Offered payment but still being chased?

[yay]

Hi,

 

Quick question. I owed a company £375 from June last year and as they didnt send any reminders I actually forgot all about it. At the start of Feb 2008 I got a call from the company demanding payment, I said I would sort it out. I sent an offer of an immediate payment of £100 and a further payment of £200 by the end of March and then the remaining £75 by the 1st week in April.

 

They wrote back rejecting the offer and said they would refer the matter to a debt collection agency. Within 3 days I received a debt letter adding £50 to the bill and threatening court action.

 

I sent the £100 as I had said and assumed they were bluffing. I have now received a solicitors letter stating that unless the balance including the £50 is paid by return, an application to the court will be made - adding £200 to the debt.

 

Question is, by the time this happens I will have paid a further £200 (could probably manage £275) in my eyes clearing it in full. Whats the score here, are they really going to proceed knowing I am paying it off as I said I would?

 

Can anyone advise?

 

Cheers

[mrmarmite]

need more info for the debt in question. why? so we can acsertain wether or not it falls foul of any acts or regulations,

 

as to your comment about being caught up by time court action is started is no problem. you paid what you could and have caught up. courts wont do anything to enforce it. if you have read through other threads on CAG you will see many times people have been contacted by solicitors,

This usually is just a scare tactic and nothing more,

We really need more info so we can guide you in the "correct" direction rather that shoot a lot of stuff of that will be completley useless to you

[diskmandave]

I said I would sort it out. I sent an offer of an immediate payment of £100 and a further payment of £200 by the end of March and then the remaining £75 by the 1st week in April.

Given that it's now already the middle of March I think they're being extremely petty and I wouldn't waste any time in telling them so.

 

They also CAN'T just whack £50 on and say you've got to pay it unless there's an express contractual term allowing so, this goes against the OFT's Debt Collection Guidance. The very nature of how they've applied the £50 charge makes it a penalty anyway and unenforceable. Again, I wouldn't waste anytime pointing this out to a so called solicitor.

 

Best wishes, Dave.

[yay]

Ok, the whole story.......

 

Employed a company to get some charges refunded which they did. Abbey bank charges currently on hold pending the court case.

 

Received 3 refunds and and invoices for £375 and at the time and I tried to pay via debit card over the phoen with them. They told me that this wasnt possible. I do not have a cheque book but had thought that the Abbey payout would settle all the payments to this company (case was about to pay out). 4 months went past and I received a statement (not a reminder to pay) and I didnt really think much about it.

 

At the start of Feb the company called to ask for payment which I thought was odd as this was the first time they had really chased it. As in my 1st post I offered payment. Here is what I received

 

Thank you for your email. I have now had the opportunity to discuss your payment proposal with the Director of our company.

 

Please be aware that our legally binding terms and conditions which you have signed state that you will pay us within 10 days of receiving your compensation. If invoices are not settled we reserve the right to charge interest at 1% over the base lending rate of Lloyds TSB. In addition to this you are liable for all collection costs that we incur.

 

You are currently 221 days late on settling your account with regards to the Morgan Stanley account that we have settled for you back in June 2007! I am sure that you will understand that any trust we had in you settling our invoices has now gone and we do not intend to do any more work in order to collect our fees.

 

I can confirm that your payment proposal has been rejected by us and and the full amount £417.01 is due immediately. (This includes a £41.34 collection fee as per our terms and conditions).

 

What will happen next.

 

I have just passed your details to a collection company The Credit Protection Association (CPA), you will receive a final reminder from them later this week. This has cost you the above fee of £41.34.

 

CPA will then contact us again if your invoice remains unpaid and will send litigation papers to us. This is likely to happen in about 2 weeks time. I will immediately sign the papers and return them in order to start court action against you. Unfortunately this is a very expensive process and I would imagine it adding around £200.00 to your outstanding debt.

 

We have found that we always win in court as our terms and conditions are so tight. If this were the case you will then have a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against your name and will be ordered to pay immediately.

 

Once we have the CCJ in place we will not await payment and will authorise High Court Enforcement Officers to collect goods from your property which will be sold at auction. Again the cost of this is added to your invoice.

 

I would personally recommend that you fully read our terms and conditions which you have signed.

_________________________________________

 

 

Now, I do not dispute the debt, I have already sent £100 and another £200 will be with them in about 10 days or so (I could also understand the letter if they had been chasing me for 6 months but they havent.) My feeling is that they forgot about this also and have suddenly realised its way overdue (why wait over 200 days before chasing it ?)

 

They seem to be doing as they state in the letter, my fear is that even though at the time there will only be maybe £75 outstanding, they will get a claim issued and £££ will be added to the debt - can they do this?

 

I have tried to be reasonable with them, as soon as they actually asked for the money I have sorted it out and I also want to keep them on side (as I still have £5,600 to get from Abbey through them!!!!!!!) but they seem to be hell bent on chasing this. Looks to me as if the Bank Case has affected their cashflow and they are being overly tough - but this seems crazy.

 

Cheers

[Michael Browne]

The OFT Guidance is here:

The Office of Fair Trading: Debt collection practices

[kev100]

Ok, the whole story.......

 

Employed a company to get some charges refunded which they did. Abbey bank charges currently on hold pending the court case.

 

Please be aware that our legally binding terms and conditions which you have signed state that you will pay us within 10 days of receiving your compensation.

 

We have found that we always win in court as our terms and conditions are so tight. If this were the case you will then have a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against your name and will be ordered to pay immediately.

 

 

I am trying to read this correctly.

 

They state that you have to pay them 10 days after receiving your compensation, but if the Abbey case is currently on hold then I guess you didn't receive the compensation yet,

 

If this is the case then they are breaking there own "so tight" conditions because you didn't yet receive the compensation so you have no obligation to pay them yet.

 

or am I missing something !!!!

 

Let them take you to court and waste their own money, then hit them with a counter claim for compensation ..

 

Alternatively just continue to pay them in the way that you outlined in your first post, by the time it gets to court you would have paid them anyway (and would have no obligation to pay their so called extra charges because they have not yet fulfilled their side of the contract, the court would throw it out I am guessing).

[yay]

Hi Kev,

 

The Abbey one is still to pay out. The letter refers to their fee for a payment I received for bank charges last June which they did not chase and in fact I received no correspondence from them regarding it until Feb 2008 when I made my offers of payment.

 

I have read the OFT guidlines under section 2.6 f

Pressurising debtors to pay in full

 

Which appears to cover this situatio of not asking properly for payment and then being unreasonable with demanding it to be paid in such a short period of time.

 

My only worry by going on with the orig plan and paying the £200 is that they will still proceed, does anyone know if fees are added as soon as they apply to the court or are they only applied after the court has made a decision?

 

Kenny

[kev100]

Hi Kev,

 

The Abbey one is still to pay out. The letter refers to their fee for a payment I received for bank charges last June which they did not chase and in fact I received no correspondence from them regarding it until Feb 2008 when I made my offers of payment.

 

I have read the OFT guidlines under section 2.6 f

Pressurising debtors to pay in full

 

Which appears to cover this situatio of not asking properly for payment and then being unreasonable with demanding it to be paid in such a short period of time.

 

My only worry by going on with the orig plan and paying the £200 is that they will still proceed, does anyone know if fees are added as soon as they apply to the court or are they only applied after the court has made a decision?

 

Kenny

 

 

Ok .. I think I see, the Abbey one is a different claim under a different contract with them then ..?

[kev100]

I think I would write them a letter and send it registered.

 

Tell them that you have been more than reasonable with the arrangements that you have offered them and that if it goes to court then you will use the "OFT guidlines under section 2.6 f Pressurising debtors to pay in full" as your defence.

 

Tell them that you would consider that any judge that sees your offer to pay and the companies unreasonable demands for payment would probably, especially with the afore mentioned OFT guidelines, throw the case out as an unreasonable claim, and that you will also defend against, and claim back any charges that the company adds to the account as unreasonable, I would also tell them that you do not acknowledge any additional costs added to the account in view of your very generous offer that you initially made, they would need to prove in court that the £50 they have already added is a genuine cost, which obviously it is not as you have already made a good offer to them and there was no need for them to use a "solicitor" to contact you..

 

As far as I know you will only have to pay additional court charges if the company wins the case, and I very much doubt that would happen.

 

You could even mention in the letter that you are borrowing the money to make the arrangements that you have offered them, but if the judgement goes against you then you will ask the court to arrange a payment plan with a minimum payment of £1 per week payments because at this moment in time that is all that you can afford without borrowing, and with the additional court costs then you will be unable to borrow the full amount so a payment plan will have to be accepted by the courts .

 

Of course they will write more threatening letters to you, but just write back referring them (and enclosing a copy) of the letter you sent registered.

 

Unless of course somebody else can give any better advice ..