Hello.

I took out a payday loan with MiniCredit on the 19th April 2011 and despite the interest was in a financial position to repay the loan so was happy to take it out. However, shorty after taking out the loan me and my partner split up.

As a result of the breakdown of my relationship, I was neither in the financial or emotional state to deal with the debt. I realise that it was very foolish (stupid even!) but due to the uphevel I was experiencing, I buried my head in the sand with regards to this matter and it has now spiralled out of control and I cant sleep for worry.

The original loan was for £100 but now with penalty charges and interest (on a seemingy daily basis) the debt now stands at £594. There is no way I can afford this amount and having just spoken to them on the phone they stated that I have 30 days to either pay a settlement offer of £450 or they will take legal action against me.

I cannot afford the £450 and am terrified at the thought of being taken to court by them and be forced to pay the court costs and outstanding balance (by which time I dread to think what the outstanding balance would be - probably over £1000 though I assume). There is no chance I could afford to pay for a solicitor if I went to court and as I don't drive I'm not even sure I could afford the train travel costs to get to whatever court I have to appear in.

I am about to send them an email pleading with them to accept a settlement offer of £200 in the hope that this may end the worry.

If anyone could give me some advice on what steps to take after this I would be extremely grateful to you.

EDIT: I have just tried to email them but I log into my account, click on 'contact', 'existing customer' then it askes me to log in and then it just repeats - there doesn't seem to be a way of emailing them. Is there an email address.

collections @ minicredit.co.uk worked for me when I had to get in touch (remove the spaces).

don't stress over this, you're not the first person to get in a mess and won't be the last - i'm negotiating with 6 companies at the moment...

have you had contact from a DCA or just minicredit so far?

Hello Sarah.

When I log into my account it shows as 'Debt Collection' so not sure if it has been passed onto one now or not but as yet, I have only had contact from MiniCredit.

I've done a bit of reading around the forums on these lovely people - I didn't have to have much to do with them as I paid within a day.

It seems they are generally refusing repayment plans, which is not on.

I can offer you a bit of help until someone else comes along:

e-mail them what you think is a REASONABLE repayment plan, ie, don't offer them more than you can comfortably afford. They will more than likely say no, but keep at it. If it were to end up in court, it can be shown that you have attempted to resolve the issue.

They also claim not to use a DCA but threaten doorstep collections. Again, not on.

Personally, I'd report them to Trading Standards and The Office Of Fair trading.

Oh, and do they still have your debit card details? PDL companies have been known to help themselves - cancel and block your card.

I've tried emailing MiniCredit (twice now) via collections @ hotmail.co.uk from my hotmail account and on both occations it has come back unsent. Is there another email address I could use? Or a postal address I could send a registered letter to?

Thankyou.

hiya ian, if you log onto your minicredit account and click on FAQ and then click on other subject (or similar) send your question and you should get a reply x

Thanks for the help guys.

I have finally managed to get a reply from Minicredit after sending them an email via my account (as suggested by indebt00).

Below is a copy and paste of the email I receieved back from them.

I'm at a loss as what to do now as the outstanding balane is now £607.00 and I can't afford to repay that amount. What advice can anyone provide please.

Thankyou

----------------------------------------------

Dear Ian.

MiniCredit does not provide payment plans.

All the charges will be added until full repayment and the account should be cleared within 90 days from the due date to avoid legal action.

We accept partly payments You make on Your MiniCredit.co.uk account, but we do not offer payment plans and freeze the balance.

All payments have to be made by a debit card according to the Loan Agreement. The possibility to make payments using a different debit card once only is provided on Your MiniCredit.co.uk account.

We will postpone the visit of the doorstep collector (each visit costs £100) for another 30 days and so on after every partly payment, but the loan should be cleared by the 90th day overdue.

To make us a settlement offer please give us a call on the number 0871 890 3015 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 0871 890 3015 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Kind regards

MiniCredit.co.uk

Client Support Team

Good Morning.

My Minicredit Balance now stands at £611 (original loan £100)

I sent a message to Minicredit yesterday with a settlement offer of £150. In this message I stated that I wished to conduct all communication in writting and having spoken to one of there customer service representatives on one occation, it is an experience I do not wish to repeat (this is the fourth time I had stated that to them).

Despite this, I received the following reply from them

-------------------------------------

Dear Ian Phillips

To make us a settlement offer please give us a call on the number 0871 890 3015

Kind regards

MiniCredit.co.uk

Client Support Team------------------------------------

I have now sent them another message to them stating that I do not wish to contact them via telephone and wish to keep everything in writting. I also stated my settlement offer again of £150.

Am I within my rights not to contactthem via telephone?Where can I go from here if they insist on me phoning them?

Thankyou

I realise there's not much contribution from anyone else besides me but I'll keep posting an development in the hope someone can help me.

Having sent them the message this morning confirming that I wished to conduct all correspondence in writing and again offering them a £150 settlement fee, I received the following from them.

--------------------------------------------

Dear Ian Phillips

To make us a settlement offer You would need to do it over the phone because if we find the offer sufficient enough to accept it as a full and final settlement we will take the payment right then and there over the phone.

Considering the loan amount You applied for and that You have had the funds for three months without any payments the offer £150 we are only able to accept as a partly payment but not as the full and final settlement.

Kind regards

MiniCredit.co.uk

Client Support Team

--------------------------------------------------

I have now sent them another message, again stating that I have no desire to repeat the unpleasent experience of speaking to one of thier customer services representatives and my desire to make an offer in writting.

I again offered them the settlement amount of £150 which I stated upon written confirmation that this was acceptable would make the payment -although from the above email it seems that this is not going to be enough for them, so I have also requested what amount they consider fair to resolve this matter.

Thanks for reading and any help

hi, i have been in the same boat as you since december with minicredit, 100pound debt now like 800pound, they threatened court action about 2 months ago but i have not heard a peep from them since. I even stopped making token payments as these were not even close to clearing their daily charges. Now I have no idea what my debt currently is as it says my accounts blocked. In my opinion dont be afraid of any of their threats as they never carry through with them (ie debt collectors) and i have recently discovered that they run their bussiness out of a pizza shop in london, which makes them sound even more of a joke to me.Let me know how you get on

Tim

Good morning all.

I received the 'FINAL NOTICE BEFORE LEGAL ACTION' letter from Minicredit this morning.

The total balance due is noe £624 (although the website states £654). The letter is dated 17th July 2011 but unfortunately, it only arrived this morning.

'Despite all our efforts you have chosen not to settle our above account.

We have no alternative but to escalate the matter. If full payment is not made by the close of business on the 27th July 2011 the matter will be referred to our legal team. There will be additional legal charges added to your account.

On the 6th of August 2011 we will mark default status on you credit file.

Also be aware that forthcoming CCJ on your name affects severly your ability to receieve credit in the future.'

I sent them another messsage via thier site listing all the attempts I have made to settle the outstanding debt and it is them that have chosen not to settle (numerous emails, offers of repayment plans, emails via the site with final offers etc).

I also offered them £200 in my final attempt to resolve this matter (I wish i could afford more to end it but that is my limit and if that is not accepted them what course they take is upto them.

I guess that's all I can do for now then, just wait and see.....right?

I'm assuming it seems likely that they will pursue this in court. Is there anything I need to start doing now to prepare myself? (I have kept a copy of every email I sent them and the ones they sent me. I have also taken a screen print of every message I have sent them via their website).

Many thanks

The ball is in your court, if you want to stop paying them and they take you to court they would be stuffed.... I still don't think you complained 'properly' as other people have had good results.

I can't help any further now unless they go to court.

Well Minicredit have refused my improved offer of settlement

To make us a settlement offer please give us a call on the number 0871 890 3015 / 0871 890 3015

£200.00 is not sufficient enough as the full and final settlement. At the moment Your outstanding balance is £657.00 and You have 10 days to clear the balance before Legal action.

Kind regards

MiniCredit.co.uk

Client Support Team

In addition to the above email declining my offer, I also receieved the following email from them this morning which gives a breakdown of the balance.

1) You took out the loan for £100.00

2) The first penalty of £25 was added on the 9th of May 2011

3) The second penalty of £55 was added on the 11th of May 2011

4) Interest is 1% of the loan amount per day in total £98.00

5) Attempt fees (when our system attempts to receive the funds from Your debit card) £3.00 per every empty attempt in total £279.00

6) Debt expense recovery fee of £100.00 that was added on the 30th overdue date when the matter was given to a doorstep collector.

In total outstanding balance at the moment is £657.00

At the moment You are refusing to make partly payments although You were told that we accept any partly payments towards the balance until we start Legal action.

The due date was on the 8th of May 2011 and the loan has been overdue for 79 days already. The maximum time that we are willing to postpone any further action is for 10 days if a partly token payment is made immediately.

The Court will also see that You have not made any payments towards the balance voluntarily and it will also be taken into consideration and provides us the possibility to claim the Attachment of Earnings for the County Court Judgement.

We are willing to consider the possibility to accept a settlement offer. Please call us when You have the neccessary funds to make a settlement offer and if it is agreed, the payment has to be made immediately. We will postpone Legal action until the 5th of July2011 and expect Your phonecall from Monday to Friday on the number 0871 890 3015 / 0871 890 3015 between 9am and 5pm.

(I noticed that they said that Im 79 days overdue yet at the figure of £3 per attempted debit card charge means they have tried 93 times in that period - so more then once daily)

As they haven't, as yet, passed my case on or started legal proceedings, should I contine to email / message them offereing the £200 or a repayment plan even though they have made themselves very clear they are not willing to accept neither) or should I just go quiet on the issue and wait for the next step from them?

Thanks so much for all the help everyone, you have really helped lessen some of the stress this whole thing has caused me.

Just a quick update but nothing of note really: Had an answer phone message left for me again today (despite me telling them on numerous occasions that I do not wish to conduct any communication via telephone) asking me to 'please, please can you fund your card or access your account to make a payment'.

Much more polite then when I had the misfortune of speaking to them before.

im in exactly the same situation, minicredit dont listen to anything and are not helpful at all.i also complained and got the same response.

Well, according to their latest email and letter (posted above) as of close of business today they are now starting legal proceedings against me.

I will of course post any developments here in the hope anyone can help.

Those charges are DISGUSTING. You need to communicate with them only in writing. You only owe them the amount of the loan plus one months interest....that is all.

They cannot take what you have not got and they will not take you to court.

Well, according to their latest email and letter (posted above) as of close of business today they are now starting legal proceedings against me.

 

I will of course post any developments here in the hope anyone can help.

What will probably happen is that they will pass it on to Fredrickson International. Don't worry this doesn't mean anything and they can be ignored as well. They'll add daft charges too, just to forewarn you. They know as well as minicredit do that there's no way they'll be able to enforce what they're after so just wait for them to be sensible. If they don't then you don't have to pay anything!

If they do take you to court then DEFINITELY don't ignore that as a no show will be seen as a win for them and you'll have to pay. Just tell the judge what happened and he/she should find in your favour.

As i said before it's unlikely to get that far but Fredrickson's know that if the send 250 or so of these, then a number of those won't reply and they'll get an easy victory which then grants them 'bailiff power'.

The charges can be defended in court AND you can ask for the person signing the emails to be present in court for formal questioning as part of your defence (will cost £35) but it is worth it... they won't like having to justify themselves one little bit.,

I can help with a defence should they carry out their threat, a nice simple defence which will question their right to take court action. Pre court protocols state you have to come to an arrangement, (which you have tried to do at an early stage) and if not then it is mediation - again they won't like having to justify the charges on an already front loaded interest high short term loan.

Hi sillygirl1.

If it does go to court I would be extremely grateful for any help and assistance you could provide me as I really have no idea what to do having never had any dealngs with courts etc before.

Thankyou so much for your offer and as always, I will post any updates here.

Hi Ian , you havent posted in a little while and I was wondering if anything had changed in your situtaion?

regards

Tim

Hiya Tim.

There hasn't really be any development. Aside from a couple of answerphone messages left for me by them since I last posted, the only other thing was a letter that arrived the other day dated the 7th of Aug I think.

It stated that I had chosen not to pay (this despite my numeorus attempts to come to a resolution with them) and the next letter I will receive will be from the court. It stated that the outstanding balance was £695 (I checked my account today and it is now £736).

There is obviously nothing else I can do to try an come to an agreement with them so unfortunately, I've given up and am simply waiting for it to be passed on to a DCA (who will hopefully be more sensible) or it goes to court.

As always, I will post any development

Hello all.

I had a letter from Fredrickson International Limited working on behalf of Minicredit this morning (I have also had a few phone calls from them and a few texts messages).

They state the outstanding amount they are looking to recover is £804.00.

Any advice with regards to what to do now?

Has anyone had any dealings with them? Are they likely to accept a MUCH reduced settlement offer?

Also, I dont really want to deal with them over the phone so does anyone have an email address for them?

Thanks for any help.

Is there an email address for Fredricksons? If it's possible to come to an agreement with them I'd much prefer to do that.

Freds will pass you onto their stablemates Bryan Carter, he is easily dealt with and will head straight to court, but once your defence is in he will discontinue. Don't fret about Freds, they are useless.