Help/Advise required for an idiot

[wardy1976]

Hi all, newbie here and need a little advice.


I have x2 credit cards which I have now defaulted on for the past 3 months due to the fact I can no longer afford the payments. I have had my head in the sand and ignored the phone calls. Today I received the letter from power2contact asking me to contact Natwest within 3 working days of the date on the letter or they will come calling. However the letter was delivered 4 days post this date so I am already in breach before I even saw the letter.


The issue I have is that I moved over to the Republic of Ireland x3 years ago, I changed all my UK contacts to my Irish contacts and continued payments as normal. However, now I can no longer afford the payments, I have done the head in sand trick. I want to contact both Natwest Visa and Tesco Bank (MasterCard) to agree a payment plan of £50 per month. I owe approx £6k to Tesco bank and £9k to Natwest Visa. If I call them and tell them I cannot afford the payments but I am willing to offer the £50 per month, I am worried that they will argue and force me to go through a full account breakdown to see if I can afford more. I have already done this myself numerous times and have also been through it with my bank for the mortgage and loan payments so I know the score. Will they accept what I say or will it get nasty?


At the back of my mind I am thinking so what, I am no longer in the UK let them send all the letters they want they have no jurisdiction to come over to southern Irleand and demand payment etc. I know this is not ethical but I do not even know if it is legally correct. I do want to offer payment and continue dialogue, but it would ease my mind a bit if I knew my residency situation gave a bit of leeway for me. Does anyone know if I am right about this?


I have no intention of returning to the UK so I am not bothered about my credit report being affected. I have a loan that finishes next June and a mortgage (for a house that is rented out) that still has £90k to pay off but I always make the monthly payments in full on time as the rental income covers this.


Can anyone point me in the right direction with advise on how to proceed please. Thank you very much.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Help/Advise required for an idiot

Hi and welcome!

I very much doubt Power2Contact will have the power to contact you in Ireland, I also had a few of their yellow cards and they didn't even have the power to contact me in England, so I wouldn't worry about them or the dates on their letters or any alleged 'breach'. :thumb:

Don't ring anyone, or speak to anyone over the telephone, keep all communication in writing. :typing:

Don't worry about the 'ethical' side of things, since when do banks know the meaning of the word? :grin:

You say you have no intention of returning to the UK but you do own a property in the UK. If you didn't own property, then you could just stop paying and forget about it because there isn't much they could do, however, as it stands, a creditor could obtain a CCJ against you and then apply for a charging order on your UK property, so you need to pull your head out of the sand and don't ignore correspondence.

When did you take out the cards? Was it before or after April 2007? :confused2:

Oh, and please do not call yourself an idiot! :nono:, a lot of us have been there, done that, I have £15k worth of debt I haven't paid since 2010 and there's someone on here with £150k worth of debt, and we don't consider ourselves idiots, so please do not refer to yourself as such!

[Sapphire]

Re: Help/Advise required for an idiot

Oh, and please do not call yourself an idiot! :nono:, a lot of us have been there, done that, I have £15k worth of debt I haven't paid since 2010 and there's someone on here with £150k worth of debt, and we don't consider ourselves idiots, so please do not refer to yourself as such!

So true, I prefer to think of ourselves as victims of the system not idiots.

[wardy1976]

Re: Help/Advise required for an idiot

Thank you Flaming Parrot, I need to check on both cards but I am sure they were both before 2007. Does this have any bearing on matters?

I will try and write up something this weekend that I can send to both card companies stating my intentions to pay the £50 monthly and that all future correspondence will be in writing.

Yes I still own the house and pay the mortgage and that is also with Natwest who are the main ones chasing for payment for the Visa card. Tesco Bank, even though they are also part of the RBS group has not really been chasing as much. What would the CCJ entail, i am not that clued up, will it mean they take possession of the property even though the debt to them is less than a quarter of the value of property?

I want to be clear, I never had any intention of not paying up but now that circumstances have changed and I am now effectively out of the UK, I was hoping to take advantage of the fact so that I could ignore them long enough in order to build up finances and pay them back.

Thank you so far.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Help/Advise required for an idiot

Thank you Flaming Parrot, I need to check on both cards but I am sure they were both before 2007. Does this have any bearing on matters?

Yes, it could well do. See below. :thumb:

I will try and write up something this weekend that I can send to both card companies stating my intentions to pay the £50 monthly and that all future correspondence will be in writing.

Don't rush! As an alternative, you could send them a CCA request first and see what they respond with. It may well be the case they can't produce a properly executed agreement. I have an RBS card I haven't paid since 2010 and I haven't heard from anyone since Jan 2012. I sent a CCA request in March 2010 and got just an application form with no terms. I put the account in dispute, was passed round a few DCAs, then gone completely quiet.

Challenging the enforceability of credit card agreements is really only an option on cards taken out before April 2007, due to a change in legislation.

Yes I still own the house and pay the mortgage and that is also with Natwest who are the main ones chasing for payment for the Visa card. Tesco Bank, even though they are also part of the RBS group has not really been chasing as much. What would the CCJ entail, i am not that clued up, will it mean they take possession of the property even though the debt to them is less than a quarter of the value of property?

No, they wouldn't take possession of the property, that privilege belongs to your mortgage company. If they obtained a CCJ, they could go back to the court to apply for a Charging Order, basically a second charge on your property, which would secure the debt. If and when the property is sold, the charge would have to be paid out of any equity. :wof:

I want to be clear, I never had any intention of not paying up but now that circumstances have changed and I am now effectively out of the UK, I was hoping to take advantage of the fact so that I could ignore them long enough in order to build up finances and pay them back.

Thank you so far.

Don't worry about that, no-one had any intention of not paying up in the first place, things just happen and we can no longer afford to pay. In my case, it was the credit crunch caused by the banks themselves, RBS featured very prominently there, they went bust and got rescued by the government with our tax money, but there's no one to bail us consumers out! :rant: :rant: :rant: So don't worry about that side of things.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Help/Advise required for an idiot

Below is the CCA request letter. The letter should be sent recorded delivery with a PO for £1 and signed using a computer font rather than your real signature, to be on the safe side. They will have 14 days to reply. If someone contacts you before you get a response, you can just write back saying you are awaiting the response to your CCA request.

Dear Sirs

Account No:

I hereby formally request a copy of my Consumer Credit Agreement, pursuant to s.77-79 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA1974).
I require you to provide me with a true copy, or reconstituted copy of the credit agreement relating to any account you deem to be mine, together with any other documentation the Act requires you to provide. I expect you to comply fully and properly with this request, within the statutory time limit (12 + 2 days).

I presume you're aware that the OFT has stipulated that 'sections 77-79 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 outline the information creditors must provide to debtors under fixed-term, running account & Hire Agreements'. This simply means that under these sections a debtor can pay £1 to get:

• a copy of their agreement
• copies of some of the other documents mentioned in their agreement
• a statement of account

If this information is not provided within 12 working days the debt becomes unenforceable. This means a creditor cannot:

• make the debtor pay the debt before they're supposed to
• get a court judgment against the debtor

So, in line with the OFT Guidance, and the Consumer Credit Act, please find attached my £1 payment, which is the statutory fee - note that these funds are not to be used for any other purpose. If you are unable to comply fully and properly with this request, you should confirm this in writing at the earliest opportunity, and certainly within the statutory time limit for compliance, and return the fee and then remove the incorrect entry from your systems.

Yours faithfully,

See the great result another member got with RBS upon sending the letter I suggested: :bounce::bounce::bounce:

Good morning.

The keenly awaited response to my CCA from RBS dropped through my letter box on 10th May. Oddly the letter was dated 10 days prior. RBS have returned my £1.00 fee. RBS say

'We regret to advise that the card agreement has been misfiled and despite searching our records we have been unable to locate it. As we are unable to comply with your request we return your £1.00 fee.

In the circumstances, we accept that we are not able at present to comply fully with your request made under section 78 (1) of the CCA and therefore, pursuant to section 78 (6) of the CCA we are not able to enforce the agreement until such time as we are able to comply with section 78 (1)

Although the credit agreement is currently unenforceable, the credit agreement is not void and your obligations to make payments to us under the credit agreement remain. As previously advised to you in our default letter your account will continue to show as a default will be reported to the Credit Reference Agencies as we are legally entitled to do. Payments must continue to be paid using your monthly statement which will be sent to you. Please note that if we do not receive an acceptable repayment offer from you, we may take such action as is legally permitted to pursue the outstanding debt.'

RBS included a copy of my application form for the card which suggests it was applied for in 2000. I do not appear to have taken out any PPI on the card, nor aware that any was ever charged.