Please help!

First, I must confess to being a bit of an ostrich over this.

Last year I took out a minicredit loan. Same story as many on here. I applied for £100 and got £80 straight away because they took the other £20 in fast payment fees. Bloody cheek! I wasn't even given the option.

Then came the day of reckoning and I couldn't afford to pay it back (£127 at this point).

Then the emails and letters came threatening doorstep visits, for which they bumped the charges up by £100 each time. The visits never happened.

Within a few weeks the debt was standing at around £812.

I sought answers on this forum and duly sent emails to minicredit offering the original loan + 1 month's interest. I wrote roughly every other day for about a couple of weeks. I received no replies and didn't hear from them again.

So I buried my head in the sand once more.

Some time towards the end of last year (can't remember when exactly) I received a letter or 3 from Fredrickson's but ignored them. My head was well and truly in the sand by then.

Then I heard no more.

Within the last few weeks Opos have been in contact, both through email and in writing. The emails wanted me to phone them and I emailed back to say I didn't do phone calls and if they had anything to say to me they could put it in writing. The emails, btw, didn't say anything, just phone this number quoting this reference. Until the physical letter arrived through my letterbox I hadn't a clue who Opos were representing.

Since then I have received 2 more letters, the most recent one today and decided it was time to remove my head from the sand and deal with it.

Today's letter is the Final Notice of Intent, and they're threatening court action. I say bring it on, because how are they going to justify the charges and the way the debt has risen from £80 to £812?

I really need to deal with this now.

Please can someone suggest a course of action and what I should be saying to these scoundrels. Also are there any templates I should be using, for quoting the right sections of laws etc.?

Your help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

Technically you can get around it by saying they never gave you the stated loan in full in the first place, and they took out administration charges that were never stated or agreed upon.

Don't worry about court action. These [EDIT] artists will never take you to court. They know that they would lose.

As for Opus, you might be keen to know that they are just Minicredit acting under another name under the guise of their own DCA.

Take a deep breath, relax, and have a look at some of the threads on this forum. There is some good information and will put your mind at ease.

As for doorstep collectors, send a letter by recorded delivery or email to OPus, stating the following " In reference to Account number : xxxxxxxx, i hereby withdraw all permission under common law for you or your representatives to set foot on any part of my property(s). Should this order be broken, you will be commiting trespass and further action will be taken including police attendance. Yours sincerely xxxxxxx "

Make sure you type the name and not sign it in pen. This will deal with the doorstep collector letters.

As i said, give the forum and related ones on this site a good read. There is some very useful information across this entire site that will take a lot of stress off your back.

I've just had the same letter today for OPOS/DERS. I too have emailed OPOS a few times to say I only owe the loan plus one months interest, but according to them i'm avoiding them! Help would be appreciated!

Keep to it. Minicredit/OPOS/DERS are the SAME company. It is why they and their kin are currently under investigation. File a complaint with OFT and FOS.

And make sure that EVERYTHING is communicated in writing. If they call you, you can answer, but make sure you clearly state that you are unwilling to converse on the call and any and all communication must be done in writing. Then hang up on them. Send them a letter to this effect to. If they continue to call, then add this to your complaint to the OFT and FOS. This will be classed as harassment.

Im not 100% sure either, maybe someone else can clarify, but when you start a dispute on the account then they have to suspend all interest and charges. They wont take it to a real DCA or county court as they know they wont have a leg to stand on, as they make up the charges as they go along. In this forum alone, there was a person who took out a £100 loan, and 10 days later it had rocketed to over £300.

The first experience i had with these idiots was with my sister, but after reading up on some things, its clear who has the most legal standing. yes, i got a few things wrong in a couple of posts on here, but a quick call to the national debtline soon gave some good advice.

I did wonder about them being the same company when I saw the bottom of the letter. I am going to write to the on Monday recorded delivery stating I only owe them another £45, which I have already asked to pay numerous times.

Good luck! My sister has already paid off the initial loan plus almost a months interest. WE have the notarised bank statement to prove it. However, theyre still demanding over £1k in "interest and administration charges". Suffice to say that they will NEVER see that money.

I've contacted OPOS by email asking to pay what I owe but have been ignored.

I've contacted OPOS by email asking to pay what I owe but have been ignored.

They will ignore you. Thats why you need to keep as much written evidence as possible AND submit those complaints. They will try to contact you by phone or they will say they wont correspond in writing, but this is purely a scare tactic so they dont leave a trail that can be tracked by the investigating agencies.

Thanks for your replies. I didn't know Minicredit were also in the same camp as Opos. I'm sure I've received a letter in the dim distant past from Opos relating to another debt that isn't minicredit related. And Minicredit did pass on to Fredricksons first, before Opos.

Has anyone actucally had any experience of the next stage, which according to the letter is court action?

Ignore it. They wont take you to court. They dont want a court to see the obscene and completely random charges that they add to your account. Stick to your guns with what has been said before. THat way, IF they ever do take you to court, you have a complete trail of what has happened, and a judge would side with you.

The letter that talks about taking you to court is simply a scare tactic as i mentioned previously. LOTS of companies/DCA's do this, not just loan companies.

If you get passed to fredricksons or Bryan carter, then scan this site, as there are a lot of ways to deal with them. Also note that when you make a complaint with the OFT, they usually contact minicredit, who will then get in touch with you to offer a very very reduced repayment offer.

i have received a letter this morning from opos regarding my mini credit debt i owed 350 and now its gone up to £1170 i started a dmp with a company called back to credit as i took out more than 1 payday loan but i was really struggling with the payments so have changed to money debt credit and they have lowered my payment to nearly half,the thing im more worried about is that they are saying i havent paid nothing off my account when in reality 1 payment shud have got to themthe whole issue of owing what i do is really getting me down and i cant sleep at night so am on tablets,i fear knocks at the door in case its from a debt company any advice would be appreciated

Dont let them worry you. They try everything they can to get you feeling like this so they can say and force you to do anything. As for them coming to your door, send them a simple letter saying you withdraw the right for them or their representatives to come, and if they ignore it, the police will be called for trespass and harassment/intimidation.

The first step to getting things under control is to get a level head about the situation. If you let them start dictating what you can and cant do, youll never get things sorted out. Remember, PDL's are the lowest priority debt you can think of. The absolute worse that can happen is that they get a CCJ on your credit file, and even then theyd have to go to court, where you can submit a defense and tell the judge exactly what theyve done and how its affected you. They cant just walk in and do what they like or take your things.

how do i word the letter asking them not to come to my door sorry to ask im rubbish at writing letters

I think theres one on these forums. Click here

lol not to add any stress to anyone but a bit of friendly competition cant hurt, i loaned £100 from minicredit and now im on £1062 from opos debtboys

thing is the 80 i actually recieved £50 of it got swallowed by bank charges so in reality £35 landed me £1062 debt

All the best with your disputes,

Brian~

Just had a call from DERS regarding my Minicredit loan. First it was Opos now these muppets!! Made out it had just been brought to his attention that my account was in default and that he was prepared to do me a big favour, even though he shouldnt be, and that he would accept £5 a fornight............there was a catch though......only on the provision that i gave them my debit card details!!! I said i didnt want to but i was more than happy to make alternative payment arrangements, pretty much as i had been doing so with Opos, making a direct payment into their account, but he said that he had to have my bank card details or no deal!!! I asked him for his contact details, which he gave, but he said that if i didnt agree there and then, then the offer to accept lower payments would be revoked and they will send someone round to my property!! What do i do? did i do right in refusing my bank card details?

you shoud write them a letter stating they have no right to call at your property and all future contact should be made in writing

i saw a funny website, the guy sent a letter to deb collecters stating if they came to his property again they would be charged the full amount of the bill, he got a letter back saying the account had been passed back to the client