Only for £80 which is nothing compared to some on this forum,

but just wanted to share my personal *win* with knowledge and foresight provided by this site

For some time i had a Citi/Opus credit card and kept it in a manageable level.

At around May 2012 I left my family home at the start of a very bitter divorce proceedings.

The details are unimportant other than at the same time to this I thought I had paid off the Credit Card completely and even destroyed it.

Unfortunately due to the bitter divorce, letters that Opus had been sending me were not passed on (destroyed?) by my wife.

My first hint of a problem was that I received a letter from Lowell informing me that I now owned them over £80.

I immediately asked them for details , not a formal Prove it letter as I wanted to seem a bit naive .

This resulted in a copy of statements from Opus going back to about October 2012.

The problem was that every statement consisted only of late payments and interest adding up to about £50 of the £80 demanded. Not a single mention of the original debt

There then followed many rounds of politely asking for statements going back to the original debt, with a response of either 'pay us' letters, copies of the part statements or even the original agreement at one point ( even though I hadn't even asked for it)

This came to a head when they managed to find my telephone number and called.

They made the mistake of saying that if I wanted the original debt statement that it would be my responsibility to to submit a SAR to Opus and 'its not their problem'

I then sent them a heavy hitting letter,

pointing out their statuary responsibilities,

their onus of proof,

revoking any contact by telephone etc

and refusing to respond any further unless they provided either original debt proof, or started court action.

They caved immediately and i received a No Further Action in the post today

And that original debt?

I still don't have the faintest clue what it was for.

But extrapolating back it must have been for less than £5

Thats a 1600% overcharge fail for Opus/Lowell in the bag

Received a letter from Opus informing me that they had registered a default with credit reference agencies

The top of the letter shows the line "Outstanding balance: £0.00"

even says that they are required to notify me before registering a defauly, but due to a systems error, this did not take place

go on to excuse themselves by saying that it was filed correctly

because "it is the account status that drives your the registration process, not the giving of filing of notice"

Background. I had a Opus Credit card and paid it of fully ( or so I thought).

I was only contacted by Lowell at a later stage with the purchased debt, of which the statement only showed multiple fees and late payments which had risen to a level of about £100 .

I disputed this with them stating that I had paid the Credit card off off and insisted that they show the original "debt" rather than just the late fees.

This, after many letters back and forth, they were unable to do and eventually after a "take me to court then" letter they then wrote off the debt

Now, I obviously want to dispute this. What is my best course of action at this stage?

(if you need a letter scanned i'll do this later if necessary)

old and new threads merged and moved to the citi forum.

so, is there a default on your credit file?

dx

Ive got to say, that's quite impressive - linking to my last post on this from over 2 1/2 years ago! Wow

Anyway - Ive done a ClearScore and have 10 positive factors, 0 negative. No changes in 2016

Does this mean the default was not filed, or that it hasn't had time to register?

or that the debt was defaulted more than 6yrs ago and has been removed

issuing a supposed new default cant make it come back

just for reference

you are the 2nd person to say they've got a strange letter from opus re a default that's going to be registered [again] recently...

dx

Well, it wasn't more than 6 years ago.

Off the top of my head it was somewhere in 2013.

I don't know exactly as ive only ever corresponded with Lowell's and have received no correspondence with Opus until this single letter. So I don't think this is an "again" letter.

It does seem strange that they think they can file a default on a debt they've sold on and also state is for an outstanding balance of of £0.00

Any thoughts as to how to respond?

I think its an admin error

they certainly cant retro issue a default

and certainly not for a £0 bal.

easily sorted via the ICO IF something does happen.

keep an eye on your Credit file

pers i'd not respond