I guess that's the "moral hazard". Thanks for the advice all. I wont be hiding and i will try and come to an agreement with them. I have always paid my debts over the years and will strive to continue to do so. It has to be said though that post 2008, with all the shocking revelations, it's a wonder that anyone bothers to pay at all isnt it.

Dealing with banks directly at the moment.

i have been living in australia over 2 years. i have unsecured debt in the UK of around £30,000 to 3 lenders - couple of credit cards with 10k and unsecured loan also of 10k. i am finding that with exchange rate changing i am now really struggling to keep up payments, though i have managed to keep paying so far with just the odd missed one now and again. i am really worried for the future though. i have read the forums about DCA's not able to obtain CCJ if person is abroad and enforce the debt and I have given Aus correspondence details to the lenders so they know where to find me of they want. the thing i am worried of is that can the creditors instead of trying the ccj route, just instead bankrupt me in my absence, and then enforce it in australia? i have very limited assets here in aus which i have worked hard to scrape together. What happens after 3 years? i understand the creditors would no longer be able to make me bankrupt in UK (nor could i apply to be bankrupt in the uk) . After 3 years,could they still try to bring a bankruptcy petition in Australia and seize any savings i have managed to scrape together here? this is causing me so much worry. i will obvioulsy keep paying what i can but starting to panic.

I'm also interested in any angles here. I am being stung for a high interest rate having left Northern Rock for Nationwide for my mortgage a few years ago (NR wouldnt let me renew as part of their plan to wind down). However my unsecured part is now at 11% or thereabouts - paying off ever so slowly. Something doesnt feel right as i never knew at the time this would happen & obviously at the time i took out the mortgage i had no intention of moving elsewhere nor leaving the unsecured part behind to be crucified by NR. It all stinks - try paying off £25 k at 11% - takes forever and i am sure they fouled up. Asking for copies of my t& c's again.

I Have Won! Settled In Full £800! This Was After Their Original Part Refund Of "anything Over A£12 Charge" - I Have Got Every Penny Of Every Charge Refunded. Case Was Transferred To Another Court , Then Barclaycard Applied For Stay Lumping The Credit Card Claim In With Normal Bank Charges One. Court Mistakenly Agreed With Them And Deffered To Jan 08 , Then Out Of The Blue - Bingo - Barclays Sent A Letter Capitulating! Think Court May Have Noticed They Were Trying To Be Clever And Hoped I Wouldn Notice - Has Taken Best Part Of A Year But Got There In The End. Hooray!

oh dear. just checked MCOL. Defence entered "late" at last minute. grrrrrr.

barclaycard have now run out of time on my small claims case. how long should i leave it after the 28 day limit to enter judgement and what is their likely reaction?

Barclaycard are outrageous and they try every trick in the book, delaying, threatening, etc they are spending far more defending the claims than the claims are worth, but they dont care. But do not give in. I waited for months too for my info and eventually got my statements. I have been given part refund 25% of my charges( diff between OFT limit and what they charged) but so dissatisfied have i been with their attitude towards this i am taking them to court for the whole £1000. best of luck to you.

Well i have to say the tone of barclaycard's responses to me so far has been absolutely disgusting and go way beyond even my cynical expectations as to how they would react, even to simple and polite, non threatening requests for information . Of course this has the effect of making me redouble my efforts. Their treatment of OFT rulings in their responses to me has been nothing short of dismissive (i'm sure they'll try and hide behind it later on when they want to charge £12 as reasonable - great - a pick and choose approach to regulation - love it). They have been defiant. They have denied they have to send me any information / statements at various points and they still deny, even in the face of the OFT ruling, that they are obliged to send microfiche statements. they have sent them to me under protest, but their bitter and arrogant response i think speaks volumes about them as a company. perhaps not a surprise the former head of barclays said he wouldnt advise getting a credit card from his own firm. they have played every delaying tactic so far. but i will not be put off. having won both my natwest current account and natwest credit card claims in full, this is my last claim, i am determined to succeed. i now have all my statements and have written to them asking them nicely to cough up and pointed out that in all previous correspondence they have expressed their intention to ignore OFT rulings, so i don't expect them to hide behind the £12 figure now and they can't have it both ways. 14 days and counting. and just as a prelude, a well placed source in the courts told me at the weekend that Barclaycard have even tried to counterclaim against customers trying to recover their credit card charges from them, which slightly makes Cobbetts look like pussycats(see natwest threads) . but as yet, nothing has come to court.............. will update again soon .

you are nearly there. just wait a few more days. you should get a court date confirmed in the next couple of weeks, but before that natwest are likely to settle. Jimmy

No they just said if i couldnt accept their terms and conditions then i'd have to just openh a basic account . it was more of a statement than anything ele. they are not supposed to do this retaliatory action but i did open a parachute account with overdraft matching facility, etc, just in case. i am a private banking customer with NW and have a good credit rating these days (hadnt incurred any bank charges in the last 12 months anyway) and have been with them for 15 years, so i dont reckon i'll be first in line to get chopped by them.

In the prelim letter and LBA i accidentally included 3 historic charges which were "out of time" , and so i removed them when i filled out the MCOL and I just charged 6 years from the date i first raised the issue with them which was in November. However my first charge was not until the February 2001 i think so i was within the limit for all charges anyway, i hadnt had a charge since well before this, my LBA, prelim had included charges from mid 2000 in error but of course these werent in the final claim. In short though , as far as i understand you are able to recover 6 years charges from when you first raised the issue with them - this is so that they dont use the law to talk you "out of time" on the charges. Best of luck, i'm sure you will meet with sucess as well, just a few days to wait hopefully.

Thanks Guys. V happy about all this. Best of luck to everyone with their own claims. J

I have won! Got cheque through from Cobbetts in (nearly) the full sum of £2,700+ at the weekend. With a very bitter letter of their non-admission of liability. This is slightly less than i claimed as they didn't include my AQ fee but have since spoken with them and they are going to send me that separately & that will make it up to £2,850. I'm so relieved i didn't crumble when Natwest offered me full settlement but no interest and no costs the other week, i had my withdrawal of rejection offer letters all typed up and ready to go but just waited a few more days and it was worth it. Advice to others is keep in there and don't weaken as you will get it in the end if you face squarely up to them as per all the advice on this site. I will be donating some money to this site as i would have struggled a bit without the help of people on here, even though i have some knowledge of courts and am not easily intimidated, it can be scary doing this kind of thing. Thanks to all who have helped me, Parkvale, Josamolly, Brownie 24 and Jonni2 bad! Hopefully the cheque will now clear!

see your point. well i am being magnanamous on this one and allowing them the "extra" time, though obviously i will pursue vigoorously when that runs out - have written and told them this. Don't worry i will go in all guns blazing at the deadline and will try and get Mr Whalley in jail!