HFO Threats - Help Please

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi

I have posted this at the end of another thread but thought that I should start a fresh one as I could do with any advice asap so that I can deal with these people.

I have been contacted both the solicitors of HFO and HFO. They are threatening to take me to court and put a charge on my property.

I sent my letter off asking for the documents to be sent to me in 12 days and they have only just sent them to me this week. Does that mean if they take me to court then it could be thrown out.

I originally owed about £1,500 to Barclays and this has now escalated up to just over £5,000 and each DCA that rings or writes to me I try and deal with it but they are so unreasonable in the last six months it has gone from just over £3,000 to over £5,000 with £478 odd being added in the last week.

My partner is now dealing with it for me now as I get soooooo angry with them I'm not capable of speaking coherently. They have just told him that the 12 day rule applies to Barclaycard and not them as it was their debt. The letter was addressed to them so I'm assuming that they are just trying it on but I could be wrong. Four and a half months is not a reasonable length of time when I gave them a deadline of 12 days.

Has anyone else experienced this ? Are they likely to carry through their threat of a charge through to my property ?

Any advice would be greatly received - plleeeeaaaasssseee.

Kaz x

[sosumi]

Hi Kaz
What documents did they send you? Have you sent them a CCA?

[Lula]

are they credit card or loan or overdraft

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi

This was on a credit card and I sent them the letter giving them 12 days to send me statements and an agreement.

I assume by using the card that is acceptance of an agreement but they only sent me 3 months of statements which were after my original dispute with Barclaycard. I wanted to know the split between actual debt and charges.

Kaz x

[Moonlight_Shadow]

I'm not sure what a CCA is ?

Kaz x

[Moonlight_Shadow]

I've just located the letter I sent it is a template letter on the national debtline site titled : You want a copy of your credit agreement / statement of account and your creditor has refused to send you a copy.

We sent this one as they said they wouldn't send us copies of the statements. When they did send them they only sent 3 and no copy of the agreement which I must have originally signed.

Is there anyone I can write and complain to as I'm so sick of all of this I have been trying to pay this debt off for over 4 years. I agree with paying off what I owe but not all the extortionate charges and interest as the original problem was caused by Barclaycard messing up my direct debits. I have the savings to pay it off but if I just pay them £1,500 they will chase me for the rest

Kaz x

[Sparklez30]

Are they actually taking you to court or just saying they may?

the CCA request on here is letter N Creditors and DCAs - Letter Templates & Budget Planner

Did you send the £1 payment when you requested your contract & statement? If not you might want to send the on e on the link to make sure you get it right.

If you still havent received the full statements you could try sending a Subject Access Request ?

[Lula]

send the letter N with a postal order but do not sign it, and do not enter into conversation with them on the phone, if they want to collect the money then they have to prove that they have the right to collect it, if no one comes up with a properly executed agreement then the debt is unenforcable and no one, not even a judge can make you pay.

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi Sparklez30

I sent them the £1 and they cashed it immediately and then took 4.5 months to reply.

They threatened court if I didn't pay immediately so I wrote back straight away recorded delivery and that is when they contacted my partner. They told him they were giving the litigation department the go ahead to start proceedings. Part of me thinks go ahead I'll take my chance in court as I have a lot of paperwork and documented calls etc regarding the whole situation not just with HFO.

The link you gave was for mortgages but I'll try and find a letter template for a S.A.R. and try sending one of those.

Thanks

Kaz x

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi Lula

They only sent 3 statements which were worse than useless and no agreement. Can't they argue that by using the card I accept their terms and conditions ?

It's so confusing and these companies really play on that fact. They make me sooooo angry.

Kaz x

[Lula]

no the link is the right one, scroll down until you get to letter N

dont bother with an Subject Access Request that is not for Credit agreements.

[Lula]

well if you have already asked for the CCA and havnt got it, you need to send the following letter, send it recorded delivery and do not sign it.

Dear Sirs,


Account no xxxxxxxxxxxxxx




Re: my request under the Consumer Credit Act 1974

I note that to date you have not complied with my request for a copy of the credit agreement for this alleged debt which you are pursuing me for

The Consumer Credit Act demands that I be supplied with a true copy of any properly executed credit agreement that exists in relation to the above account. I may ask for this on demand providing that a fee of £1.00 is paid. This fee was sent with my original letter.

My request remains outstanding. Without production of the said agreement I am unable to asses if I am indeed liable for any alleged debt to you, nor does it give me any chance to evaluate whether any original agreement was ‘properly executed’ or contains the terms required under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

I still require you to send me a true copy of the original credit agreement that you allege exists. As you will know, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, a judge is not permitted to make any enforcement order unless the creditor can provide a true signed copy of the original credit agreement. This means that unless you can produce such an agreement, this alleged debt is not enforceable in law.

You had until xx/xx.2007 to provide me with the true copy I requested. You are now in default of my request. Any account I hold with you is now in legal dispute. Whilst the account remains in dispute, you are not permitted to ask for any payment, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you. Furthermore, whilst the dispute remains, you are not entitled to charge any interest on the account, nor make any further charges to the account. Additionally, you are not entitled to register any information on this account with any credit reference agency.

To register information with a credit reference agency, you must have written consent from the customer to collate and share such information. This consent is given in the form of a signed credit agreement, so until you produce such an agreement, you may not do this.

The requirement for consent to share data is a clear requirement of the Data Protection Act 1998. Any such attempts to share my data without my consent will be met with a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office

The time limits, which are laid down in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 are clear. You must supply an executed credit agreement within 12 + 2 working days of a proper CCA request. If you fail to comply with a legitimate request the account enters a default situation and if you fail to comply after a further 30 days you commit an offence. If you continue to demand payment or try to enforce this debt without complying with my original request you will have committed a criminal offence and your conduct will be reported to the Office of Fair Trading, the Financial Ombudsman and Trading Standards. Any investigation undertaken by them may affect your ability to offer credit in the future.

To sum up, I will not be making any further payments to you until you provide me with the document I have requested. Whilst you remain in default of my request, you are not permitted to take any action against this account. This includes adding further charges and passing any information to the credit reference agencies.

Should you not have any signed credit agreement in relation to this alleged debt, please confirm this in writing to me.


I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi Lula

Thanks for that I've found it now doh !

This is almost identical to the letter I sent which they took their time replying to it.

Should I report them to trading standards for failing to meet the 12 days plus 1 month ? Is there somewhere else I can complain to ?

Kaz x

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Hi Lula

Thanks for that letter I will definitely send it off when I get home and get all my dates etc. Your advice is much appreciated and has really helped calm me down and put things into persepective.

Thanks

Kaz x

[Moonlight_Shadow]

Thank you all so very much. I have sent a version of that letter now so I will await their reply. Hopefully I will receive a satisfactory conclusion.

Thanks again

[fleaboobash]

Hi everyone,
I would have started a new thread but I couldnt figure out how to do it? (Must be having a moment!) I had two mobile phone contacts with 3 in 2004 or 2005 and cancelled my contracts wih 28 days notice ending on 28th Dec, they then said that I hadnt given them notice and ended my contract on Jan 28th so I refused to pay the last months line rental on each in principle. Anyway long story short, the debts were passed to HFO services and for most of last year they have hassled me with letters and phone calls until I relented and ended up paying off the debts witha payment plan, one payment of £15.47, one of £15 and one of £28. Through various calls with HFO ( I could barely understand their reps) they kept giving me different amounts that I had left to pay and would send me no written confirmations of payment plans as I requested. The original debts were for £21 and £20 so Ive already paid over the odds but I just wanted them to go away. I thought it was all sorted as the final rep said my account ws clear so I asked for a letter stating this. None came but the calls stopped for a few weeks so I thought everything was ok. WRONG!!
In February they rang and were abusive again and said I still owed them 15.47, I told them I had spoken to someone who said my account was clear, but they just kept saying my account was outstanding. I argued til I was blue in the face but eventually he said if I paid £3.48 he would write it off as cleared. I told him I would not pay until he sent me an email stating this, which he then did, so I paid the £3.48.
I thought that was it but yesterday I got a letter from 3 saying 'thanks for your payment of £3.48 you still need to pay the outstanding £17' ???
The email from HFO states the same account number as the letter from 3 so why are they asking me for money again?? I dont know what to do next, I emailed the man at HFO who sent me the email, no reply and tried to email enquiries@hfoservices.com as stated in the contact us bit of HFOs website, but it was returned as undeliverable.
I've already paid a total of £59.00 for the original total debt of £41.95, what can I do?
Please help.

[adamski]