to whom his data has been disclosed No statements No termination notice They have told me twice now in letters that the statement of account has been ordered and will arrive separately but I havent received it yet so cannot investigate how its gone from £3k to £7k. They still have 30 days to comply... Should I write back listing what is missing from the SAR'd documents and inform them the clock is still ticking? Also, he never received any form of default notice, but did move some time after the start of the loan. Fran

OK, can I come back to you once received to check my calculations? They state on their letter that they have requested a statement of account to be sent separately, one of which we have never received so this should be interesting! Thanks again Brig

Thanks Brig Will challenge the agreement but the debt is still owned by Welcome. Will not deal with MH in any way. Defaulted Feb 09. What would be the next move, as it would seem the additional monies over the final are all charges and miss sold PPI. I calculate the total owed (without PPI) to be £3,637.33 but they are going for nearly £7000! Ryjayel

Afternoon! So I have received a signed CCA from Welcome Finance... My chap says he honestly cant remember the loan but the CCA is signed in two places so it look pretty convincing! The CCA I have been given is two pages (credit agreement page and terms), but one of them is marked 'Page 4' so where are the others?! Also, It has CPC View EVALUATION marked across it covering some of the important details of the agreement which I'm not happy about. I have attached it. Should I write back and demand one without that obscuring it and the missing pages? I am waiting for the SAR and they have confirmed they are working on it. But... The loan was for £2000 plus £496.65 PPI over two years with a 66% APR! He made four payments of £169, left the property and thats when payments stopped. He is being chased by Muck Hall (who are only DCA, the debt remains with Welcome I believe) for £6773! I need to challenge this, he had no default notice, no reminders, no 'you havent paid us letters' etc etc until the DCA letter arrived January of this year. Any advice anyone? Welcome agreement 1 small.pdf

Ok so I've completed the SB letter to address the HFO 'debt'. Now that should stop them chasing, and I can send harrassment letters if they dont. Will also raise a SAR request for Welcome Finance and pop out to the Post Office this morning! But what about the default on the CRA files? Do I need to wait until November when the default reaches six years then fire off removal letters?

Ah thats really very interesting Brigadier: The SB account is actually barred. The account was opened in Feb 2005 but according to both CRAs no payments were EVER made! So it became SB back in March. However the default wasnt registered until the November and therefore is still on the reports. Should I wait for it to drop off or send a letter to all parties? I can write to HFO and tell them they are no longer allowed to chase him but I cant get rid of it offf his CRA until Nov? I will SAR the other remaining welcome account directly for all that they have (CCA has already gone). Thats not only saved me a tenner, but a heap of work! Thank you very much Brig!

Morning Guys! So I have now started the long journey to sorting out my chaps previously poor credit reports. He had been refused for credit, was receiving low level DCA letters and wasnt sure why so we applied for experian/equifax reports (will do Call Credit later!). Its all very confusing: Welcome Financial Services PLC have registered a default for a loan started in April 2008, four payments made then default registered in Feb 2009. Defaulted at £3382, now £6773!!! HFO Services Ltd have registered a default for a loan started in Feb 2005, no payments made then default registered in Nov 2005. Defaulted at £4373, now £5612. I have CCA'd both companies and in the interim HFO have very conveniently sent me one of their famous "Reminder - Notice of Assignment" letters, to which I have today replied with a "I don't think so" letter. It doesn't state when it was sold off. The interesting thing is that the Reminder NoA says Welcome Financial Services are the OC. Why would Welcome Finance sell off an older debt to a DCA yet loan more money to that same alledged debtor and chase it themselves? One is close to SB anyway and I have stated on every letter (unsigned) that he denys all claims. Either way my partner knows absolutely nothing about any of it! He swears they are not his, because he knew he couldnt get credit so would never have applied! I would have thought they were the same debt but the old one is the one chased by the DCA and normally when two defaults are registered, the second is the newer DCA one. They have 10 days left on the CCA, then Account in Dispute letters to be fired off, should I also SAR Welcome for both accounts with two £10 cheques? Any imput anyone has would be fanstastic at this point, just to keep me on the straight and narrow. Thanks and hope your weekend's started well! Ryjayel