My first letter from Lowell

[Cheapmiester]

Hi guys, i have an old halifax account which admitadly needs paying, i have been avoiding it because i just havent been able to pay them anything.

Anyway, today, a letter went to my MOTHERS address,(i havent lived their for......4 years now!) a letter from the halifax saying they have now sold the debt to lowells and any payments should be made to them, and enclosed, another letter from lowells saying basically, hi we are dealing with it now, pay up, contact us bla bla bla

Ok, so, where do I start?

What do I do to start getting this debt payed off?? I have NO MONEY AT ALL, and I wont have any until the beginning of october, so im looking at that time to start making a small payment.

I also say small payment because we are very lucky that me and my husband will be coming into abit of money soon, and we will using this money to wipe off the debts, however, i want them off my back in the mean time because it could take another year before we get the money.

Any help would be appreciated.

BTW, i didnt repay the debt, because i lost my job, became homeless, no car, no food, no nothing. I tried to ask for help from the PPI I had and guess what, missold PPI, they told me i would be ccoverd and when it came to claiming it, I apparently wasnt covered. Thats why i didn't pay it.

Do i just phone up, offer a tenner a month, or is their some letter i should send that says "prove the debts is mine" or whatever??? I haven't been in touch with them before other than march 2010 when the account defaulted and i asked for help from the PPI people. Then i got harrassed by hundreds of phone calls got scared and like i said, became homeless anyway so they had no chance.

What do you think would be the best course of action to take?

Thanks guys

lotsa love

chaz
xx

[Celestine]

Re: My first letter from Lowell

Hi Chaz

Oooh you poor love x Glad life is starting to turn round for you and husband.

Right, lets sort this out.

Firstly, you have clearly been missold PPI. So if they won't pay out to cover your debt, they should refund you all your PPI payments made. This is very simple to achieve.

You will need to contact Halifax, they have an online form to do this.
http://www.halifax.co.uk/contactus/h...hpfooter_cards (CARDS)

http://www.halifax.co.uk/contactus/h...hpfooter_loans (LOANS)

Once you get that money back, you will be left with a more realistic balance to tackle.

Lowell seem to have brought the debt from Halifax. Did you know that they will have paid maybe 10-20% of the debts value for the privilege of harassing you.

SO, whatever you do, do not just pay the balance outstanding. Negotiate!! They will often take as little as 40% of the debts total.

You could also ask for a copy of the original Credit Agreement to see that everything is kosher.

Let us know how you'd like to tackle this and we can get this put to an end.

Cel x

[Celestine]

Re: My first letter from Lowell

And as you have no assets or income, you can't offer them anything right now, so as they've already no doubt trashed your credit file, I'd wait till you actually have the cash to do a full and final settlement.

[Cheapmiester]

Re: My first letter from Lowell

Wow this is an old post but thought I'd put an update on it. I ended up paying £10 a month with a 30% discount, which since then I've rang up and asked for a further discount if I up my payments and got a further 40% off. Will be doing the same in a month time hopefully it'll all be paid and gone this year. Thankyou for your help!