Settlement offers Santander

[Emmiesmumma]

Due to a failed business, 4 years ago we found ourselves in 50k of debt. A family member previously volunteered as a CAB financial adviser and helped us write to all of our creditors explaining our situation and offering a token payment to each of them. One of these creditors was Santander Consumer finance, approx 5 months prior to our financial difficulties I had taken out a hire purchase agreement with them. As we were not able to pay two lots of hp we gave my car back which was sold at auction and managed to keep up payments on my partners car. We were recently gifted some money from a family member and divided this proportionately among our creditors sending them all settlement offers on 6th October. At first we heard nothing from Santander, then we started getting messages from them on our answer phone. I wrote to them again on 13th November requesting that they contact me in writing as I work full time and have a two hour daily commute where I am rarely home before 6.30pm (they shut at 5pm). I also sent them a list of my debts with the amounts offered along with our income and expenditure. Today I received a letter from DWF which says that Santander have instructed them to recover the money i owe and asking for my income and expenditure, they also want to know if i am a homeowner, my NI number, the value of my property and details of my dependants. I have send them copies of my letters to Santander but wondered if anyone had had any dealings with them on a similar matter. If I continue with my token payments then it will take 143 years to recover the balance