Persued from debt recovery company for refund of training fees

[J1979]

Hi. Is there some specific areas that i can look at altering or specifics i should remove from this document.

[Celestine]

Morning - apologies, I've had my hands full the last few days

This would be my suggested draft of your letter, apologies I cut a lot out as it was genuinely irrelevant to a discussion with a debt collector. Fight fire with fire.
Dear Sir /Madam


I am disappointed to have received this pre-action correspondence from XXX, my previous employer. This situation is distressing and anxiety inducing for me, but I strongly reject the demand for payment of alleged employment training fees. Having sought legal advice, I am confident of defending my position should my ex employer be foolish enough to pursue this matter any further.
In any event these are my points of rebuttal:

1. I assisted with obtaining the initial quotation for this training, then supplied these details to my HR Officer to finalise the number of attendees and a suitable date for the course. This process took several months to organise, during which time the company had ample opportunity to inform affected employees, that they would be personally liable for the training costs in the event of resignation.

1. *** proceeded to book training for named staff members within the company without firstly providing those employees a training agreement. (Was there anything pre-existing in contracts? Usually is)
2. This training course was finalised (xx months?) in advance of the course start date. One of the relevant employees resigned prior to the start of the course, causing a theoretical higher individual training cost to each employee.

1. *** HR department only issued a new training agreement to the relevant staff seven days prior to the course start date. This training agreement stated that if an employee resigned after attending the training, they would be required to repay part costs. I (and other colleagues?) considered this an unreasonably short time period to decide to accept or not without feeling pressured to do so.
2. I decided not to accept **** training agreement terms and stated this directly to my HR Department via email on x date?.
3. I have been trained in the use of this software since 2006, the training was to gain additional users and I would achieve no required professional qualification, this alongside the unreasonable agreement terms informed my decision not to participate.
4. Other attendees of the training course were asked within the same 1 week time frame to sign *** terms and conditions of the training agreement and at least one other colleague also rejected the terms of the training agreement and declined to undertake the course.
5. After a discussion between the company director and HR officer an email was sent to all attendees stating that the personnel attending the training could all disregard the training agreement.
6. Given that the training agreement terms had been removed, staff did not sign the agreement and we were all able to undertake the training without fear of future costs being applied.
7. X months after I completed the training I decided to leave xxx, my departure was amicable and no training costs were deducted from my final salary, as would have been appropriate had any training clawback fees been due.
8. The first contact I have had from my former company was the demands for payment from your debt collection company; which has caused me distress and alarm.

*** made no attempt to discuss this or any other matter with me after receiving my resignation or during my notice period.
*** are attempting to backtrack on their decision to waive the training costs, as evidenced within the emails I have attached below.

Please see below attachments of email correspondence.
Fig.1 – Email requesting we sign attached training agreement
Fig.2 – Copy of training agreement
Fig.3 – Email stating training agreement could be disregarded
Please seek further instructions from your client xxx with the information I have supplied in this letter. I trust that no further demands will be sent in regard to this dispute.

Yours sincerely

[J1979]

Thanks for these comments....ill adjust my letter before sending it in. There is a clause a clear clause in my contract regarding training with an agreed method of taking payment from my final salary which i have signed. But individual agreements are sent out to sign showing costs....this has not been signed nor ageeed to.
i verbally discussed this with hr but i have text messages with the other employee who also did not agree which shows the director was informed of this.
ill send this back to them and await their response. I did resign just after the training but meetings and offers took place after the training so at the point of the training i did not know i was going to leave. Hopefully this is enough to deter them from pursuing further.
Thanks for your assistance.

[J1979]

Thanks agian...ill submit this. I have been asked to complete a financial statement which outlines all of my household earnings / outgoings. Do i have to actually to complete this and return it at this stage as i am rejecting the claim and payments details are not in question yet. Or is this just for when you have accepted liability and are negotiating a payment plan.

[Celestine]

No don't respond to any financial statements requests as this is still pre-action. What exact wording have they used regarding court action?
The idea of this letter is to hopefully send them scuttling and deter legal action. How much (roughly) are they claiming btw?

[J1979]

It just says i need to respond within 30 days with either acceptance of of the debt or dispute it with reasoning and evidence. It says they would rather not proceed to court action but failure to not pay or give reasoning may result in them proceeding with it. And of course not to ignore the letter. Its for 4k but in my eyes only 3k at the most as the costs increased due to a resignation just before the training which wanst my fault. They could of found more attendees but didnt.
once they have this the company will need to respond within another 30 days if they still want to pursue. I will just respond with my letter and a form where there are options to highlight how you want to peoceed. I.e dispute . Pay or discuss payments.

[Celestine]

OK, £4000 is a good number. Why? Because it falls into the small claims track of the court system. This means that you cannot add legal fees onto a court claim, only the filing fee and s.69 interest. This means that the solicitor has probably been hired to send you a few low cost threatening letters but will not recommend court action after receiving your letter as it would cost your old firm about the same money in legal fees which cannot be recovered even if they won.

[J1979]

Thats good to know. In their letter it states if it goes to court theye company look to claim for thier costs and possible interest. Not sure if this is just to add weight to their letter as i also understood that at small claims their costs could not be recovered.