I know there are a few threads on similar subjects here, but wanted to set out my exact circumstances to see if anybody could advise on my next course of action. The usual story, lived in the UAE for four years, topped up a loan to pay for accommodation and expenses. That was all fine before I was made redundant in early 2017. With accounts frozen, felt I had no choice but to get my stuff together and return to the UK. Debt is around 100,000 AED. I've had all of the normal emails, them trying to call me at my place of work, etc, but now appears they have enlisted the help of a UK company, International Debt Recovery, who I see ran a credit check on me, where I presume they got my address. Have received a letter from them, where they namecheck HSBC Middle East and ask me to get in touch in the "next seven days". I have since received a text message from them, too. What are my options here? I'm in no position to pay back the £ currently, and I understand that they're not exactly accommodating when it comes to payment plans. I have taken on a mortgage since I returned to the UK with my wife, but that's only been in the last eight months and it is a first time buyer scheme, so very little/any equity has been built up. Just looking for some advice really, have read elsewhere that people have ended up bankrupt over this, so must admit I'm slightly concerned. Thanks in advance.

Hi, I have read a few of the debt recovery questions and threads and lots of good information, however, everyone is a little different which brings me to my query. In my case I did not do a runner from any debt and tried to settle everything legally before I left. In 1996 while working out in UAE I bought a vehicle on finance (Oman Bank renamed to Mashreq Bank now were the financiers). I made the repayments regularly until I lost my job a couple of years later when the company was sold and the new owners wanted their own people in. I had difficulty making the rest of the payments and some debt accrued but I managed to bring my payments up to date by bringing money from the UK. In mid 1998 I decided to leave the UAE and return to the UK so contacted the bank and agreed to return the vehicle to them to sell it off and deduct what was owed to them and give me the balance of the money as the vehicle was worth at least double the outstanding amount. For a while upon my return to the UK (Northern Ireland) I did not hear anything from them until a few years later when I received a threatening letter from some agency/solicitor (I really cannot remember). I called them and they threatened me with court cases and arrest upon travelling to any Mid east country. I did explain that it was the bank that owed me money and it seems they were asking for the full amount of the remaining debt plus interest which made me to believe that the vehicle was either sold for a small fraction of its value or for just a nominal amount which again means I was defrauded by the bank or the person who was dealing with the case. The person who I spoke to was unable to provide any paper work. In the meantime I traveled to Oman and Kuwait in 2003; but now a shade over 19 years since I have left UAE I have received letters from a solicitor in Manchester threatening me with legal action within 7 days if I do not settle the debt or contact them to settle the debt. I live in Northern Ireland and own my own property. I am also the nominal director of a company registered in England (I do not own the company nor receive any benefits from it). What is the general advice that I should follow? Ignore the letters or write to the UK solicitor asking for all the documents in English? the solicitors seem to operate from a small office in Manchester and a search showed another solicitor registered there so I assume it is one of those solicitor offices that uses various names although the lady in question seems to have been registered by the SRA. I strongly deny owing any money and again strongly believe that I am owed money. The vehicle was valued at over £4000 while the debt was about half that (in UAE Dirhams). By the way, I have no desire to return to that country due to a lot of bad experiences and although I have been offered work a number of times (companies contacting me directly) including from trusted friends, I have refused to entertain the thought of ever going back there. Sorry for the long post but I thought it is better to provide all the information in the beginning. Cheers and thanks in advance for any help, direction and advice.

Hello I have a cc debt with NAJM in dubai after losing my job last year. they passed the debt to a company in dubai called fast track collection. They managed to get my work number and have been calling the office continuously so I have had to speak to them as I need to sort out the situation. They are very aggressive and shout down the phone demanding Payment and won't even listen to my side as I would like to set up a monthly payment. The biggest issue I have is today they have said that they are sending a legal notification to my HR dept which could cause me big problems as I work in finance industry. Are they legally allowed to do anything direct from dubai as thought that the new uae UK debt agreement meant they have to go through UK courts to pursue the debt. What can I do as I can't afford to lose my job any suggestion a would be greatly appreciated as need to act fast

Hi Can someone give me some advice? I left the UAE in debt some years ago, a long story but not dis-similar to many others you will have heard. I have been contacted by a UK company (IDRWW.com) who have been instructed by the original bank. I do own my own flat in the UK, although it is mortgaged and has little or no equity in it. Can someone tell me what steps I should take? What can IDRWW do? Are they likely to try to make me bankrupt or put a charge against my home? Does anyone have any experience with this company and what they will accept or what they are after? IDRWW have given me 7 days to reply. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Tobe

I'm posting on here to see if anyone has had any success with fighting CWD in UK court as far as UAE debt is concerned. There seem to be a number of posts with varying information but no real news of successful or unsuccessful outcomes. Thanks

I left Dubai in 2015 when my husband lost his job, we both left behind some debt. We are now separated and I am a single mum, living in a council property. I have today received a letter from idrww advising that they have been advised by a creditor in the Middle East and that my name features on their portfolio. They are asking me to confirm my contact details to them. Am I right in thinking that I should ignore this? At what point if any should I start to become concerned (well even more concerned than I already am)? Thank you in advance.

Hi there CAG Community! So relieved there is hope out there - CAG!! In a nutshell, I have lived in Abu Dhabi, UAE, for many, many years.. I had a credit card and a loan, of those in the know, is a must if you are in need of renting any property as x2 payments up-front are needed..Anyways, long story short, I have always paid my loans/CC's on time, every time. In Dec 2017, I was unfairly dismissed, (part of the emiritization restructuring) and was given 3-hours notice to leave. Contravened Labor Law, thus was unlawful (which didn't make a difference) desperately tried to fight for my End of Service benefits, notice monies etc... which all went down the 'inshallah' road. Time and money ran out, I have had to leave Abu Dhabi as could no longer stay live there with my wife/kids as had no income.. Had to return to the UK in Feb 2018. Thus defaulting on monthly payments. Total debt; in the region of AED123k, approx £22k excluding the ungoverned interest rates Right, to the point; I have received an email from a collections agency couple days ago. The email is as follows: Dear xxxxx, First Abu Dhabi Bank (PJSC), Unique Identification Number xxxxxx We have been instructed by First Abu Dhabi Bank (PJSC) (the merger of First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi) in the Middle East to deal with a number of liabilities owed by individuals resident here in the UK. All of our work in this respect is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK (under FCA licence number 737367). A liability in your name features on a portfolio which we have been instructed to manage. We have been provided with this email address for you, so our intention is for all communications to be directed to this address. That said, we know and are sensitive to the fact that debt is a serious and very worrying issue for many people - so we do not want to increase that burden by communicating with you through inconvenient channels. Accordingly, if you do not want to be contacted via this email address, please let us have an alternative means of communication, within the next 7 days; either a telephone number, another email address or a residential postal address. If you do not take up this opportunity to direct us down a particular communication path (or paths) then we will assume that the continued use of this email address for communication is acceptable to you going forward. Please telephone us on 01494 911099 within the next 7 days. Our operators are here to help you Monday to Friday between 9am and 5.30pm. Please quote the above Unique Identification Number when you call. Please note that there is free debt advice available for anybody in the UK who needs it. This resource is available from the following organisations, amongst others: citizensadvise and moneyadviceservice

Dear All, I received an email today from Stockslegal stating I have not responded to previous nor arranged repayment of my outstanding liability. In the circumstances our instructions are to commence legal proceedings against you.. It goes on to say in terms of prospective legal proceedings they ask me to please note that our clients position, HSBC, is fully reserved in terms of the choice between a) Debt revery proceedings or b) Bankruptcy.. There is some more info giving me another 7 days to make proposals to pay the debt. Then the last paragraph says please note proceedings will be served at your last known place of residence. If we are successful in obtaining a judgement against you we will seek to enforce the same against you to recover our clients debt. Can enlightened readers kindly share their thoughts and advice as this has of course got me very worried. I am not in a position to pay the full debt back unless over many years and I cant become bankrupt or I may lose the house which my family needs to live in, and this would put me much further into debt. Many thanks. They have also emailed my wife directly, surely this isnt right. How on earth they got her private email address when we were not together at the time or indeed is this anything to do with her.

Hi, I've joined this form after searching for advice on a solictors called Coyle White Devine. I'm hoping some can help and advise me? Letter recently received from Coyle White Devine relating to indebtedness to Dubai First to the tune of approx £200k GBP. The letter was sent to my home address, but addressed to a diferent person. Same first and last name, but a different middle name. The letter also had an incorrect email address i.e. not mine. Atttached to the letter, is an initial letter written to a person with the same name as me, but to a completelty different address. I emailed CWD and I got a response that said (I paraphrase), they get lots of denials and why should I be different as the details supplied to them by their client gave them my name and address. They are refusing to act upon my wishes to correct this error and have asked for a scanned copy of my passport to confirm who I am. I do not want to do this for fear of identity fraud, which probably what is happening now, as I've never been to the UAE or middle East. I have spoken to the Solicitors Regulations Authority and they said they could look at the compliant, but advised I seek legal advice from a solicitor due to the 48 hour statutory demand detailed in the letter from CWD. Any advice on hw to deal with this?

Hi guys! I lived in the UK for 2 years and then moved to Australia in 2013. I have since moved to Dubai where I am now living. I got a message 2 days ago from someone who lives in my old house in London saying she had opened a piece of post accidentally that was meant for me. It turned out to be from a debt collection company called Cabot Financial who are chasing £800 unpaid on a capital one credit card (£500 balance and £300 interest). Now I know it sounds silly but I honestly had no idea this even existed. Looking over my old records I see it's a true debt yes and I owe the money, but I had 100% completely forgotten about it. I contacted Cabot to make an offer on the debt and they told me they had passed it to Shoesmiths solicitors which I'm guessing means that they're in the process of bringing me to court to get a CCJ. Now what I'm trying to find out is what I need to do now. I'm going to call Shoesmiths to try and make an offer to them but technically as I'm in the UAE the debt is not enforceable nor is the CCJ is it? I'm really reluctant to tell them my new address in case they somehow track me down and start harassing me, but if they need it to prove that I'm not in the country then maybe it's the right thing to do? I'm currently a stay at home mother and don't have £800 lying around to pay, but I do want to try and settle this in a way that I can. Can anyone tell me how best to tackle this? Do I need to prove my new address? Do I tell them as little as possible and just make them an offer on the basis that really I'm doing it in good faith as they've no right to chase me in the country I'm in right now? I have no assets in the UK and have no intention of moving back there. Thanks so much in advance, Emma

Hello people, I hope you can help. I worked in Abu Dhabi about 5 years ago. Had a credit card and used it after I left. Originally I was only about 1,500 GBP in debt. Kept paying a bit off when I could but the interest and bank charges were massive. I wasn't able to afford it any longer as whenever I paid it didn't make a difference so I just left it. The bank charges and interest were so big that the debt doubled every year. It's around 9,000 GBP now. I was also able to take a loan out on the credit card. I'm not exactly sure how this works but it was attached to the credit card and was about 1,000 GBP. This meant my charges and penalties were even higher. I didn't sign for this loan. It was all done through their online banking. I tried to talk to them but was no good so then stopped replying to their emails a few years ago. I tried to come to a plan but they wanted it all at once. They send me an email every few months. Last month they rang my work (I'm currently living abroad) and my work told me they called again today. Got an email from them yesterday as well and just see they emailed my other email address today. Not sure where they got that email address or where they found my place of work. Figured they found my place of work on Facebook. Can they send debt agencies to harrass me? I'd pay whatever I could if I had the money but it was pointless with the interest they were charging me. I'd pay 300 hundred quid when I could even though I was struggling and interest and penalties would gobble again in a month or two. That's when the debt was quite low. Is there any point in conversing with them to try to reach an agreement? Their email is in very bad English. They've sent me the same one or very similar one a couple of times before in the last few months. From the last email they sent..... I don't even know what they're trying to say! I've underlined some parts. They talk about removing interest and charges. They mention installment schemes. Then they say they are willing to settle all the long time debtors in a principal amount. Not sure what this means. They are trying to entice me to correspond. Should I reply about the non-interest and charges and installment schemes? If they did something with the interest and we had a payment plan then I could work with them. They have mentioned coming to an agreement before. I offered to pay what I had which was a lot lower than what they were wanting. However, I can't just pay 9,000 GBP as I don't have it and don't know when I'll ever have that. Not sure how I could go about getting that from a bank even. I'm currently working but in a foreign country I don't think I can easily get a loan for that amount. -------------------------------------------------------------- We wish to resolve your liability to settle in a civilized manner. However, bank is announcing an exciting offer to all the debtors to close their unpaid liabilities in a good and flexible manner on a reasonable consideration. We sincerely believe that you want to close your liability but unfortunately you could not settle it because of some critical reasons. But please remember that once we offered an opportunity of credit to you in times of your difficulty, so it is your moral duty and responsibility to repay it no matter how much you suffer, or whatever losses you incur, you should return what does not belong to you, with respect. Please understand that the legal Request is already initiated against you in UAE. Due to bank promotion you have got this limited opportunity to close your liability. Hence, please utilize this opportunity and close your liability eternally. We hope that you can understand the urgency of this matter and resolve this issue as soon as possible. We will give our utmost assistance regarding the settlement and will ensure that your account will be closed eternally and will remove all the legal action against you from the bank including travel ban. It’s an opportunity for overseas customers also to come back to UAE by paying back your liability now and will remove travel ban against you from the bank. We will give utmost assistance for settling your liability with deducting all interest and charges. Overseas customers can transfer the money and settle their account from their own country with our proper instruction and credible agreement. Hence, we would advise you to take this opportunity and settle your liability for your own security and reputation. In order that your credit history will be flawless and more facilities will be granted to you in future from the bank. Moreover, bank is willing to settle all the long time debtors in a principal amount with regards on convincing proof should be submitted (including termination letter, medical issue, bankrupted. etc). The installment schemes also provided to the customers only on a condition basis. Approvals only provided to the customers who have intention to make settlement on 100% assurance quality, reluctant and doubtful customers will not getting approvals unless they would make down payment in advance to ensure that they would be eligible. Non-payment in accordance with settlement offer can be void and it affects credibility and trustworthy of the customers, Please take this opportunity to settle all your liability in a descent manner. Note: Once you pay back and settled your account we will give 100 % official recognition that you will be receiving the ‘Clearance letter’ within 5 or 6 working days. It evidently states that you are no longer liable to the bank and cleared all your legal responsibility. Kindly contact us on or before 20/02/2016 on the below number for amicable settlement. Hope somebody can help. Thanks.

Hi After returning back to the UK a few years ago, we carried on paying the balance on our credit card. We never missed any and fully intended on clearing it off. Having asked for the balance, we realised that not only it had not gone down, in fact it had gone up after months of repayment. Apparently the bank had decided to change the interest rates without telling us. We tried contacting the bank and were told that we had to pay a ridiculous amount. Our initial debt was around 5k and contacting the bank to get a settlement figure, thinking that after all the payments the balance would have gone down, we were told that the change in the interest rate had gone up from less than 1% a month to about 22%. At this point, feeling angry as we couldn t resolve this and no notice had been given, I stopped the payments. Now six years later, I have received a letter from Coyle White Devine solicitors based in the UK with a letter of claim and a cut and paste point regarding an exoress term within the contract within the NBD bank alledgedly saying I had signed a contract stating that the bank could pursue legal proceedings due to a non exclusive jurisdiction clause within the contract. They had satisfied themselves of my indebtedness, the figure quoted in the letter had skyrocketed to £70000! Attached to the letter of claim was "without prejudice save as to costs" and that the bank is willing to negotiate to the interest level and settle close to the point of default. 21 days have been given. No contract has been sent of the credit agreement, no original terms of business signed has been sent, no proof of assignment has been given as of yet apart from claiming to be acting on behalf of the bank. Strong impression is that the solicitor is acting like a bonafide debt collector under the umbrella of being a solicitor, stating they are securing 30-40 judgments per month for such debts. My understanding is CWD does not mention judgment made in Dubai, and I understand the limitation period is 15 years in Dubai. No judgemnet in Dubai means i think that this needs to be dealt with under English covil law, is the alledged debt statute barred as its over six years? Finally, there has been several court rulings in Dubai on a particular case as of last year rejecting local banks seeking high interest on CC debts and stating they have a duty to inform debtors of changes in interest rates and ruling that the debtor should only pay back the principal sum owed at the time of default. Ps doesn't interest go against islamic shariat law? I welcome your sensible constructive comments on this please. Thanks

Hi team can anyone please help with an email I have received from CWD on behalf of a UAE credit card. What do I do next? Has anyone ever gone down the IVA through with these guys? Many thanks in advance Rubs

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...

I bought a house off plan in Dubai (I know, I know..) which needless to say was delayed by 7 years! I have a mortgage with a UAE bank and was paying interest only on the loan as payments were made as the project slowly developed. I left the UAE 3 years ago as I was getting into financial difficulty trying to pay the interest on the mortgage as well as spiralling living costs for a family of 4. I was afraid of getting trapped in the UAE should I default on any payments when in country as we are all aware of the severe and disproportionate penalties that can be imposed for lack of repayment. I was chased by the back for the payments but simply did not have the money to meet this commitment and was 'advised' to ignore it, which I have done for the last 3 years. I have not responded to any correspondence from the Bank in the UAE or any of the Debt collection agencies that have been hounding me in the UK. However like may on this site I have now been 'approached by Coyle White Devine (CWD) with one of their standard letters detailing that I am required to pay the full amount of the mortgage within the next 3 weeks to avoid Court action including bankruptcy. Having seen a number of threads on this forum I am slightly concerned as the outstanding debt is a sizeable six figure sum. It seems to me to be unreasonable to request the whole of the mortgage to be repaid as there is now finally an asset in Dubai, that could be sold to diminish the debt. Moreover I am currently out of work and have next to no income for my family to survive on and it is only due to a generous family benefactor that I have my head above water. The question is that having avoided all correspondence regarding this debt to date, should I now open a dialogue with CWD, as it appears that they are again nothing more than glorified debt collectors, or wait to see if it becomes a legal action and then deal with it accordingly. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated, as I cannot afford to take professional legal advice at this time and am really concerned about bankruptcy as I have a wife and 2 young children to consider.