Intrum chasing for statute barred debt

[Smiggington]

Hi,
So long story short...
Got into bad debt at 19 and buried my head in the sand. No payments made since 2007 and luckily I never received any CCJs (that I know about or that are showing on credit files)
Fast forward 12 years and have been given a letter from Intrum sent to an old rented address. They could have been sending for years but the tenant has just moved out and landlord discovered and passed on to me. They are chasing for an old Barclaycard to which I owed £4000. I’m pretty sure this debt should be statute barred BUT I did recently make contact with Barclaycard due to our household being victims of identity theft and queried some searches had been carried out in my name. They did ask about the £4000 account and I was suitably vague about it. Could my phone call have voided the statute barring timeframe?
Also bizarrely the Barclaycard still shows as open on my credit file with a £0 balance and lots of green dots, could this have an impact on the statute barring?
i want to send a letter but am terrified of raking this up again, I’m finally in a good position where I can apply for a mortgage.
Any thoughts or help would be gratefully received!
Thanks,
Smiggington

[Amethyst]

Hiya, welcome

How long ago had Intrum written to you? Are they threatening court ?

I think first I'd send a SAR to Barclaycard to find out what's happened with the account. The credit file reporting does sound a little odd - if it defaulted in 2007 odd it should have long since fallen off the file - so you need to know what this is that is being reported before trying to get it corrected ( at the minute it sounds like it's a positive on your credit file and you don't want them to change it to a default or late payment marker )
SAR -- https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...ccess-request/

It sounds like it is statute barred if you stopped using the account in 2007 and didn't make any acknowledgement until recently ( once the debt is over 6 years from a payment / default / acknowledgement it is statute barred and a payment or acknowledgement after that 6 year point doesn't undo that. So you can write to intrum with your change of address ( so they can't try get a default ccj by sending court papers to the old address ) and to tell them the debt is statute barred... but I think I'd try hold off until you have some info back from Barclaycard about the debt.

SB outline - https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...ed-debt-letter

[Smiggington]

Hi Amethyst,
Thank you for your speedy response!
The letter from Intrum was dated the 12/06/2019 and looks like a standard “Your account is being reviewed with the intention of continuing legal action against you. If we do not hear from you within 14 days we may proceed to enter judgement or take enforcement action of judgement has been entered against you”
I’m sure I spoke to Experian about the Barclaycard and they said they are notoriously bad about updating their records and closing accounts.
I will send a SAR to Barclaycard and hope they are speedy in their response. I have had credit with them since and paid that off in full.
Could they issue a CCJ this late down the line if I have made no payment or acknowledgement of the account since 2007?
Its all very scary now I’ve worked really hard to sort my life out and can finally move on from my bad decisions!

[Amethyst]

"Continuing legal action" and "enter judgment" sounds like they MAY have already issued a claim at your old address ... any sign of a claim number in their letter ? If you can do a pic of the letter that'd be good ( cover identifying details ). ( if you do an iPhone pic then screenshot it before edit and upload due to the size of the file)

Yes Barclaycard are utterly terrible with credit file reporting. If you're looking at mortgages in near future I'd likely want to leave it well alone until you know what the situation exactly is.

[Smiggington]

If they had already issued a CCJ would that show on my Experian/ Equifax/ Call Credit File’s? How would you know if they had issued one in the past? Will try and upload a pic of the letter!

[Smiggington]

Hopefully you can see this?

[Amethyst]

Hmm doesn't say much does it - it implies they have issued a claim but aren't sure if they have already got a judgment and there's no claim number ( which indicates they are just fishing ) ... it also says the debt is owned by IND who are part of Intrum ( https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_Fir...ameOrigin=null ) rather than owned by Intrum.
As this is so old and very likely to be statute barred I don't think there's harm in writing back to them to ask if there is a claim that you haven't received papers for ( and request a copy of the claim) update your address and tell them it is statute barred. Will stand you in good stead for a set aside if they do whack a judgment in at your old address.

[Amethyst]

Judgment wouldn't go on the register till a month after judgment and wouldn't be on credit file for maybe another month when they update - so if there is judgment ( which does seem unlikely ) it might not yet show. However if there was judgment you'd expect them to be a tad less vague.

[Smiggington]

That sounds more hopeful then!
Im just putting in a subject access request at Barclays as I think I need to get the old account closed down. Can I ask Experian to do this in my behalf or do I need to ask Barclays to remove it?
I’ll send Intrum the Statute Barred letter then and see what comes out of that, if they manage to get a CCJ for an account I have had no dealings with for over 12 years then that’s pretty unfair.
Thanks again for your help, hopefully I will be able to sort it all out now with some confidence!

[Amethyst]

I'd leave the credit file alone for now - see what the SAR comes back with first. You don't want to be nudging Barclaycard to update the credit file if for some reason the account isn't statute barred or defaulted...

example statute barred letter for some ideas https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...ed-debt-letter