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Evening all. First time posting with lots to to say so I hope your spell checker works OK! Firstly I need to say thanks to those who have posted template letters up here in relation to dealing with Credit Card companies and the assoiciated parasite industry of the debt collection agencies. I have been dipping in and out for a while and have used a number of the bits and peices on the site to try and sort my way through the issues I have come up against when reasonable approaches to the CC companies failed.
I am self employed, and have been most of my working life, over 20 years now, I started running into serious problems about 2- 3 years ago when it became obvious that the ebb and flow of work was going to be all 'ebb'. This came to a crunch last year around March (2009). There was about 15k of business debt, 70k credit card debt and 25k bank debt.
The business debt and the bank debt was being serviced so not an entirely unmanageable problem. The credit card debt however was huge with a number of the cheeky devils stiffing me for 30% per annum plus. Repeated calls and letters had done nothing to alleviate the problems, seems my 'contract' prevented me from being moved to a cheaper rate though what this 'clause' was exactly nobody was willing to say.
After a meeting with my accountant it was suggested by him that bankruptcy would be the way forward. Initially I accepted this and was duly working around to this point but mulling over my position. 'Pack it all in' he said 'and hit the ground running'. The problem is when you have been self employed for so long what can you do? No qualifications to speak of, loads of practical experience but who is hiring these days? So I have decided to try and stick with it. There are a number of factors behind the problems which accounted for the debt, essentially had the economy not radically altered I would be slowly working my way through the bills.
So how best to tackle 7 or 8 card companies. I had by this time already fallen foul of Cap One (Visa). They were extremely quick to get a default in, they ignored my mail, misrepresented phone conversations in their favour and delayed recording mail delivered to them so they were able to claim non receipt. I went through the FOS service to try and get this resolved, this is when you find out they have not recorded the details accurately and have done enough to cover themselves. The man at FOS I spoke to was also sceptical about one of their claims but they had supporting paperwork that tallied with their version so nothing could be done.
In order to try and resolve the problems I contacted Payplan. The problem is that I was working in a deficeit every month so all they came up with was a reference number to give to the CC companies and a free!! self help plan. Complete waste of time. Every card company ignored it, would not accept the offer made and defaulted the card and passed the debt to an agency having run through 6 months of extra letters and interest.
The offending cards are Cap One (mastercard and visa), Citi Cards (2 cards) MBNA, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Egg Card. Then of course the fun has begun with incessant calling, threats of visits, threats of court action and all the associated stuff they do. By now I am insisting that they only contact me in writing and I refuse to confirm any details when they call on the phone for legal reasons, it is surprising when you take them off script how they run out of things to say, I have lost track of how many of them hung up on me!
I have in the meantime been finding out as much as possible through various sources including this site which I have found to be the one of the best (Thanks again). So armed with your template letter for providing the original agreement and a clutch of £1.00 postal orders I hit all the offending companies back in May of this year.
This has created somthing of a lull in their operations. Not one company has supplied the information requested within 14 days. In fact we are now into Sept and I have just recieved a letter from one agency advising me they are referring the matter back to the CC company. Bearing in mind that 12 weeks have nearly past this seems a little unreasonable.
All these requests were sent via recorded mail and I have in all bar one case been able to recover the signature from the delivery receipt (good old Royal Mail). In one case I could not, but after chatting to Royal Mail they suggested the reason for 'none delivery' was that the recipiant had refused to sign.
What has happened is that a couple of the dca appear to have sold / past on the debts to others so the cycle is starting agian. One company appears to have returned the debt to the card provider. But in 4 cases they have taken the fee and not supplied any information whatsoever. Two companies returned the postal orders after several weeks and referred me to the card company which I have not followed up to be honest.
There are a couple of other points that maybe worth a mention. RBS Visa were the most understanding and accepted my offer of £1.00 per month under the circumstances. They cancelled the card but have not defaulted it. My guess is that RBS were under so much scrutiny themselves they were walking on eggshells.
One of my business suppliers felt that the arrangement I was offering was not to their liking so went the county court route. So on top of my defaults I also have a CCJ, which is being settled as per the judgment. The court accepted my proposal of £1.00 per month, the supplier debt may well have been cleared by now had they not bothered with the court route.
I realise some of the info here is vague but I am happy to post up more details of the cards individually at a later date. I am unable to remember all the ages of the cards but some like Cap One will date back into the early nineties
The main question is, what is the next step here for me? All the dca's failed to supply the original agreements. They have gone away but I am uncertain whether they have gone for good or are selling on my details. Would this be a breach of The Data Protection Act?
I would like to start sorting the mess out and resolving the issues, paying something where necessary, if necessary but if it is not then I need to be off their system and the defaults lifted if they cannot enforce the debt.
I need to clean up my credit file. I realise this will not happen overnight or indeed this year but I need to be working towards that aim.
Business is still very difficult but I am hanging in and expect to see improvements over the coming months as I get to grips with past problems and the economy improves in general.
Your guidance please.
I am self employed, and have been most of my working life, over 20 years now, I started running into serious problems about 2- 3 years ago when it became obvious that the ebb and flow of work was going to be all 'ebb'. This came to a crunch last year around March (2009). There was about 15k of business debt, 70k credit card debt and 25k bank debt.
The business debt and the bank debt was being serviced so not an entirely unmanageable problem. The credit card debt however was huge with a number of the cheeky devils stiffing me for 30% per annum plus. Repeated calls and letters had done nothing to alleviate the problems, seems my 'contract' prevented me from being moved to a cheaper rate though what this 'clause' was exactly nobody was willing to say.
After a meeting with my accountant it was suggested by him that bankruptcy would be the way forward. Initially I accepted this and was duly working around to this point but mulling over my position. 'Pack it all in' he said 'and hit the ground running'. The problem is when you have been self employed for so long what can you do? No qualifications to speak of, loads of practical experience but who is hiring these days? So I have decided to try and stick with it. There are a number of factors behind the problems which accounted for the debt, essentially had the economy not radically altered I would be slowly working my way through the bills.
So how best to tackle 7 or 8 card companies. I had by this time already fallen foul of Cap One (Visa). They were extremely quick to get a default in, they ignored my mail, misrepresented phone conversations in their favour and delayed recording mail delivered to them so they were able to claim non receipt. I went through the FOS service to try and get this resolved, this is when you find out they have not recorded the details accurately and have done enough to cover themselves. The man at FOS I spoke to was also sceptical about one of their claims but they had supporting paperwork that tallied with their version so nothing could be done.
In order to try and resolve the problems I contacted Payplan. The problem is that I was working in a deficeit every month so all they came up with was a reference number to give to the CC companies and a free!! self help plan. Complete waste of time. Every card company ignored it, would not accept the offer made and defaulted the card and passed the debt to an agency having run through 6 months of extra letters and interest.
The offending cards are Cap One (mastercard and visa), Citi Cards (2 cards) MBNA, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Egg Card. Then of course the fun has begun with incessant calling, threats of visits, threats of court action and all the associated stuff they do. By now I am insisting that they only contact me in writing and I refuse to confirm any details when they call on the phone for legal reasons, it is surprising when you take them off script how they run out of things to say, I have lost track of how many of them hung up on me!
I have in the meantime been finding out as much as possible through various sources including this site which I have found to be the one of the best (Thanks again). So armed with your template letter for providing the original agreement and a clutch of £1.00 postal orders I hit all the offending companies back in May of this year.
This has created somthing of a lull in their operations. Not one company has supplied the information requested within 14 days. In fact we are now into Sept and I have just recieved a letter from one agency advising me they are referring the matter back to the CC company. Bearing in mind that 12 weeks have nearly past this seems a little unreasonable.
All these requests were sent via recorded mail and I have in all bar one case been able to recover the signature from the delivery receipt (good old Royal Mail). In one case I could not, but after chatting to Royal Mail they suggested the reason for 'none delivery' was that the recipiant had refused to sign.
What has happened is that a couple of the dca appear to have sold / past on the debts to others so the cycle is starting agian. One company appears to have returned the debt to the card provider. But in 4 cases they have taken the fee and not supplied any information whatsoever. Two companies returned the postal orders after several weeks and referred me to the card company which I have not followed up to be honest.
There are a couple of other points that maybe worth a mention. RBS Visa were the most understanding and accepted my offer of £1.00 per month under the circumstances. They cancelled the card but have not defaulted it. My guess is that RBS were under so much scrutiny themselves they were walking on eggshells.
One of my business suppliers felt that the arrangement I was offering was not to their liking so went the county court route. So on top of my defaults I also have a CCJ, which is being settled as per the judgment. The court accepted my proposal of £1.00 per month, the supplier debt may well have been cleared by now had they not bothered with the court route.
I realise some of the info here is vague but I am happy to post up more details of the cards individually at a later date. I am unable to remember all the ages of the cards but some like Cap One will date back into the early nineties
The main question is, what is the next step here for me? All the dca's failed to supply the original agreements. They have gone away but I am uncertain whether they have gone for good or are selling on my details. Would this be a breach of The Data Protection Act?
I would like to start sorting the mess out and resolving the issues, paying something where necessary, if necessary but if it is not then I need to be off their system and the defaults lifted if they cannot enforce the debt.
I need to clean up my credit file. I realise this will not happen overnight or indeed this year but I need to be working towards that aim.
Business is still very difficult but I am hanging in and expect to see improvements over the coming months as I get to grips with past problems and the economy improves in general.
Your guidance please.
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