Hi Catherine.

This is highly typical of Lowell. In fact I was at this stage a couple of Months ago with them, from a Next Debt. In my situation they went a stage further and sent an agreement with my signature on. It was actually more like something a 5 year old could put together on word. I would expect this to follow soon! Let me show you the text of the Email I sent them that got them to close the account and mark the debt as paid on my Credit file. If they are not sending you constant threat o grams then that part of the complaint is irrelevant . Right now they haven't given you what you asked for which needs to be at the very least is a reconstituted agreement. This needs to be legible, and have dated terms and conditions that were in force at the beginning of the agreement. On the correspondence there should be a complaints email address, which they are actually surprisingly good at responding to, providing you qoute the agreement numbers etc in the subject line. I would wait a few days to see if the so called agreement arrives before sending anything.

This is the second Lowell debt I have had closed this year, and I might get flamed by some more experienced heads on here, but I was on the phone to them all the time following up agreements etc I wouldn't recommend it but I think it helped waste a lot of their time, further contributing to their decision to close the accounts. (Forgive me but I enjoyed winding their agents up)

Dear Liam

Thanks for your reply,

Re - Your Findings

I refer you the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) hand books in relation to S.77, S78 and S79 of the CCA. Please feel free to look this up yourself

1. (1)

Failure to comply with the provisions means that the agreement becomes unenforceable while the failure to comply persists, and the courts have no discretion to allow enforcement.

2. (2)

In such cases, a firm should in no way, either by act or omission, mislead a customer as to the enforceability of the agreement.

3. (3)

In particular, a firm should not in such cases either threaten court action or other enforcement of the debt or imply that the debt is enforceable when it is not.

I'd say the letter you sent out on 4th July 2017 (plus several others) ' Close your account for £446' might be seen by a judge as number 1, 2 and 3 on that list. Looks like 'enforcement' to me.

Moving on to the 'agreement' you have sent me. I understand that under a post 2007 agreement you are entitled to put together a reconstituted agreement, but what you have sent me is illegible. OFT Guidelines below.

2 Legibility of notices and copy documents and wording of prescribed Forms

(1) The lettering in every notice in a Form prescribed by these Regulations and in every copy of an executed agreement, security instrument or other document referred to in the Act and delivered or sent to a debtor, hirer or surety under any provision of the Act shall, apart from any signature, be easily legible and of a colour which is readily distinguishable from the .

You have also breached the following guidelines by trying to mislead me into believing this is not a reconstituted agreement. No original document would be lacking a date either on the agreement or in the T&C's. You have failed to provide any evidence that these T&c's were valid at the beginning of this agreement. As an aside I have never seen an actual agreement without a credit limit !

1. (2)

The firm can reconstitute a copy. It can do this by re-populating a template of the relevant agreement form with the details of the specific agreement taken from its records. If the firm does provide a reconstituted copy, it should explain that that is what it has done, to avoid misleading the customer that this is a contemporaneous copy.

My conclusion

Right now I am at a total loss as to what this debt is all about, I've asked you to produce evidence of this alleged debt. I've asked for a copy of the original agreement, and have finally received something a 5 year old could have cobbled together in an English lesson. During this period you've been harassing me and sending payment demands and illegally sharing my data with third parties ie CRA's. I now feel like you are trying to extract money with menaces. Unfortunately the only option for me is to move forward with an Financial Ombudsman / Information Commissioner complaint

Love it, London!! We don't propose to send anything at all to them unless some sort of "agreement" shows up, or yes, an "offer" like the one you received. All that came with the pile of statements was a compliments slip, with reminders of reference numbers on it, not even a date or a contact name.

id not be starting pointless letter tennis

Absolutely not, dx - we don't propose to send them anything unless some sort of "agreement" shows up, or they send some sort of other communication. There was only a compliments slip with the pile of statements with reference numbers on it, no name or date.

I agree DX100UK but, I wanted this off my credit file, and now it is! If I wasn't trying to get a mortgage in the next year or so I would have left it alone. I've also been terribly bitten by backdoor CCJ's in the past so am perhaps a little more aggressive than needs be.

rarely do we see debts being removed because a dca has no enforceable paperwork

there is usually another reason for them doing it.

Yep I am a suspicious so and so about those Lowell slime buckets.

1. Both debts were pretty small £400 and 800 ish respectively.

2. The first one really didn't have any paperwork, and I also probably cost them more than that in time with my pnonecalls

3 The second's one agreement was genuinely terrible, I cost them loads in calls and it was going to leave my creditfile in July '18 anyway

Now I am having a lot more difficulty with Cabot and Capquest right now, and those debts have years left to run.

Caboot are easier to see off than Lowell .....I assure you:-)

And a further little update!

Following receipt of the chunk of statements, but no copy of an agreement,

my husband has received a "follow-up" letter from Lowlife,

saying that, as they have now complied with his request,

they would put the matter on hold until 24th September, and wait to hear from him.

Quite apart from the fact that no agreement has arrived,

the statements didn't arrive until more than 100 days after his CCA request,

so we don't see how they've complied at all.

Please could you advise me how best to deal with this latest letter?

Thank you so much. Catherine.

See post #23 above

ignore

they've not complied

dx

With the greatest pleasure, dx! Andyorch - it's just what they say in their letter - I presume that they mean that they won't "progress" anything their end until after 24th September, but then, who knows?

With the greatest pleasure, dx! Andyorch - it's just what they say in their letter - I presume that they mean that they won't "progress" anything their end until after 24th September, but then, who knows?

There is nothing to progress except further mind numbing letters of threat and harassment...the only time you take this crew seriously is if and when they issue a court claim...the rest you can completely ignore.

Cheers, andyorch - I was fairly sure that "filing" it was the best thing. No doubt there will be more tripe from them in future with regard to this - we feel far more confident about dealing with it, thanks to all of you. Catherine.

Yet another little update

- as I suspected,

Lowell have jumped in with a letter reminding my husband that they sent him absolutely nothing like what was requested on the CCA (and nowhere near within the time limit), and that they had expected to hear from him regarding how he proposed to pay off "his" debt.

I'm inclined to do nothing about this,

since they must know that they've not complied,

but the only thing bothering me is that he's just out of hospital (yet again),

and I don't want him to be stressing over something like this.

Can I reasonably tell him that we should let things lie for the time being?

Thank you all yet again.

Catherine.

Nothing to do. It is just a standard letter. Lowells don't often respond to letters and just file them. Why give them any details of arguments you might make about the CCA they sent.

Thank you unclebulgaria - I was hoping you'd say that!

Post 38 applies

Indeed - thank you so much dx, as always. I just wanted to be able to reassure hubby, really.

My husband received a letter from Lowell at the weekend offering him a 30% discount. Am I right to assume that he should continue to ignore them at this point?

Yes until you get one with 95% discount:-)

Ha ha, andyorch!! That'll be the day!