When Aktiv don't supply the documentation you asked for within 14 days of you posting it (excluding weekends) send then the Account in Dispute letter . That will cover you for stopping the direct debit payments, until they send you a correct copy of the agreement and a minimum of the terms and condtions relating to the time the account was opened, and a current set. It's a very bad idea to trust a DCA with a direct debit payment facility by the way.

Stubumbles You're entitled to check Westcott have the legal paperwork for them to have payment of this agreement decided by a court. You need to write to the legal firm reperesenting Westcotts and say as this is now a court case you urgently require a copy of the CCA document , Default Notice, and Copy of Assignemnt. You're entitled to these documents to construct a defence together and they have 14 days to produce them. Send Westcotts a copy of this letter and send them by recorded delivery. There are load of threads on here where Goldfish have been unable to produce copies of the CCA as they've been lost. They sold their accounts to Barclaycard a couple of years ago., and if Westcott bought your account back in 2002 they might be aunabl;e to get hold of a copy, as so much time has passed since it was sold. Without it they will have a difficult time winning this case, unless you allow them to get it by default or admission. I think you can ask the court for more time to construct a defence if they dont produce it, and Westcott may actually withdraw their case. After all this time they are probably banking on winning this case by default. Meantime go over to the Legal section and start reading some threads on defences other people have written. You can look for other Goldfish threads by using the search button on the top of the page. type in Goldfish and all the related threads will appear. Takes a bit of time but you'll get there.

Do the terms and conditions they sent you look correct for the time you opened the account? ie correct year and bank etc. When I asked Cabot to supply T&C's for an alleged Morgan Stanley account they sent a single page of T&C's from Barclaycard dated 2005. At that time Goldfish would have owned the account. If your SAR provides or you still have your opening statments you can check if the interest rate in the terms is the same as what was applied to your account.? Do they say anywhere that interest can continue to be applied?

MBNA produced an application form but no t&cs for an alleged agreement of mine from late 90's 4 years after they sold it outright to a DCA. But if they sold your account 9 or 10 years ago they might have lost it by now. Do you know if your agreement was totally sold or just assigned to the DCA for collection. Did you get a default notice or account termintation letter from MBNA? Normally a SAR would go to the original creditor MBNA, but if they sold it outright 10 years ago not sure what you'd get from MBNA. DX or Citizen can advise better on this. Are you able to say who the DCA is. Link by any chance? I'd send the DCA a CCA request . If they can't supply it within 14 days or so you can write and put the account in dispute and stop payments . There's a letter in the templates library. Send it by recorded delivery and keep your proof of posting receipt. Has the DCA been sending you a minimum of annual statements, showing all this interest being added. ? AFAIK DCA's can't legally add interest onto accounts they've bought unless the original terms of the agreement allowed it, and most taken out back then didn't. I agree there's no point in making reduced payments to a defalulted debt account if interest is being added. It's totally outrageous, and just highlights the despicable greed of this grubby industry.

DC100x when you say written off by the OC, what does that mean? And why does that influence whether a DCA would take a case to court or not ? Just asking because I have 2 accounts I've put in dispute and relevant DCA's have offered several discounts , but they've not quite reached the SB stage. thanks

My personal experience was CCCS won't stop payment to a creditor, so you'll have to set up your own DMP if there's any creditors you decide to pay. CCCS should give bank sort codes for each creditor etc when you end your plan, enabling you to set up direct standing orders for accounts. That's what I did and I didn't inform creditors of the change from CCCS. I'd agree there's no point in making reduced payments where interest and charges continue. I'd prefer to be taken to court for them, at least a judge is likely to stop further interest if you request in your court case. As long as the amount is less than £5000 I think. I say I think as I picked up most of my info back in 2008 on this site. Having returned recently after a fairly long absence the whole approach to things seems to have changed, and not all for the better I fear. Follow Priority Ones advice, it's sound and covers all your options.

See someone else has asked the same question in the Barclaycards forum on whether Cabot can legally add interest to an account they've bought which hasn't been defaulted. The standard Barclaycard letter sent out says interest will remain stopped for 6 months after which Cabot will review it agree the monthly payment. According to the ICO, to maintain information being standard etc, defaults should be registered within 6 months of the contract breaking down, eg full payments not being made or terms changed eg removal of credit facility etc. Now how can Barclaycards say this contact didn't break down being paid at tiny fraction of the minimum for 10 years? What happened to the unlawful recission question which used to be discussed on these forums,. Before an account was sold to a DCA it had to be defaulted as Cabot couldn't fulfill the credit card contract conditions to a consumer, which meant the contract terms were broken at point of sale. They have a licence to give out credit but they don't issue credit cards. This will be why Cabot are issuing look alike monthly statements and avoiding asking for the full balance. If as the Brigadier has said this is a new trend, accounts not being defaulted and sold on to DCA's like Cabot , who can then legally resume full interest and the rest then DCA's have won the lottery. If this is possible , one thing's clear, there's is no point in making any reduced payments to a debt until it's been defaulted . Only then can someone be sure no further interest is added, unless a judge decides otherwise. Because the way this looks to me is if Cabot can legally resume full interest I've wasted my time payiong anything for the past 10 years and will very shortly be back at the balance I started at, as well as having a nice new shiny default on my record. . Something doesn't seem right about this?

Interest is only payable if awarded by the judge in the decree, and would be shown on it somehwre as payable. But I also thought I'd always read on CAG interest was normally only granted if the amount the creditor claimed for was more than £5000 for consumer related agreements?

This is different from the normal Cabot debt collection letter Brigadier. This is a normal monthly credit card statement they've sent. It shows interest rates, how payments paid are first deducted from cash withdrawals and then from purchases, etc etc, as if it has been sent from Barclaycard, or another bank. In effect Cabot are acting as if this account has been sold not as a defaulted account to a debt collection agency , but a running live credit card account from one bank to another bank. If a credit account has been defaulted and sold on no more interest or charges can be legally added. A running live account which hasn't been defaulted can have normal interest re-instated at any time as well as charges, underpayment and late payment fees at any time at the discretion of the bank.Which is why I said there was no point in me having made reduced payments for all these years, because Cabot is just going to shove it all back on again. Any default would have dropped off years ago , and it wouldn't stop Cabot adding another one anyway.

Cabot recently bought a load of Barclaycard accounts including one I've been making reduced payments to for over 6 years.. Instead of the usual Cabot letter saying contact us to make arrangements to pay this total outstanding amount blah blah , Cabot have sent what 'appears; to be a monthly credit card statement , with things like how payments are allocated etc etc as if to indicate this is still a live credit card account and not a defaulted debt account from many years ago. So long ago any Barcalycard default would have dropped off my account years ago. I know Cabot have a Consumer Credit Licence, but do Cabot give out credit cards to the general public - I think not, so why are they doing this.? I can only surmise that in a few months they are going to try adding a shedload of interest back onto this account, and then default it all over again in which case I wish I'd never paid a penny to it, because there was no point.

Would have thought Amex would default your account back in 2006 when you stopped paying. As far as I'm aware after registering a Default they can't add any further interest or charges as the account has been terminated. So the amount increasing from £3000 to £7000 over the past 5 years definitely sounds wrong to me.. You'll be able to find this out from your SAR, but hopefully it will have reached the SB stage anyway.

Tesco finance is also RBS. I've had to cut my reduced repayments to RBS + Tesco several times over the years, and haven't had any problems so far. If you don't have the money , you don't have it. but would try to send them something even if it's just £5 or £1 to keep a monthly payment going. I used to send creditors a new income/expenditure sheet when I reduced the payments but now I just reduce the payments, and ignore the automated letters asking me to phone them unless they're beginning to look serious.

Cabot need to confirm they're speaking to the right person which is why they keep asking you to confirm your personal details first. I'd wait until they write to you before making any contact and even then I'd advise taking advice from this forum before contacting them. After all this matter may have nothing to do with you. They use a number of different numbers on automated diallers, so keep blocking the numbers. Can post some up for you but think there's a list somewhere on this site. My experience of Cabot is that it doesn't matter what you tell them by letter, email or phone, they either ignore it, or send a letter full misleading information from their wonderful NOT customer compliance team. and continue to send out automated letters and make numerous calls, all requesting payments and that you phone them... A Truecall machine which blocks nuisance calls is the answer they're not cheap but wonderful. Even so it can take Cabot months of non stop calls from umpteen numbers which Truecall blocks every time to realise it's costing them money to achieve nothing and stop calling.

Big Debtor, I would wait and see what they send you next. the least someone can reasonably expect in a letter saying they owe money is where the debt originates from. Without that its's only fit for the bin. Been dealing with them for a couple of years now. They deal with thousands of accounts and yours is just one of many they are chasing. They are a big machine and don't normally turn round fast. Unless you owe a very large amount its unlikely they'll move fast, as they'll need to use a Scottish legal firm and that eats into their profits, especially if you defend. Cheaper for them to try and use their traditional means of persuasion by bombarding your phone with calls every day from different phone numbers. Don't speak or answer the phone calls ever.

I used to send out I&E forms each year to crediotrs I still pay. Now I refuse to fill them in or send them, I ignore their review letters requesting me to contact them to discuss increasing my repayment offer, and Truecall blocks any of their begging calls. Every year I work out how much I can afford and just send it. No one has taken me to court yet about this, and the payments I make have reduced substantially over the past few years. MY OH who works in the private sector hasn't had a pay increase in over 3 years and during that time price of food and utility etc petrol has greatly increased. DCA's need to be kept in their place which is at the very bottom of the pile.