Dealing with Cabot - Advice Requested

[Garp]

About 4 years ago, I defaulted on my 2 Barclaycards after being made redundant. Barclaycard sold my accounts on to Kings Hill (No 1) and about 2 years ago I was contacted by Cabot.

This panicked me and, in my ignorance, I agreed to make payments on these debts: £50 monthly to the £3400 account (now down to about £2290) and £25 monthly to the £1600 account (now down to about £1100).

Having read the advice available on this website, I now realise that I should have disputed Kings Hill/Cabot's demands, not acknowledged the debts with them and taken issue with Barclaycard regarding penalty charges.

However, my principle concern now is to end my payments to Cabot and to have removed the default notices lodged against my credit file as quickly as possible. I have yet to find a description of a similar case in the forum (though I would be very surprised mine is unique).

Since I appear to have already paid Cabot considerably more than they paid for my original debts and my primary concern is the prompt removal of default notices, I'm wondering whether the following steps are the best way to proceed:

1. Immediately reduce monthly payment to both account to £1 each.
2. Write to Cabot, offering them a one-off goodwill final settlement payment of £50 and £25 to the respective accounts in exchange for their immediate removal of the default notices.
3. Inform Cabot that, if the settlement figures are not acceptable to them, I will contact Barclaycard to dispute the amounts in view of illegal charges.

Are these steps reasonable, or am I in a more difficult position given that I have already made so many payments to Cabot? I would rather not have to action step 3 as I fear this would take a long time to effect.

Any advice will be welcome.

[buzby]

Personally, I think you are being too reasonablw. I'd say you contact Cabot stating that following (unspecified) legal advice, you are currently pursing B/c for illegal charges on your account and as a result it is not appropriate for you to make any further payments. You also put them on notice that pending the result of the case, you may be requiring full repayment of all monies paid to date. Ask them for a full statement of all monies credited to your account with them, stating that should they require an additional fee for this, this charge may be added to any subsequent claim against them for repayment.

Then write to B/c requesting a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) for all accounts held - there's a template letter on the site, and get the ball rolling. There won;t be much you can do about your credit defaults that B/c placed on file, but these will time out on their 6th anniversary.

[Garp]

Thanks for your advice, Raymond. I probably am being too reasonable, but my motivation is to clear my credit file as quickly as possible so I can proceed with mortgage applications.

The defaults aren't registered by Barclaycard -- these I was able to get removed soon after Cabot notified me of their acquisition of the accounts.

I'm hoping that some kind of carrot-and-stick approach will galvanise Cabot into removing the defaults promptly, but I'm wary of making matters worse.