Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

[GoingLoopy]

Good Morning Everyone,

My partner is suffering with depression and so I am trying to sort out his affairs. Around 3 months ago he had a demand from Marlin Capital Europe for £6722.88. He telephone them and they could tell him nothing other than the debt was with Barclaycard. This confused him but through google we quickly learned that Barclaycard and EGG were one in the same. So, we assume this refers to a debt that he indeed carries with Egg but a debt that is being paid back on a monthly basis with ARC Europe.

We have received a letter today from Marlin detailing the action they will take and showing an opening and closing statement balance (which are the same) The opening statement balance date is 2nd February.

Basically we dont know what to do now. He has always paid ARC by direct debit and continues to do so. We have asked ARC repeatedly for statement of the account as several large payments were made and then suddenly we received notification that the debt was higher than originally stated but they never send anything through. Now Marlin are chasing for the same thing!

Help! His depressive state really isnt being helped by this. I just need to know what course of action to take next.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Hi and welcome to LB!

Barclays bought the entire Egg card portfolio in 2011, I myself have one of them 'bad Eggs' which I haven't paid since Jan 2010. :grin: Most of the defaulted Egg accounts were sold to Marlin. Please tell him not to worry, there's a lot of us in the same boat! Marlin et all are most certainly NOT worth the worry! :nono:

The first thing to do is not to contact anyone by phone, everything should be kept in writing. :typing: Agreements reached over the phone can easily be broken, as an extreme example, there was someone who, back in 2000, agreed with the creditor to make reduced monthly payments and the creditor 'agreed' to freeze interest. After 12 years of keeping up payments, the debtor suddenly received a statement for £24,000! :scared: :scared: :scared: It turns out interest was being added all those years! :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: This is, of course, an extreme example, but shows why it is important to keep things in writing.

I would suggest sending Marlin a CCA request. They have a duty to produce a true copy of the original Egg credit agreement as well as a statement of account in response to such a request. See below for letter, which should be sent recorded delivery with a PO for £1 and signed using a computer font rather than their real signature. They have 14 days to respond. :thumb:

Dear Sirs,

Account or Reference 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).

If it is your view that you are not the creditor, s.175 of the CCA1974 applies in the case of a simple assignment, and places a duty upon you to pass this request to the creditor. In the case of an absolute assignment, you are a creditor as defined by s.189. If you contend that you purchased the rights but not the duties of any agreement, you are reminded that s.189 of the Act is clear that an assignment is of both rights and duties. Your attention is drawn to ss.5(2), 3(b), 6 and 7 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUTR).

In line with recent OFT Guidance (issued Oct 2010) surrounding Unenforceability, 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.

Yours faithfully,

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Thanks Flaming Parrot - your "bad egg" comment raised a smile!!! He has been paying this debt with Arc for ages and that worries me to as we havent had a "goodbye" letter from them if they have sold over to Marlin - nor did we have a "hello" letter from Marlin. Should I do anything with regard to Arc.

Thank you!!!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Thanks Flaming Parrot - your "bad egg" comment raised a smile!!! He has been paying this debt with Arc for ages and that worries me to as we havent had a "goodbye" letter from them if they have sold over to Marlin - nor did we have a "hello" letter from Marlin. Should I do anything with regard to Arc.

Thank you!!!

Indeed he should have received a notice of assignment if it had been sold. Is this the first time he's heard from Marlin? Because a lot of the Bad Eggs were sold to Marlin, although I'm still waiting to hear from them, or anyone about this account (despite having accounts with Barclays, I've never heard a thing, other than a generic email in April 2011 asking me to continue making payments "as usual", which I have done: £0.00 :lol.

Marlin are debt purchasers rather than debt collectors, which means they must own the account if they are chasing, did he ever get a notice of assignment saying the account had been sold to ARC in the first place? Because every assignment should be documented. Out of interest, has he looked at his credit file to see who appears as the current owner? :confused2:

If Marlin are chasing, the request should go to them and they will have a duty to obtain the documents. With regards to the agreement, they'll have to go back to Barclays. With regards to the statement of account, they'll have to obtain it from ARC if they have been receiving payments.

Presumably these payments have been made from a bank account, so he would have a record of all the payments made. There is always the possibility of sending a SAR (to ARC rather than Marlin in this case) to force them to produce statements and historical data, this will cost £10 + postage. :thumb:

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Thanks again FlamingParrot!

I will send for an SAR to Arc - is there a template for this anywhere that you know of?
Waiting for checkmyfile to send a password reminder through to enable us to get onto the site to see who owns the debt but from memory, last time we looked it said Barclays and that was when the first letter arrived. What should we do about Arc? Stop making the monthly payments until this is resolved?

Thanks again!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Thanks again FlamingParrot!

I will send for an SAR to Arc - is there a template for this anywhere that you know of?

See below, the letter should be sent recorded delivery with a cheque or PO for £10 to cover the maximum fee, sign it digitally using a computer font rather than your real signature. :thumb: They have 40 calendar days to respond. Hopefully it should shed some light.

Dear Sirs

Ref: xxxxxxxx

Subject Access Request - S.7 Data Protection Act 1998

Under the Data Protection Act 1984 and 1998, and including the right of subject access under these acts, I hereby request that you supply me with any and all historical data in your possession which, in any way appertains to me, including (but not exhaustively) a copy of the original signed executed agreement; statements of account; duplicate statements and/or printouts of all account transactions; all internal and external correspondence sent or received by you including memos, logs, notes, screen prints and transcripts; notes of manual interventions such as telephone attendants' notes, copies of stored telephone conversations, internal and external emails; any other information held on all types of media in any relevant filing system. If you have disclosed any information to a third party (with or without my express permission), will you please include details of this in your reply, along with notes of any legal action passed or pending (to include a true copy of default notices, court orders and the like).

If you store any of the older records on microfiche, please be aware that the Information Commissioner deems this to be a relevant filing system under the Act. As such, any microfiche data must be sent to me in fully legible and comprehensible form.

Where any information that you provide includes any charges, for example returned payments, late payment fees, and so forth, would you please advise your breakdown of actual costs (liquidated damages) incurred for each charge, and the Term or Condition on which you rely upon to claim such a charge. I also require that you forward, within the above mentioned time scale, a true copy of the Terms and Conditions that were in force at the time my account was opened, and any subsequent amendments to those Terms and Conditions.

Additionally, where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any member of your staff, or any other person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my business with you. If you are unable to supply this data because there has been no such manual intervention, then please be so kind as to confirm this in your response.

I enclose the statutory maximum fee of £10.00 to access ALL data held by you about myself. You have 40 days in which to comply with this request.

Yours faithfully,

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Waiting for checkmyfile to send a password reminder through to enable us to get onto the site to see who owns the debt but from memory, last time we looked it said Barclays and that was when the first letter arrived. What should we do about Arc? Stop making the monthly payments until this is resolved?

If you guys can afford them, I'd probably keep making payments whilst awaiting their responses, since you have been making them all along, the SBd clock hasn't even started to tick yet.

Stopping payments at this stage will only irritate Marlin, who are known as a rather aggressive debt purchaser. Once you have the paperwork (or not, as the case may be), you'll know where you stand and will be able to make an informed decision :decision: as well as putting the account in dispute if applicable. If they fail to comply with your request, the account will be unenforceable until such time they do, but you'll have to wait a bit longer :clock: before you can argue anything. :thumb:

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Ok, just looked at checkmyfile and now showing as Marlin owning this. So, I will send the letter that you suggest FlamingParrot along with the £1.00 payment and stop the Arc payments immediately. Should I send anything to Arc to get information from them?

Thanks

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Oh, missed your last response before I sent my previous. We haven't paid Marlin anything yet because as far as we knew it Arc chasing. All payments have been going to Arc and when my partner spoke to Marlin to query this on receipt of the original letter they said that they have never heard of Arc!!!

So, in your view its best to continue the payments to Arc and send the letter (+£1.00) to Marlin. I will do that this afternoon if thats the correct course of action. Am I correct in what I understand in that if Marlin can't produce a signed original agreement this debt will be unenforceable by them? Basically we are happy to pay the money owed but need to know that its going to the right people! We had no idea whatsoever that Marlin owned the debt.

Thanks again!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Ok, just looked at checkmyfile and now showing as Marlin owning this. So, I will send the letter that you suggest FlamingParrot along with the £1.00 payment and stop the Arc payments immediately. Should I send anything to Arc to get information from them?

Thanks

Sounds like our posts crossed, see above.

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Hi FlamingParrot,

Our messages did cross but then I messaged again as I want to be 100% sure of what to do. I don't think that my partner can stand much more of this confusion and stress and its testing my patience :-)

Basically my understand is that I should send the letter you originally posted off to Marlin but keep paying Arc? We have never made any payments to Marlin. When we received the first letter we did the checkmyfile thing and it wasnt Marlin listed as owning the debt then, it was Barclaycard (or Rotten Egg lol)

Best wishes

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Our messages did cross but then I messaged again as I want to be 100% sure of what to do. I don't think that my partner can stand much more of this confusion and stress and its testing my patience :-)

Basically my understand is that I should send the letter you originally posted off to Marlin but keep paying Arc? We have never made any payments to Marlin. When we received the first letter we did the checkmyfile thing and it wasnt Marlin listed as owning the debt then, it was Barclaycard (or Rotten Egg lol)

The letter should be sent to Marlin as they are the ones chasing you. As for payments, have you received any correspondence asking you to make payments to Marlin instead?

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

No nothing just a letter saying that they had not received any payments. We've had nothing from Marlin at all to say that they 'own' the account now. Arc have been receiving payments every month and we have had nothing from them either to say that they shouldnt be? Also, when we checked the credit file and found that it nows shows Marlin its also marked as 'D' Dispute.

Thanks

[ODC]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

I got a letter from Marlin way back in February regarding some alleged Barclays Debt. I asked them for proof. Despite a reminder they still have not provided this. Only a sarky letter saying they will get back to me when they get the documentation through. The SB clock is ticking away even if they could actually find any paperwork. They are a Wunch of Bankers

[GoingLoopy]

Re: Hello and help required with regard to DCA MARLIN

Thanks Border Collie, very interesting! I am going to send the letter that was suggested today (probably what you sent) and see what happens. What is SB?