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HappyMonday

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  1. Thanks for the reply. It's not actually council TAX debt, it's something benefit related at a guess, and what concerns me is that the landlord is apparently still suggesting to the authority that he's an occupant of the house. The electoral roll says different, but it's clear that the authority are not looking at this, as the mail and the visits still keep coming. As such, can a bailiff enforcing this debt enter with a view to seizing property? It would be a massive pain to have to produce proof of who owns what, even though almost nothing in the house is the landlord's.
  2. Hi all... I have a slightly unusual situation brewing, about which I'd like some advice. I've been one of three tenant's in an old friends house for the last three years. Landlord is absentee, living in another country, and I've seen him face to face for a week in the time I've been renting his property. It's a pretty informal arrangement, I pay him the rent in cash into his bank, and keep both the receipts for these and my own records. There's been no formal tenancy agreement, though he's rightly realised he ought to provide one recently and I'm pushing him to get on with it. None of this would be a problem but for the fairly ominous post I've spotted in the pile's I've been forwarding to his overseas address. In essence, him and his long term partner are still using the house as a correspondence address for a fairly hefty debt to the local council (10k+), which looks to me like it's slowly going bad. I also suspect he's still registered as living at the house, on all but the electoral role, which I keep up true. The last demand had 'delivered by hand' on the back of the envelope, which suggests a CCJ and serious enforcement action is the next step. I've also been door-stepped by a collector some months ago, who I sent away. What's my situation as far as bailiffs and collections are concerned? The house was let unfurnished, nothing in it is the landlords, but from my experience of debt companies, they tend to get heavy first and work it out later. Any advice? Thanks!
  3. Thanks for that. I push for dealing direct, but Anglian Water refer to DCA's without awaiting response from the creditor. So, am I right in saying bar is from last payment (12/2005 in this case), not from date of last correspondence with Anglian or DCA RE debt? Not sure when last correspondence mentioning balance at Address 2 was without searching paper files, but is unlikely to be more recent than 6 years. As for the recent payments, these were made to a DCA which contacted me RE the newer debt at Address 1. Anglian Water have then sent information confirming that these payments have been allocated to the much older outstanding balance at Address 2. Effectively, they're trying to collect an old barred debt by disguising it as part of a newer, non-barred debt.
  4. Hi there... No, the newer debt at Address 1 is not outside the 6 year cutoff, hence my acceptance of liability for it and payments etc. To clarify, the company are attempting to consolidate into one account a much older debt which I do not intend to pay with a legitimate newer debt which I am prepared to pay.
  5. Hi there... I'm hoping somebody can help me out on how to proceed with the following case. Two agencies have recently contacted me with outstanding balances with Anglian Water at an old address (call it Address 1). Accepting liability for this amount at Address 1, I made several payments to the first company and was then contacted by the second for a different amount at the same address. This prompted me to hold all further action and payments with both companies, and query the debt with the provider, as I've held only one account at the address. Both companies then dropped their action and referred me back to provider. Whilst awaiting information on the balance owing and date ranges etc I'd requested from Anglian, they unscrupulously referred me to a third debt collector for the first amount. Again, I requested this company hold their enforcement action on the basis that I am disputing the debt. Having today received the information I requested, it seems that Anglian have posted the payments I made to the first company to an even older (2003 - 2004) address (Address 2) with an outstanding balance, despite the initial contact being explicitly about Address 1. It's clear that the provider is trying to legitimise the much older debt with current payments collected under false pretenses, but can anybody help me on the specifics of statute barred debts? Am I correct in thinking that a debt for which the provider has seen no correspondence from the debtor for six years cannot then be collected? Does the full amount (even if much of the period is well outside the 6 year period) then become enforcable? Is there precedent by which a company can amalgamate together an account from outside the 6 year period with one which is inside it (even if, as is the case here, one account was in several names and another not) in order to be able to collect? And finally, is there a pro-forma response for refusing to pay a debt as it is outside the 6 year limitation? Thanks all.
  6. Been a while since I updated this thread, which reflects the studious stonewalling I've received from Capital One on this matter. Having let this claim fall by the wayside by not initiating legal action, I'd simply taken to hitting Capital One with another Letter Before Action every time they sold this debt to another collector, who would immediately have cause to put their enforcement action on hold. Years of silence from Capital One followed...Until, straight after the recent bank charges ruling, they finally condescended to begin correspondence with me directly on the matter, to tell me that the outcome of the case means my claim is invalid. The balance is just over £1200, and to cut a long story short they've gone from offering £300 as a refund, to £950 after I played the usual hardball and changed the particulars of my claim etc. This lower amount is apparently justified on the basis that my complaint has been 'started' from the most recent Letter Before Action, in September of last year, enabling them to discount some £200 worth of default charges as outside of the six year claim period. I need a little advice on this, if you can spare it... Am I right in thinking this is a ruse, given that I have consistently filed requests for these moneys to be returned over the years (by registered post), starting in June 2006, which they have simply ignored? Does anybody know if I'm within my rights to demand they accept this as the beginning of my 'complaint'? Also, if not, can I not utilise the same defence and simply refuse to accept their attempts to reclaim these charges because they are now outside the six year claim period? Also, if I were to accept this latest figure as a full and final settlement of the matter, what are the repercussions for requesting this bunch of brigands clean up the damage to my credit rating? Thanks... HM
  7. For Robert Harpers benefit, some of the sites I accessed are to be found below ; Legal Guidance for Business Sellers http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/general/oft698.pdf Distance Selling Regulations - BERR All I can say is, I thought that the seller is liable for both sets of postage if I chose to change my mind and I was doing them a favour not getting heavy about my return postage - Quoth Ebay's guidance for businesses on the matter ; "Under the Distance Selling Regulations, buyers have a period of 7 working days after the date of delivery within which they can cancel the contract (often referred to as the "cooling off" period) and get their money back, including the original postage and packing charges. You must refund the original delivery charges. However, you are permitted to require the buyer to pay for the cost of returning the item, but only if you clearly inform the buyer of this before the contract is made.," - I'm now out both, and it seems from a lot of the internet information that buyers are not as well covered as it at first seems.
  8. Thanks for this everyone, I think this one will have to go unchallenged. The faults with the item are too unsubstantial for me to start getting heavy about it, and if Buy It Now on Ebay is a grey area too then we're talking serious holes in the argument. However, Ebay claim that Buy It Now is definitely covered - "The Distance Selling Regulations apply to items purchased via Buy It Now listings and Second Chance Offers on eBay.co.uk. However, they don't apply to auction format listings on eBay.co.uk,". I should've approached this as a defective item etc, and I didn't because I assumed any costs related to the transaction were also covered under DSR return rights. This was stupid, but this information is not made clear in the Ebay help for consumers quoted above, or in the other government sourced information I accessed. Might write something complaining in this respect to those it may concern.
  9. Pardon me I should've mentioned this was a Buy It Now transaction from a business trader.
  10. Hi all... Been a while since I've posted here. I hope your all as helpful as I've found it in the past. I recently bought an item on Ebay for £79.99 plus £12.66 postage + insurance. Item was arguably not as described, and certainly would've been unacceptable to me if I were buying it from a shop, but being a kind soul I decided to 'change my mind' and request a refund under the terms of the distance selling regulations cooling off period (in this case, the period allowed for this would've been three months as the seller hasn't specified anything returns policy wise that I could find) rather than going through an 'item not as described' Paypal buyer protection claim. I specified consistently throughout correspondence that I'm unhappy with the state of the item as received etc, and requested that the seller agree to cover the costs of my returning the item. This request was ignored as you can imagine, and since I wasn't greatly fussed about the return postage I returned the item as 'a gesture of goodwill' (as opposed to making them collect it), still harping on about how I should be refunded for the cost of the postage etc. I've now received a refund of the £79.99 original payment, but the seller is under the impression he doesn't have to refund the original postage amount either...Specifically... "Item dispatched by request via express courier so postage cannot be refunded under distant selling regulation. Item returned unwanted," I've found an approximately equal amount of support and derision of this stance online, though how my agreement to accept dispatch via courier absolves the seller of refunding me the costs of said courier is completely beyond me. Sellers seem to draw the distinction between services and goods when referring to postage etc. This is not the impression that consumers are given by Ebay, or indeed by a number of government sources online. Can anybody clarify the position I'm in before I escalate the dispute?
  11. Hi.... Thanks for those, I'm a bit lax in replying presently. I often use the OFT debt collection guidelines etc to tell these vile little attack dog companies to sod off, but I have one particular case in which one of them has clearly and provably committed a number of minor breachs. I've pointed this out to them, and they've promptly sold my debt on to another agency. Since I'm feeling particularly zealous at present, I want to try and push this to the next stage and actually have the transgression investigated. I'll start by asking the OFT and Trading Standards then...
  12. Just wondering if anybody is able to advise me how and to whom I report unfairly harrassive debt collection practices, from a number of companies and over a number of debts?
  13. Just setting up a thread for future use, as I'm about to post my Data Protection Act Request to this lot.
  14. I love it....Once again we have studious silence from the Capital One debt collectors... And indeed from Capital One...I'm a day from the deadline set out in my LBA and not a peep in response so far. Is there any perceived link between the level / speed of responses to threats etc, and the amount of money owed to the individual?
  15. Well done kriso...Good luck with any others you have pending. Is the behaviour of these institutions completely random when dealing with these claims? Or is the level of response people get dependent upon how much money your owed? I'm now about a day off the deadline set out in my Letter Before Action for reclaim of a grand or so, and Capital One are still studiously ignoring me....
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