Hi All, I was living in Dubai for 8 years lost my job didn't get paid by them etc.. so i had to leave as i couldn't find another job. That was a year ago, since then i have received a couple of letters form IDR about my outstanding debts out there , 4 different banks totalling around 250 AED. I've replied to them by email explaining that i am unemployed on universal credit, no assets at all etc. I didn't tell them i am just starting a small buisness online. There reply was we will give you 30 days before they start with their collections. Any advice from anybody please who knows about what they can do like CCJs or min payments. would it be best just to go bankrupt and tell them that. Thanks very much.

Hi all My stepson aged 30 recently left the family home after living with us for over two years and moved in with his girlfriend. Although his mail came to our home, he was never on the electoral roll as residing here. Having cleared his room following his departure, we found a large quantity of unopened mail from creditors and a CCJ from a few months ago demanding he maintains his agreed £100 per month payments. Yesterday, a bailiff turned up at our home demanding £1,750 that my stepson has run up as a debt, but with whom I don't know. I told him that he moved out in November to an address I didn't know. The bailiff was adamant that the £1,750 had to paid there and then and said that if I couldn't pay it, then he would require access to our home to remove goods to that value. I told him that there was nothing of my stepson's in the house which the bailiff said was of no concern to him, and unless we could provide receipts for our property, then he considered it fair game to remove. Not wishing to see our house stripped of its contents, I paid the £1,750 and the bailiff went on his way. Had he gained entry, should I not have paid, would he have had the right to remove our belongings if we couldn't provide receipts? I'm sure this won't be the last visit, it seems my stepson owes a great deal of money to various companies and I'd like to know where my wife and I stand in readiness for the next anticipated call from the bailiffs. Thank you

I am planning to settle all my debts with various creditors, but want to be sure that I go about it the right way, to ensure that my credit file shows the most accurate (if not the best) picture of my situation. Is there anything I need to obtain from various creditors apart from a letter confirming that the account has been settled? How long does it take before my credit file reflects these changes? Thanks, M P.S. Need advice on more thing, please: I have a CCJ entered against my name for school fees that weren't paid from many years ago. The CCJ was entered in 2013or 14 in my absence. I understand that the CCJ would be removed from my file after 6 years, but does it help my credit file if I make a full payment now? Or shall i just leave it as it is.

Hi I have two ex Santander debts - £4k loan / £1400 cc which were in a Step Change DMP that ended in 2016. These debts are now being chased by Westcot. I received a letter for one of the debts on Saturday, and today Westcot have started calling me. I have not responded yet. I am aware of how aggressive Westcot are, Ive had previous dealings with them. The debts themselves are from around 2011. The letter from Westcot states they are looking for an 'affordable' payment plan. No mention of court has been stipulated yet. I really do not want to have to deal with Westcot again, as they made my life a misery last time. They have given me 10 days to respond. Would it be better to write to Santander instead? Or should I request that Westcot send me proof they can chase the debt? Many thanks in advance for any help. RJW

Hey. Newbie here.. Okay, Sorry this might be a long one as I don't want to miss anything out! So over the 26 years ive been alive I have got myself in a pickle; default city to be honest, mostly low-level everything combined is under 8k. I have just got a lump sum of money to pay off my debts to help recover my credit score so I can one day buy a house. Now checking my credit score I started going through one by one going to pay them off, I got to Lloyds and they have sold my 3 debts to two companies ( 1 is Credit Security LTD and 2 is Robbins way ), I have had these loans outstanding for 3 years or so and they have never contacted me ( got 2 letters from credit security but nothing from robins way ) i only found this out ringing up Lloyds, the default shows up on my credit file from Lloyds and that's it. Do I contact these people or not? I can't remove the Default either way so what should I do? and if I don't do anything that can happen, the amounts of these are £1525. £870.00 & £1800. This is where my second question comes in, my old phone contracts ( yes I was stupid ) have been sold to Lowell, now I never ever saw them as a threatening as they would send letter after letter and that's it nothing came of it for a few years ( back from 2014 2016 2017), stupidly when I decided to set up a DMP a year ago it classed as I made contact with them ( so resets the 6 year time frame ), now they have now left 3 defaults on my credit file, why is it under THEIR name and not orange etc like the Lloyds? I paid them £50.00 today and going to call up to pay a payment plan, I do have enough money to pay them all off today but is it worth it or just paying per month and keep some money aside? (it's 2400 altogether), now reflecting back on that should I of paid them or just ignore them as it would have got written off? Why have THEY put the default on my account instead of the business itself and not the other company that's taken over my Lloyds account? Why is my Credit file showing nothing of these other debt companies, if it is not on your credit report does it really matter? Sorry, I'm a little bit of a newbie at this! I know when default goes on your credit file it stays there for 6 years and there is nothing I can do about that.. right?

Has anyone dealt with debt collectors and had success in reducing the interest / charges removed to pay for the actual debt. If you have I could really do with some help as have some bad old debts that just keep resurfacing and now need to face up to them and arrange to settle to become debt free. Any help would be really appreciated.

Hello My judgment Creditor has destroyed the CCJ. Can this CCJ be renewed by Judgment Creditor? Thanks

Hi Guys Sorry Ive been meaning to get to this but have just not had the time. I am looking for some help on some debts that i have, things are getting out of hand and i feel i can no longer manage them. I was looking at a DMP but one of the other guys on here said to set up a thread before i go down that route. I'll start off by listing the debts i have and with who and then see what you think. Creditors: Aqua Credit Card: 475 (25 in arrears) Barclaycard: 450 Capital One card: 450 DRS Ardent Credit: 375 Lending stream: 847 LLoyds Credit Card: 1200 LLoyds Overdraft: 1200 Lowell Financial: 3371 On Stride Financial: 1154 (this is increasing) Satsuma: 1033 (also increasing) Sunny: 403 Vanquis: 1100 Mr Lender: 1000 Moneybox: 200 SafetyNet: 750 Even typing this out makes me feel worse

Hi all, Great to see some current posts in this thread. I to have had a letter from CLI re a Kuwait debt. This is one of many companies that have tried to connect with me that i have ignored. HOWEVER! They've chased me from moving house, and the latest letter says they are sending a debt collector around in 7 days. Is this just another scare tactic? This has been going on for years now.

Hi All, Thank you for all your help over the many years - been a long journey but almost there. Now that I have the strength and knowledge (from here) to take on the financial system in this country, I'm now trying to help my elderly Dad fight back. My Dad was always in control of financial affairs in the past but for the last few years now has become less able to deal with the modern world and now he is showing early sign of dementia. It came as quite a shock to find out that he has 6 credit cards which are now leaving him with no pension to live on. It became noticeable last year when he was a victim of identity fraud. His bank account was cleared out twice and so he ended up with loads of penalty payment and a few defaults. I want to "put the brakes" on the charges and interest with all these companies and now feel I'm in a position to do so now that I have LPA (lasting power of attorney). My idea is to send these companies a letter saying that my sister and I are taking over financial affairs for Dad, enclose a copy of the LPA, and also start the ball rolling by asking for the original signed Credit Card Agreement. Some of my Dad's cards go back to the 80's I want to see if he has an agreement and if they don't at least put them on the back foot when I ask them to freeze his account so he can just work out a manageable payment plan. Should I do it this way or does anyone have a better idea? Best regards Fevr

Hello, Long story short: I was employee of a company which buys stock in euros. Due to the referendum and the GBP drop, our margin has sank and after a short recovery the company went bust and we have all been made redundant. Because I’m a Spanish national living in the UK (7 years now), I could well stay here with the so called “settled status” but my landlord has already told that he won’t renew my tenancy in February because he assumes that all EU nationals will be illegal and he doesn’t want trouble with the government. To be honest I’m quite fed up with all this uncertainty, we simply don’t trust the government and we (as young couple with kids) have decided to leave the UK because we consider the situation is not going to get any better both socially and economically. 3 years ago I (despite having joint accounts, the debt is in my name only) have taken an unsecured loan and there is still £28K outstanding. The bank has approved it because our combined salary was quite high and we were both on permanent jobs and back in 2015 we were not even thinking in leaving the UK but the referendum has changed everything. My company was supposed to fund my leased car as part of the job conditions but it has never happened, so I’ve supported those costs as well. Now we have got about 1/3 of the loan on our account and we are going to use that money to set up a business in Spain with very low startup costs and a decent profit margin. But we still need the money to survive for the first few months and success is not guaranteed. So basically I will have to miss payments and it’s just a matter of time before I get a knock on my door in Spain as I will be registered as sole trader (probably easier to find). I have searched about enforcing debts throughout the EU but I get different results, and I’m a bit confused, basically I’ve got the following options: 1. I simply vanish to Spain without telling my bank; they will certainly send letters to my former UK address; they will apply for a CCJ so with this option I will be unable to use the statue barred option after 6 years. They will eventually find my address in Spain and send debt collection agents and eventually apply for a court order. If they find me I’m served. 2. I report change of address and let the bank know about my new address in Spain. But what they don’t know is that I will be staying temporarily with family, then getting my own place. So any letters will land on my family’s place. Now the bank cannot apply for a CCJ but they can well take me to court in Spain but that might turn into a costly and lengthy process for them (or not?). 3. As soon as land in Spain, I can send a letter to the bank explaining that due to unexpected circumstances I will not afford to pay anything for about 2 years, but hopefully I will be able to resume providing the business is successful. My concern is that they may not accept that and because I have now admitted that I’m in debt it is much easier for them to issue that sort of european payment order. 4. I declare myself bankrupt in the UK. I don’t have any assets in the UK but I will have low value assets (max £2000) in Spain which I need for my business. But I don’t know whether my assets are safe in Spain when declaring bankruptcy in the UK only. I don’t intend to return to the UK except for tourism purposes. Please note that I intend to pay the debt but not at an excessive interest rate. It will take some time for us to build up some savings and pay them. Also note that the bank in question has not got any branches in Spain. What do you consider to be the best option for me? Thanks in advance.

Hello I have several outstanding debts with payday loan companies and credit card companies which have now been assigned to DCA's apart from where mentioned details below. Drafty PDL- now being chased by Asset Collections £746.55 Sainsburys CC - Wescot £1039.97 wage day advance PDL £492.71 - Moorcroft Vanquis CC £566.68 - Moorcroft The money shop PDL £768.84 - BW Legal EE -phonebill £155.03 - Moorcroft Capital 1 CC £245.58 - Fredrickson/lowell Tesco CC £539.66 -moorcroft Very £897 no dca actiity Safetynet credit £503.89 PDL - Opos satsuma PDL £738.00 no dca activity halfax CC£1959.95 - Wescott western circle/cashfloat - £607.37 no dca activity Just under 10k by my reckoning, what would be the best route forward iva/dro or reduced settlement figures ? Thanks in advance.

Hi, I have managed to get myself into around £19k of debts with credit cards and am looking for advice. I would like to do my own DMP and am wondering if this would be possible? After paying my mortgage and other bills I am only left with around £120, to spilt between 6 creditors. These were all taken out after 2007. The highest is marbles which I owe £5100 and the rest are all around £3,000 and £2000. Any help would be welcome.

Hi, I had a good number of credit card debts - the usual suspects: virgin, mbna, cap1 etc. They all dropped off my credit report a couple of years ago, so I now have what Halifax describe as an A1 rating I would like to remortgage. Should I be worried about a bank or building society that has one of my old credit card accounts in the business group using some sort of set-off mechanism to recover some of the monies I never paid. I'm thinking in particular about a deal I heard on the radio between Yorkshire (building society or bank - I can't remember) and Virgin. But am interested in the principes, too. Thank you.

Hi there folks. I'm in need of a bit of advice please. So i owe a lot of money to a lot of companies. Some are being paid monthly minimum and there's a few which are being dealt with by debt collectors ( Ive contacted them via letter asking to make token payments already) I regards to the several credit cards i have, i'm literally just paying the interest every month and the balance isn't going down. I cant to pay any more than that. I'm thinking of sending them all letters asking to freeze the interest and accept monthly payments of £10 ( which is around the same as the min monthly payment anyway ) What are the chances of them accepting this? The companies in question are Capital one, barclaycard and vanquis. Many thanks, Amy.

My daughter told of this site and how it had helped her over the years reclaim unfair charges and it has been extremely helpful to her over the years, I know she donated several times and so I decided to register myself. My daughter has suffered severe trauma over the last 12 months and I am very pleased to say that she is in a much better place now. I am trying to sort her finances out, she is unable to work presently and unsure at this time when she will be capable of working. I was considering writing to the companies she owed money to explain what's happened to her and ask if they would consider wiping the debt in her circumstances, especially at the moment as we have no idea when she is going to be able to return to work, its not likely to be any time soon as she is in therapy 3 days a week for at least the next 6 months. The debts are roughly as follows: Vanquis £650 (paying £1 a month) Three Mobile £121 Lowell Financial £1200 Welcome Finance (Secured) £18K (paying £10 a month) Santander Loan (Unsecured) £9K (no payments made since 2010) HSBC £1500 Robinson Way (Barclaycard) £950 Creditlink account recovery solutions £94.76 My husband and I are old age pensioners and we cannot afford to pay these debts but I know all these letters that come through only add to her stress and depression as they do! We would love to be able to pay this off but we are financially just not able to. She has a mortgage which she is in arrears with although I am dealing with and they are understanding, there is no equity in the house but the mortagge payment is so low at £429 a month (interest only) we want her to keep this as renting would be of more cost to her. I am not sure if it is possible for anyone to advise us if it is worth writing to these debters with her situation and seeing if they might consider wiping these debts. Many thanks A worried GrannyMargaret.

Hi All... I hope you can help... I'll try to make this as short as possible. I was a victim of the financial crash.. the business I was in suffered massively and as a result, in 2010, my income reduced by almost 90%. I made arrangements with all my creditors when I could see this on the horizon (totalling around £100k) which have been in place ever since. The arrangements reflected my reduced earnings and most reduced to around 10% of the normal payment with the interest frozen. Most of my creditors subsequently registered defaults against me.. some quite soon after the start of the problems, some a few years later... which, now we are 8 years down the line, is great... a lot have dropped off my credit file and a few have only a short time to go until they do... BUT... i have 2 creditors, Nothern Rock (as was) and Nat west Bank, who refuse to register a default.. they just show late payments every month even though I am thousands in arrears and show as 6+ on my credit reports.. My question is, should they have registered defaults many years ago or can they effectively keep on punishing me, which will ultimately be, for the rest of my life, for an event out of my control? My business will never return to its former glory so I will never be in a position to clear these two debts in full. If I had declared myself bankrupt when the crap hit the fan, this would have been done and dusted many years ago and I would be pretty much back to normal but because I chose to do (what I thought) was the right thing and keep paying my creditors. Would the FOS agree that defaults should have been registered all those years ago or can nat west and Northern Rock keep causing me problems (and they are now becoming quite significant as I need to be credit checked for my work and for business accounts) Any help gratefully accepted Thanks H

Hi Please, can you help me? I got into terrible debt many years ago. Abbey tried to repossess my house after a court hearing, but I sold it in time for not much profit. I had loans and credit cards outstanding and I got a CCJ for one of my credit cards who charged me a lot of PPI. It is seven years down the line and my Experian credit score shows clear. What I want to know is, can I reclaim PPI on all my mortgages and loans and credit cards from over the years? I know my CCJ is still enforceable, but this card was the main offender. Thanks

Hi Just received my credit file and after getting into a bad financial situation I have a total of 19 defaults on my credit file!, 11 are due to drop of this year and 3 next year the rest are around 2022, for the latter do you think my credit file will improve If I pay them of so they are marked as satisfied? or should I just wait, none of them are chasing me for payment at the minute Just edited to add one is for a mobile phone debt that I was paying for 2 years at £35 per month, it says I owe £550.00 now

Good Evening All, I have been reading through these forums for a while and decided to make an account after seeing how helpful everyone is in the hopes of extracting some valuable information from yourselves. I'm 27 and got myself into some trouble when I was around 18/19, borrowed too much money until I couldn't afford to keep up repayments and then buried my head in the sand ignored everything for a year or so and then decided I'd sort it out. Lowell had purchased my debts from numerous different companies and I had around 7 different defaulted accounts with them. I now have two left having paid off five of the others, I have paid them all in full and they now show as a Closed Account "Satisfied" on my credit file. The two remaining accounts are now at the following amounts (approx.) - £2700 (Default Opened: 13th March 2010) - £1500 (Default Opened: 2nd July 2010) Every single month the account is marked as "Default" on my file and is in the "Closed" section of Clearscore on the Accounts section. I have just been reading up on settlements with Lowell (just Googled it this evening) and came across a term "statute barred" and am wondering if anyone could give me any advice on whether this would effect my situation or not? Or if anything else does? I'm truly clueless ! I am now in the position where I can probably pull together a settlement figure but again I have absolutely no clue on where to start with this, is there a procedure to follow or do I just ask them what they'd accept? Is it that simple? I'm frightened of being ripped off by them after reading up on them, can I just ring and pay? Should I have email communication of everything first? If someone could point me in the right direction or give any advice I'd be really grateful. Also, do defaults dating back to 2010 as mine do(as closed accounts) hold much weight on my credit file? I have read so many different answers in the past! I'm going to save for a house after this debt is cleared and if anyone has any advice regarding that then that'd be great! Kind Regards Pat

Can any Southwest Water customer legally be issued a debt demand and then be taken straight to Court for a CCJ with no defence ? Southwest Water debt letters and their CCJs again, they seem to be the bane of people's lives. Hi, to save starting a new thread I'll use this for Southwest Water "debt", which looks to be a Southwest Water Christmas [problem] . An elderly member of my family lives in a retirement complex, and received a demand for a Southwest Water debt, with a County Court claim (leading to a CCJ) just before Christmas 2017 (dirty trick really, there was no time to defend it). She's usually very good but she's somehow upset these 'people'. It seems she received a Southwest Water demand letter for over £200 which apparently was for the year. I know she's always paid her bill at the Post Office, so the SWW demand and the resultant CCJ are a mystery. Today the Court letter came and she's now got a CCJ for six years; obviously she admitted the "debt" either to save herself trouble or out of some sense of duty. The same trick was played on a neighbour last year, just before Christmas. My conclusion is to beware.

Hello all, Friend of mine asked if I can check something for him. Is his debt written off after 6 years? For example letter had arrived today from DCA and debt last payment he made was on 01 Jan 2012. That when he made last payment. Does DCA 'reset's almost 6 years period of time? Thank you!

Over the past two years i've racked up an incredible amount of debt, it reached as much as £60k last Christmas but this has now come down to c£50k. I have a gambling problem which is where all this debt comes from and which is why its so hard to shift. The pressures of this debt, personal relationships and job insecurity have started me feeling anxiety and stress related symptoms, i don't want to over-egg this but going to the GP recently i realised that things had to change. As you can imagine the largest problem i have is being reliable with any substantial sum of money in my account. I'm currently living at home with parents and need to move out by March/April, i'm finding this difficult for budgeting purposes as i don't know how much its going to cost me in the future and i'm already struggling. My Debts are as follows:- Sainsburies Loan - c£11k Halifax Card - £9k IHG/Barclaycard - £4.5k Virgin/MBNA Card - £4.5k Nationwide Card - £4.5k Amex Card - £3k Currys/Creation - £2k Onstride Finance - £2k 118 Money - £1.9k Marbles - £1.2k Paypal - £1k Very - £700 In order to make ends meet i've also taken out several phone contracts to sell the handset, this means that i have about £150 pcm expenditure on line rentals across 5 contracts. Current salary brings in about £2490 per month, minimum repayments for all of these are approximately £1900. So if i was continuing to live at home and if i was able to not fritter away my entire pay packet within 7 hours of it hitting my bank account then i could get by. Unfortunately neither of these are true. I'm considering making a change to my working situation resulting in less hours and a higher pension payment (thankfully money i can't access to waste) which would bring my new salary to c£1800 per month, out of that i would estimate £800pcm for rent and bills, £450 for day to day expenses. So i can't work out whether i can put myself through the mass defaulting stage, i don't know if i can bear the constant calls, i don't know how easy it will be to get a place to rent with a wrecked credit file, i don't know what to do right now. I'm currently asking the gaming company for a partial refund of my recent deposits (After i've self excluded), if that provides a decent return i can keep going with the regular payments for a bit longer but its no long term fix. My dream is to own my own home, trying desperately to work out how i feel about pushing that out another 6-7 years. Also wondering if i should leave open the Halifax account or pay separately as its still on a balance transfer offer and presume it would be good to have one high value account with history when looking to get a mortgage down the line... Bit of a stream of thoughts there but i'm really at a crossroads, mostly 0/1 months behind and its about to hit the fan.

Not my debt fraud hat trick I have been reading some of the past posts and found them very helpful. But I would like some help with my own problem set out below About five years ago the payday loan company Wonga sent me a letter claiming I owed them money. It turned out someone had used my name to take out a loan. With the help of my bank and a representative from Wonga it was established that they did not have my banking details and had not taken any money out of my account. I was asked to contact the police by Wonga to report an identity fraud. The police said because I had not lost anything to the fraudster it did not warrant a crime number but the incident would be logged. Although I ‘am sure I would not have thrown the letters away, I cannot find them. Early this year I was contacted by B W Legal representing PRAC financial, claiming they had acquired a debt from Instant cash loans ltd. T/A Payday Express. I owed them £850.80 No other details about the loan were in the demand. I ignored their letters as I have never had any Payday loans in my life. I have never had any letters or any contact with Payday Express. It turns out when they threatened me with court action the details in the letter of claim i.e. the date the agreement was signed coincided with the time of the I.D. fraud with Wonga. The 26th of November 2012. In June I received a letter from Moriarty law representing Motormile finance Limited (MMF). They claimed I owe them £468.87 from a debt they acquired from Lending Stream Limited, again no information on the debt. I sent a prove it letter and a supposedly copy of the agreement with my name and address on it arrived, The date the loan was taken out is the same as the other loan 26th November 2012. I have not lost any money but the threats from the debt collection agencies to take me to court and wreck my credit rating have made life in the past months stressful and unpleasant. How many other loans have been taken out in my name? I do not know Thanks d.bick

Hi, Sorry I don't know a whole lot about this but I have suddenly had three old debts pop up from different debt collection companies threatening me with further action etc. It seems to have happened as I made an inquiry with a PPI company a few months ago but didn't bother going any further and I am now wondering if that has opened me up to all of this. I think these three debts are statute barred as I have not made any contact whatsoever or made any payments or acknowledged the debts for at least 7 years, maybe longer but knowing how sly some of these companies can be, I wouldn't put it past them to fake an acknowledgement or some form of "contact" and so it worries me about emailing them or writing to them and stating that these are statute barred debts. I am worried that they may try to trick me. How can I prove that I have not made any contact for all of these years? They could easily just say oh yes you have...I don't understand. Can anyone please give me some advice on how I can stop these writing to me and making threats or maybe give me the best wording to put in an email? As saying "you can not enforce this is as it is statute barred" is in itself admitting to the debt I suppose. Also, there is no doubt it is at the very least 7 years since any contact was made. Many thanks.