Me and my partner moved to the uk from Sweden in 2011 we have lived here without any problems all of a sudden a letter shows up at the door claiming my partner owes

Debt amount £2686.45

Interest £1235.91

Balance due £3958.36

a week later another one showed up from Sweden stating the debt was estimated £1100 and how are we going to pay.

Both letters are for the same "creditor" but I will be honest when I say I think I would remember owing a company £4000 its not like £20.

I have asked other groups some are saying to ignore the letters, others are saying I should just return them. I tried national debtline but all they are concerned with is me paying it.

I thank anyone willing to help.

Who is the creditor?

Who has written the letter?

CLI chase foreign debts in the UK

you are safe to totally ignore them.

dx

don't forget the golden rule with all DCA's

they ARE NOT BALIFFs

and have

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS.

dx

In addition, according to FCA records that i could find, they are not licenced by the FCA to undertake debt collection activity in the UK.

They had a temporary licence back in 2010 i believe, but that expired.

So not sure on what basis they are operating.

Seems dubious to me.

Might be worth referring them to ICO if they persist, as if no license to collect debt in the UK they will be probably unlawfully processing your data.

I will have to check the creditor details when I get home, CLI wrote the letter

You can find a template letter on there website

my partner believes its a bill for an apartment we rented 5 years ago. But I am. Sure all outstanding bills where paid when we moved, I think what has thrown me off is the fact we have 2 different companies chasing the same debt but different amounts. I obviously don't want to contact them directly until I know more but I feel if they believe this to be a debt I owe surely they would have to provide me itemised billing etc

Yes they would have to tell you what it is.

There is nothing stopping a Swedish creditor applying to a UK court to start a claim and to send you a claim.

There is an EU wide debt collection agreement and they don't need an existing court judgement in Sweden.

I suspect the reason they have not done this, is they did not want to pay a UK Solicitors and they don't really think they have much chance of receiving payment of the debt.

CLI just seem to sell letter templates for foreign creditors to use. There is no serious intention of collecting the debt by any necessary means.

Which was not in this country??

No the apartment was not in the UK

Then as I said ignore

best ignored Unless you get a claimform from a UK solicitor.

Update: Ignored the letters, they said they would send a doorstep collector, no one ever came now today I received a new letter

Final notice before court proceedings

Unless payment is received in 7 days we will instruct solicitors to issue a claim, I will scan the letters and upload them tonight they actually made alot of typos on one of them.

I tried contacting step change but they can't offer me any advice on international debts.

Any help and assistance will be appreciated

you don't need step change or anyone ...

I can instruct my dog to sit

if it does and if they will do as they are instructed are two totally separate things.

ignore

This letter changes nothing.

CLI cannot start any court claim. It would be up to the foreign creditor and they can issue a UK court claim if they wished to do so.

CLI don't appear to hold any authorisation from regulators to chase debts in the UK or to handle any proceeds from debt collection. All they seem to do, is offer foreign creditors template standard letters. If they then get any response, you would be put in touch with the foreign creditor.

Thanks for the information I think it just rattled me a little.

I will try figure out this scanner and copy the documents over