Good afternoon!

My husband has received the above two documents

(I am hopefully attaching redacted scans to this post)

and, as he's currently in hospital,

I need to try and deal with them in his absence.

I presume we should respond in some way,

although I'm not totally convinced that this debt is his

- he says he doesn't recall taking out a credit card with Home Retail Group.

I certainly don't want to phone them or email them!

It's clearly not statute-barred, as it dates from 2012.

My hubby says that he can recall getting "some guff or other" (his words!) from Lowell in the past,

but because he didn't know what they were talking about,

he ignored it.

Therefore, I haven't a hope of identifying what might have been received previously, or not.

Your always excellent advice would be very much appreciated as to my next step.

Scan Lowell 2.pdf

Scan Lowell 1.pdf

I guess that you do not have access to your husbands credit report ? If not, perhaps you can ask him whether you can access it for him, so you can see what debts are registered.

I doubt Lowell would respond to any letter from you about the debt, but you could send a standard letter to Lowell asking for more information, just printing your husbands name and not signed by him. This is the letter. You could amend it to state that you believe a miss trace has happened, as no account has been taken out with Home Retail Group to your knowledge.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?387363-You-know-nothing-of-the-Debt-Prove-It-**Updated-21st-April-2014**

Get proof of posting from post office counter.

The danger in not responding at all, is that at some stage, it will get passed to Lowells Solicitors who will eventually issue a court claim.

Attachments hidden

Not properly redacted

So an old Argos credit card then

When was his last use or payment??

Ah! Argos would make sense

- how on earth did I miss that?

Please put it down to stress, dx,

that and the fact that I neglected to totally redact

- my apologies.

I know he had an Argos card some years ago,

I'll check that with him,

and ask if I can check his credit report.

As you can imagine,

he's not really at his best at the moment.

I will take a good look at the link posted by Uncle Bulgaria and at least hold them at bay with a request for further information.

Dx - until I've had a bit more of a delve,

no idea about the last payment made.

If indeed it is his card,

then I suspect it would have been around the time he was made redundant,

about 18 months ago.

He's since been forced to retire because of his continuing poor health,

which is really why I want to try and sort this out in some way,

even if it means setting up some payment plan via Lowlife.

Many thanks for your responses, dx and Bulgaria.

If it was Argos, was it just in his name or were you a second card holder ?

If it was taken out in 2012, then it would be pretty easy for Lowell to get a CCJ, as they don't need the original signed CCA. Given Lowells probably only paid 10% of the debts value, you might be able to negotiate a full and final settlement, rather than enter into a repayment over a long period.

Hi, unclebulgaria - unless the full and final settlement was about a tenner,

that might not be possible,

I totally get what you're saying!

He's got no savings,

and his redundancy pay out was under £2000,

not a lot of that left now.

He's actually on the standard old age pension now,

doesn't have any other income,

we'd be looking at quite a small amount each month or whatever.

We'll see what happens when I ask them for some further information.

I've never had an Argos card,

and certainly not been named on this one,

if indeed it is his.

Don't go blindly writing not even contemplate paying till you get all the info you can

Then comeback here first

Don't go blindly writing not even contemplate paying till you get all the info you can

 

Then comeback here first

No, certainly not, dx

- I've printed off the template letter,

and will be composing something around that to send off asking for further information.

I'm seeing hubby this evening in the hospital,

so hope to take a draft in to him.

We're not going to rush anything,

and yes,

I will certainly post up here again.

Thank you so much for your help so far.

Here is what I have drafted so far, using the template as guidance:

[template removed please read its top line - dx]

if you are going to send anything

it will be a CCA request

don't go inviting silly letter tennis by sending that letters...waste of time.

That's fair comment, dx - I'll sort out the CCA and scrap the letter for the time being. My apologies yet again for my rubbish redaction skills.....!

Good morning again! I propose to send the following CCA request - do please tell me if I've made any blunders! It's obviously in draft form:

[removed - dx]

yes you made one big blunder

can you spot it on the top line in RED??

[the 2nd time you've done this....]

dx

Point taken, dx - I am hanging my head as I type.

I shall now attempt to improve my shameful performance in respect of asking your advice and seeming to totally ignore the completely clear instructions regarding the template letters. I have typed up a CCA request under Section 78 of the Act - am I OK to attach a redacted copy of my draft?

the CCA other than filling in your details needs nothing to be checked upon..

Bless you, thanks dx - taking it to Hubby in Hospital for his approval later today, and will post tomorrow with the postal order.

Just a little update, as I managed to enrage all you wonderful people on here with my clumsy attempts at submitting requests to Lowlife. So far, my husband has received a letter from them telling him that they are attempting to acquire a copy of the "original documentation" from the original debt owner. I understand that there is a deadline of forty days from us receiving their letter? That means they've got until around 30th June.

Thank you all again for your help with this, I really appreciate it. Catherine.

they have 12+2 working days end of!!

And until they comply with enforceable paperwork stop paying if you were

Hey, dx! No, he's paid nothing.

Very nice to know it's a mere 12 days plus 2

- that means they're already well out of date.

40 days is what Lowlife mentioned in their letter to my husband, in reference to the original creditor.

Going by reports, it can be many months before a CCA is provided and often they never get around to it.

A teeny update on this one.

My husband had a letter from Lowlife telling him that, thus far, they've not received a copy of the agreement from the original creditor.

This arrived on Thursday last week.

Of course, being the diligent souls that they are, they say that they will continue to press for the information, but in the meantime, the account has been put on hold.

Intriguingly, he received a letter from the OC on Saturday saying that there were charges applied to the account they sold to Lowells which should not have been applied, and that they have therefore written to tell Lowells this. Whether this affects the "on hold" status of the account, I don't know.

On " hold " from what ?

That's what they said in their letter, Andyorch - "until such time as we receive this information, the account has been put on hold". It was really just me wondering how Lowlife might construe the copy of the letter from the OC - perhaps I'm far too suspicious for my own good.

Good morning!

I'm just posting another little update on this.

The last my husband heard from Lowlife was back in June, when they said that, whilst they'd been unable as yet to obtain a copy of any agreement, they would continue to try to do so, and therefore the account was on hold for the time being.

It's around 65 days since that contact.

On Friday, a "Signed For" envelope arrived for him - it was from Lowlife, a whole chunk of copied statements, no sign of any agreement at all.

Am I correct to think that they are well out of time now for responding to his CCA request, and that the account would still be on hold?

Does he need to respond in some way to Lowlife?

As always, my grateful thanks to you all. Catherine.