Unaccepted offer of payment

[rft]

Advice please. Due to financial difficulties I found it necessary to write to a mail order company stating that was unable to keep up my regular payments. I made an offer but they said ( I quote) "Unfortunately we are unable to accept your offer as it does not meet our minimum payment criteria" They also say that if I do not keep up my regular payments they may pass my debt to an outside collections agency! What should be my next step?

[ploddertom]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

You can only pay what you can afford. Regardless of what they say they will more than happily accept & cash your payments. As for passing it to a Debt Collector, they may do so and you may indeed receive further letters or phone calls, if it were me & they ring refuse to answer the security questions and tell them all has to be in writing. Debt Collectors are powerless.

[rft]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Thank you so much for your response! Am I obliged to deal with a debt collection agency should Very the company I am dealing with pass it over to them?

[gravytrain]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

If you have other debts you may want to consider a DMP (debt management plan) there are several charities available that will help you set one up and deal with your creditors for you(for free).

If you are interested, I believe Labman is the resident expert on here I would PM him and he will give you the SP.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Advice please. Due to financial difficulties I found it necessary to write to a mail order company stating that was unable to keep up my regular payments. I made an offer but they said ( I quote) "Unfortunately we are unable to accept your offer as it does not meet our minimum payment criteria" They also say that if I do not keep up my regular payments they may pass my debt to an outside collections agency! What should be my next step?

Passing defaulted accounts to a debt collection agency (DCA) is customary and nothing to be afraid of. Most DCAs are utterly incompetent! However, if you don't keep up your contractual repayments, they will record a default on your credit file, this is something you should be aware of.

Even if they accepted your offer, entered into an arrangement or a DMP, this would still be the case, because the CRAs reflect the conduct of your account. Normally you will receive a Default Notice (DN) before they do that (but not always). The default will stay in your credit file for 6 years and this will affect your ability to obtain credit in the future.

A lot of catalogue debts, particularly if taken before 2007, are unenforceable, as they never asked people to sign an agreement. This means they couldn't obtain a CCJ against you if you stopped paying but you'd still have the default on your credit file. How you deal with this depends on your circumstances, the amount you owe, etc.

[rft]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Oops I have just read that one is not supposed to PM regarding help and advice. Apologies! Perhaps you would be kind enough to reply here?
Thank you

[gravytrain]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

You can PM him to get his attention though.

[PlanB]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Is this your only debt because I don't think you can enter into a Debt Management Plan if you've only got one debt. They work best if you've got multiple creditors to deal with :juggle:

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Agreed, Plan B, not really necessary to set up a formal DMP to deal with just one catalogue debt when you can come to an agreement directly with Very. If you intend to make a repayment offer, don't offer more than you can afford to pay, bear in mind if you're unemployed and on benefits, even a judge would normally only order you to pay £1/month, so you shouldn't offer any more if this is your current situation. Up to you whether you decide to send an I&E statement, in reality only a judge has the authority to request one, however, if you think if may work in your favour you could send one, especially as I understand this debt is from 2008. :okay:

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Unaccepted offer of payment

Oops I have just read that one is not supposed to PM regarding help and advice. Apologies! Perhaps you would be kind enough to reply here?
Thank you

No worries, the idea of using the forum rather than the PM facility is so that responses can be useful to others who may be in the same situation. These pages are indexed by Google very quickly and viewed by lots of guests in addition to forum members, so when someone is looking for help with the same company they will find us.