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The short story: I was the victim of a romance-scam conman a year ago. He posed as a successful stockbroker and moved in with me for 6 months, over which time he stole/borrowed for fraudulent reasons/conned me out of approx £35k. It turns out he was a gambling addict and unemployed, in fact he had never really had a job his whole adult life (age 26) and had done the same to previous girlfriends and other associates. I didn't report it to the police immediately, and he said he would pay it back. He offered to sign a contract to repay the debt and I instructed a barrister to do so. A contract was signed to repay me £500 a month with interest over a period of approx 7.5 years. The first couple of installments were paid and then things went quiet, letters from my barrister were ignored, eventually a CCJ was issued in my favour by default. The judgement instructed him to pay the £500 a month as per the contract. The first installment was paid, and subsequently he has defaulted again and ignoring the usual calls/emails.
I don't know whether he has a job. He has told me that he doesn't live at the address he has given me for correspondence anymore (his Mum's address) but that he isn't prepared to give me the address he is actually living at. His Mum says he isn't living there and doesn't have any belongings there anymore. I have no way of knowing whether is there or not, except I have instructed a trace of him (where they look at bank account, mobile phone account addresses etc) and this confirms the address is his mother's house.
The enforcement options I have open to me are
bailiffs to his Mum's house - he may not be there when they call, and may not have any assets there. Regardless, when I broke up with him last year he had no assets to his name that I was aware of. It may make his Mum panic and pay up on his behalf (she has done this in the past)
attachment of earnings - I don't know if he's employed
information order - this would be a pain for him to do, and ignoring this could result in him receiving a criminal conviction. It might transpire that he does have a job or assets in which case this would be useful for me in terms of the debt recovery.
I have reported it to the police now and they have said they won't investigate as the contract and CCJ is the justice I would have received were they to convict anyway. This is despite them knowing he has defaulted and is a repeat offender. He has no previous criminal convictions that I am aware of but does have another CCJ for £300.
So far, this has probably cost me £5k in legal fees, and I have only recovered about £2000 of the debt.
Should I just give up, like all the people he has conned before me have done?!
Anyone else been in a similar situation?
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I don't know whether he has a job. He has told me that he doesn't live at the address he has given me for correspondence anymore (his Mum's address) but that he isn't prepared to give me the address he is actually living at. His Mum says he isn't living there and doesn't have any belongings there anymore. I have no way of knowing whether is there or not, except I have instructed a trace of him (where they look at bank account, mobile phone account addresses etc) and this confirms the address is his mother's house.
The enforcement options I have open to me are
bailiffs to his Mum's house - he may not be there when they call, and may not have any assets there. Regardless, when I broke up with him last year he had no assets to his name that I was aware of. It may make his Mum panic and pay up on his behalf (she has done this in the past)
attachment of earnings - I don't know if he's employed
information order - this would be a pain for him to do, and ignoring this could result in him receiving a criminal conviction. It might transpire that he does have a job or assets in which case this would be useful for me in terms of the debt recovery.
I have reported it to the police now and they have said they won't investigate as the contract and CCJ is the justice I would have received were they to convict anyway. This is despite them knowing he has defaulted and is a repeat offender. He has no previous criminal convictions that I am aware of but does have another CCJ for £300.
So far, this has probably cost me £5k in legal fees, and I have only recovered about £2000 of the debt.
Should I just give up, like all the people he has conned before me have done?!
Anyone else been in a similar situation?
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