Hi, I will try and cut a long story short!!

I stopped making full payment on my Isme and Littlewoods account over a year agodue to the loss of my job,

I have since had a baby who is now 6 months old and not working although my husband is.

I contacted both catalogue companies advising of my situation

and they couldn't come to an acceptable arrangement as we literally had no spare money

so was offering £5 p/m on each account.

At the time the balance on the Isme account was approx £2,000 and the Littlewoods one was £400.

Both accounts went over to NDR which is understand is part of the company and again they could/would not agree to my offer

- I still made a few payments of that amount anyway to show willing.

Since then charges have been added to both accounts,

the Littlewoods balance is now approx £700 and the Isme one is a whopping £3,800 due to interest and charges.

Isme have now sold on the account to Capquest.

I have had the initial letter from Capquest requesting full payment which I know is pretty standard.

I'm not sure who will be taking the Littlewoods account yet but NDR managed to get a further sneaky charge

on both account before selling them on.

I was going to write to Capquest and advise of my financial situation and offer the £5 per month

I have been trying to pay over the last year or so, I am guessing they will not accept this due to the balance.

Can anyone advise if they may accept or if they will request a higher amount,

also am worried about going to court etc.

Can they add even more charges?

I am so worried about everything and also about harrassment from them as have read a few things about Capquest

- none of them at all nice.

Lastly, a family member may be able to help me out a bit but couldn't afford by any means the full balance

they say is owing, does anyone have an idea if Capquest may accept a settlement figure

and if so roughly how much I would need to offer, do I need to pay low payment first before offering anything?

Thanks so much and sorry for the long post

- this is my first one so am not familiar with abbreviations.

Hi and welcome to CAG.

Before thinking of settling the accounts you need to reclaim all of those charges and the interest on them.

Have you got ALL of your statements for the account(s)?

Hi, no,

I have to go through everything and see what I do have.

I am wanting to respond in some way as soon as possible to Capquest

just to stop any further action,

I wasn't going to offer a settlement payment straight away as not even sure I can sort it!

I was going to offer the £5 per month but think they will not accept it.

Have you any idea of how Capquest work?

Thanks

Would it be Isme I have to claim back from?

Can you advise how I go about doing this please?

Thanks in advance

Hi

You tell CQ what they are going to get.

I assume you have had a notice of assignment telling you that they have bought the debt?

Yes it will be the original creditor that you claim the charges back from.

First thing is to see what statements you have and if any are missing then you would need to SAR the lender to get as much data as they hold on you. There is a template in teh CAG library, the link to which is at the top of every CAG page in green. Cost is £10 and they will have 40 days to comply.

Don't worry about Capquest and court action.....you are a long way from that.

You could always send CQ a CCA request, again there is a template in the library. This will require them to send you a copy of the agreement, terms and conditions and an up to date statement. Cost is £1 and they will have 12+2 days to comply.

To get the charges claim going, the first thing is to establish what you have in the way of statements and/or get the SAR off.

Thank you very much

- I will go through my paperwork at the weekend as won't get the chance before that

- do I need statements from when the full monthly payments were not met or from before that do you know?

I will also get the request for the CCA underway too.

Would you advise I get all of these requests underway before making the offer of £5 per month payment?

Thanks again

When it comes to it you don't offer, you tell.

CCA first before you give them any money.

The statements you will need are all the ones where late payment/over limit fees have been applied. If you have all of those then you will be ready to complete a spreadsheet to work out your claim amount. We have spreadsheet templates so it will be easy to do.

Thanks so much - you have been really helpful. Am sure I will be back as no doubt one of the company's will not co-operate!

Hi, just a quick question - I've heard it isn't advisable to sign any letters to Capquest but rather type my name at the bottom of the letter. Is this correct? What do you advise? Thanks

If you are going to sign you can make a small adjustment to your signature.

Or type it.

Or use an anti-tamper signature strip.

Some feel that it is not unheard of for certain organisations to lift your signature and put it on other documents.

Thanks so much

Hi, I'm hoping someone can give me some urgent help.

My husband works for Mencap and he is being contacted at work by Capquest

(this was a joint debt as such with the catalogue company but I have been dealing with it),

he is a manager there and Capquest have contacted the actual house where people he supports live

and also the office he works in.

He hasn't spoken to anyone yet but I don't know what to do a

nd my husband is beside himself with anger and worry as he is at risk of getting the sack if he gets constant phone calls.

We haven't spoken to Capquest yet as was going to send off the CCA request tomorrow.

Can anyone please advise how and if we can get the phone calls to stop at work please?

Thanks in advance.

Is it worth contacting the Financial Ombudsman = can they do anything?

Contact OFT

Also write to Capquest insisting that they cease to call the workplace and tell them that you have lodged a complaint about their conduct with the OFT.

Thank you - will try that. Goodness knows how they got the number.

Hi, it's now been a month since requesting the CCA from Capquest.

We received confirmation of the request and they also confirmed they would make no further contact via phone calls

and that everything would be in writing

- I was quite shocked by this having read previous threads on how they hassle via phone.

we have not received the CCA from them and it has been well over the time limit now.

Can you suggest what we need to do from here please?

Thanks in advance.

Forget CapQuest for now.

How did you get on with finding statements and preparing fro the reclaim of charges?

I'm really unsure on how to go about doing that as don't know the date the charges started from

and can't find any old statements from when the charges started.

Can find some from a few months ago.

They were charging £24 per month, £12 for non payment and £12 for sending a letter confirming non payment.

I don't know how to find out when they started.

I now there is a template letter here but don't really understand what I'm doing!!

If you don't have all of your statements, send a Subject Access Request (SAR) to the lender. The template is here

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/content.php?552-Data-Protection

The fee is £10 and they will have 40 days to comply.

They should send you copies of all statements or a transaction history on the account plus any other data on the account.

From that information you will be able to prepare a spreadsheet of your claim and start the process of getting the charges back.

Also have a read around the catalogue forums and indeed the various bank forums to get an idea as to what is involved with reclaiming the charges.

SAR is the first thing to do though.

Thank you so much. Will get the ball rolling with that - does the letter need to be sent to Isme as NDR were making most of the charges although I understand they are part of Isme?

Yes send to Isme.

Thank you. These forums are really invaluable to people like myself. I have made a donation (albeit small!)

Hi, I still haven't heard back from Capquest with the proof of original signed credit agreement

which was requested months ago

but.....My mother has been receiving letters from them to her address addressed to my husband.

She is luckily aware of the situation and didn't open any letter, just returned to sender.

We lived at my mothers for 2 years over 6 years ago but never had any credit while living there.

I am really not sure why they would be contacting there as we have never disputed our address,

I am guessing they are phishing but phishing for what I wonder.

Also, I have had a couple of phone calls from DVSL who I understand are a phishing company that work for Capquest.

I really don't understand any of this - we have requested a copy of the signed credit agreement for Isme!!!!

Can anyone advise what they are after please?

Also, as they haven't returned a copy of the credit agreement can you tell me what position we are in

with regard to having to repay the debt?

Many thanks as always.

I have just received the credit agreement for the Littlewoods account that was also sold on the capquest,

the agreement isn't signed, it's blank - is this still relevant?

I need to send the letter off to try and reclaim some charges but just wanted to check about the unsigned credit agreement.

Thanks in advance.

Hello tizzywigs looking in as requested, I notice you say that you were resident at your mums address 6+ years ago?

No payments to any such account at any time and a blank CCA form supplied for the CCA request?

Have you checked credit reference files if ao was any thing like this allgeged account showing?

If you can confirm the above and let me know about the credit files I'll draft a letter for you that might solve the problem for you.

Hi, first off the account with Isme was correct but

as advised I sent off for the CCA which hasn't been returned,

we always had the intention of paying it but ofcourse they have added lots of interest and charges

and the balance is sitting at over £2000.

We haven't heard anything with regards to this account but keep getting post to my Mum's address

which we resided for about 2 year

- we never held the account whilst there.

We also haven't denied living at our address so not sure why they are sending letters to my Mum's

but also don't want to open and they are getting returned to sender.

Also phone calls from DVSL are odd as again we haven't hid from our address.

The littlewoods account again has lots of added charges,

I sent off the CCA just to confirm they had proof of the account and full intending to eventually make some payments

but they have sent back a 'constituted' agreement with no signature but also have proof of previous orders etc.

I just wanted to check the constituted agreement was valid and I should go ahead and request the charges back etc.

I hope all this makes sense - can't believe both accounts were passed on to Capquest as one was bad enough.

We also had a phone call this morning looking for my husband from Capquest

(I am guessing regarding the Littlewoods account) even though we have requested in writing for all contact

to be made via post rather than phone calls.

It's started to worry me again I have to admit.

Thanks very much for responding.

OK the ''reconstituted'' agreement must have:

Your name and address at the inception of the account, ditto for the creditor, ALL the Ts & Cs as at the inception of the account AND any changes/ amendments made throughout the life of the agreement and the the Ts & Cs at termination without this the ''recon'' does not statisfy section 77/78 of CCA 1974.

Credit File entries??? Date last payment please.

I haven't got access to any credit files at the moment - will have to join and have a look. I think the last payment made would have been around 8 months ago to NDR. I will have a look at the agreement they sent when my husband gets home as want to check I have looked over it correctly. Thanks, will post again in a bit.

It does appear to have everything on it that you have specified in your previous post.

Am guessing I now need to sort out the charges and then agree a payment with them?

With regard to the Isme account do you have any idea why they haven't sent the paperwork

and why they are contacting my Mum's house?

Am not sure what I need to do as they returned this other Littlewoods paperwork

in record time but nothing at all regarding the Isme one.

Am very confused!! Thanks again.

Hello, still having fun with Capquest.

I have sent off the fee to Shop Direct to request statements to try and get some charges refunded.

In the meantime Capquest contacted my husband at work again

even though they sent a letter saying all phone numbers have been removed

I sent a letter of complaint which they replied to and said they contacted via phone

as had not heard from us even though they had clearly said in their previous letter

they would not cotact via phone

sent another letter again saying that they should not have contacted my husband at work

and to confirm again they wil not make any further contact via phone

and to also advise that we had contacted Shop Direct etc.

I have just received a very snotty letter back saying they are within their rights to make telephone contact

if they have not heard from us and that they will continue to do so even though in a previous letter

they had advised all numbers had been removed from their systems.

What I am asking is are they allowed to do this or should I contact the Ombudsman

to take this further as now worried my husband will get further phone calls at work.

Thanks in advance.