Could someone please advise on the “6-years and it lapses” rule, I want to know if it still is in place, and also if it then has relevance for the following. 5 years ago I acted on advice from the wonderful people on this forum. I had previously retired at 65 after a business collapse, and was facing constant letters/calls from debt collectors regarding some related debts amounting to £36K across 5 business credit cards, 1 personal card, and a small-business loan. As a result of great advice I was able to hold my ground and even go on the attack, and after a year or so 4 of the debts were wiped out and a 5th “will not be pursued until we can furnish a copy of the original agreement”. That DCA was a total shambles, so that seems extremely unlikely 4+ years later still. My query today relates to the personal credit card, which was being dealt with by DCA 1st Credit. I offered a token payment of £5/mth because at that time I had not discovered this forum and had no idea that the financial sector worked in such heavily self-serving ways, nor that I had options. The offer was accepted and I made 3 payments, though by that point I had found this forum which opened my eyes wide! I wrote to 1st Credit notifying them that the credit card issuer had not dealt acceptably/completely with previous concerns (long story!), that I would not be making any more payments, that they should return the case, and that I would be contacting their client seeking proper action and that they would be included in any subsequent formal complaint themselves if they continued collection processes in the meantime. Other than asking for details once, which I ignored, I never heard from them again. I have now received two letters a few weeks apart advising “1st Credit has now become Intrum UK Ltd”, requesting a payment arrangement for that debt. I don’t know whether 1st Credit just changed their name, or Intrum Justitia (one of ‘my’ earlier DCAs) has bought their book, but either way it seems 1st Credit just shoved it to the back of the shelf 5 yrs ago, not returned it nor done anything with it themselves. My knee-jerk is that if the 6-year rule still applies, they are now trying to resurrect the case before it lapses. Part of me says to ignore them and see where it goes, though another part of me wants to snap-back setting a line of defence advising Intrum to return the case to the card issuer who I am contacting requiring them to deal properly with already-notified matters that they have yet to complete, with a warning of a formal complaint should they continue to chase. I’d greatly prefer getting to a 6 year cutoff however and just washing my hands of the whole stressful matter, than opening a level of formalities all over again and having all the stress for a year at least and most likely on in to our mid-70s. I’d just like to get on with living, as all was extremely upsetting to my wife who was/is not a strong woman after losing all our assets, our house and a second property, and living hand-to-mouth on just our state pension in rented accommodation and not the comfortable retirement we had expected. So regarding the “6-years” rule, is it still in force? If so, would contacting fresh-face Intrum with a stand-down notification letter end the 5 year lack of any contact just a year before it could help close the door? Or maybe has that already been ended with the appearance of Intrum asking for an arrangement, beginning a fresh 6-year requirement? So … should I ignore Intrum’s contact for a while longer, or get in quickly with a defence by going in to attack mode which no doubt would drag out for at least a year … by which time the 6 year rule would apply anyway if it is still in place as a potential backstop as long as I don’t break the silence? I would welcome some focus so I can see more clearly what makes the best sense … and also any pointers to new or changed legislation/codes-of-conduct /proper forms-of-words/etc that may be keeping me unknowingly out of step with things these 5 years later. Many thanks if you can guide me at all.