Help! Been threatened with court action...

[scaredycat]

I contacted my insurance company early in 2004 believing a maturity policy of c£900 due in Sept 2000 had not been paid out. Following many letters, phone calls etc I signed a document in Aug 2004 to return the ‘duplicate’ maturity payment (made by bank transfer Aug 2004) if it was revealed the original maturity payment had been encashed by myself. Correspondence continued both ways - I provided bank statements of the time the cheque was apparently cashed and there was a credit paid in on that date but for a much larger amount (redundancy payment). Problem is my bank could never provide me with a breakdown of that credit and I honestly can’t remember if the maturity cheque was part of that amount or not. Contact continued until Jan 2005 when they threatened to pass this over to their legal department. I wrote back to advise that as the matter had been ongoing for over 10 months they had 14 days to sort out this matter once and for all and that I would not enter into any further correspondence from that date. Have never really thought about this any more until last month when I received letter from their legal department requesting return of duplicate payment some 21 months later! Ignored letter but have now received second letter advising they will start County Court proceedings plus additional costs incurred plus interest at 8% pa from August 2004 until judgment or sooner payment if I did not pay in full by 6th October. Can anyone advise me on how to proceed with this – my circumstances have totally changed within this time. I am now single parent on benefit and don’t have this sort of money and am petrified that should this go to court I will have a CCJ against me. What should I do?

[Bookworm]

Well, if you had to pay in full by the 6th, and you only have come here for advice on the 9th, what advice are you expecting to hear?

I typed a lengthy answer on how you could handle things, and then realised that none of it was relevant, as you had gone past the deadline!

You might want to contact them by phone asap, and see if you can still negotiate weekly/monthly repayments, if they haven't started proceedings, and if you are reasonably sure that you do in fact owe the money.

Or if you are sure that you did not get that money, let them take you to court, they will have to prove that they paid it to you. Only you know what the likeliest scenario is.

If you end up in court and lose, you need to prepare an income and expenses sheet so that you can ask the judge to set payments that will not cripple you financially. Unfortunately, at that point, a CCJ seems pretty unavoidable, but if you were that worried about it in the first place, maybe not ignoring the other side's letters would have been a good starting point. Now all you can do is damage limitation.

On the other hand, if you're sure that you never got that money, let them take you to court and fight back.

Let us know what happens, and we'll take it from there. And next time, don't leave it until deadlines have gone to act. When you do that, you automatically put yourself in a position of weakness.

[scaredycat]

Thanks for the reply - obviously I haven't handled things very well and that's why I've come here for advice. I was actually away staying with family last fortnight so only got the letter yesterday. It was dated 21st September and followed from the original of Sept 1st.

I don't know if I did actually receive the original payment. Admittedly it does look likely but as I said my bank are unable to give me a breakdown of that credit paid into my account in September 2000.

Yes I have ignored one letter but in 2004 I had fully conversed with the insurance company. Is it okay for them to do this almost two years on from my last correspondence giving them 14 days to sort it out after it had been going on for 10 months?

I really don't want to go to court and up until now my credit rating is good. If a CCJ is almost unavoidable once it gets to that stage then I would rather offer weekly payments now. I don't want anything to stand in my way once I get back to work. However, whilst I'm on benefit what is a reasonable weekly payment?

[scaredycat]

I have now spoken with the guy at the legal department. Fortunately he has not yet started court proceedings and has assured me he will not until this has been investigated further. They have not secured any more information than what they had back in 2004. He says the onus is on me to prove I did not in fact receive the original payment. How do I go about getting my bank to give me a breakdown of a credit paid into my account in August 2000? They say they can't but the guy at the insurance company says they have to. Who should I address the letter to - customer services? Or should I give the insurance company the go ahead to contact my bank to see if they can get this info? Any advice gratefully appreciated...

[LondonPam]

If you go to a bank and pay 2 cheques in together, they simply scan both of the cheques into their system and give you a receipt for the total. However, their own system MUST know what the total is made up of because they ahve to send BOTH of the cheques to the banks they were drawn on. There is absolutely no way they don't know the cheques that make up an overall payment. It's like saying that when Sainsbury (or any other big company) pay their cheques in they only see one transaction. If you can then go to the bank and explain this.

[scaredycat]

Thanks for the info, that's what I thought. It was my local branch that said they couldn't give me the breakdown but I have contacted the customer response unit today and the guy there was really helpful. They're going to look into it for me and get back to me later in the week but he did say he wasn't sure how long they kept the info. Let's hope it goes back at least six years - I would expect it will. If I can get the breakdown I'll be able to sort this out once and for all.

[Bookworm]

He says the onus is on me to prove I did not in fact receive the original payment.

Well, that's BS for starters. If they were to take you to court, they would have to show a judge that they in fact made the payment. And in fact, if they're pursuing the alleged debt, they must have somethign to go on with, surely?

And what if you DIDN'T receive the payment? How are you supposed to prove a NON-receipt of something? What a load of tosh. Sorry, not angry at you, angry at the guy who can't be asked tapping a few keys on his PC to check. I bet if it was the other way round, they'd be quick enough to find the info.

Info should be kept for at least 6 years, yes. But August 2000? Hmmm, could be borderline...

Ok, bottom line is, don't panic, at the moment, the court action is held off, that's the main thing.

I think that if the bank can't give you the information, you will have to go on the offensive, and say to the insurance company that you have tried every way, that you can't get the information from your bank as it's over 6 years. and that at the end of it, it's not up to you to prove that you didn't get the money, it's up to them to prove that they did. Tell them that if they intend to take you to court, they'd better have proof that they paid you, because any action will be vigorously defended. Furthermore, if they DO go to court, then produce proof, you will query why they couldn't provide thos before, despite the fact that you asked them many many times.

Wait until your bank responds though, and see what comes out. But don't fret. The fact that this guy told you the onus was on you seems to indicate that either a) he's a plonker b) they can't actually trace the payment themselves (IF it was ever made!), in which case, they're going to have major problems getting it off you!
Keep us posted.

[Teddybear]

They should have the facilities to check if their cheque has been cashed the cheeky busturds unless their accounts department is totally crap!

Best of luck, if proceedings haven't been started and it turns out that you do need to repay money then you have an opportunity to arrange payments, just make sure you can realistically pay them and don't default on them.

Best of luck

Teddybear xx