Hi, In 2005 I developed long term illness and had to give up working.

To cut a long story short I owed my bank (First Trust) approx £300 (I cant remember the exact figure) for a couple of direct debits that came out of my current account at the time.

I also had a credit card (again with First Trust) and the balance on that was approx £600.

I contacted the local Citizens Advice, got a payment plan set up with a token payment of £1 per month for the current account and credit card. ( I have paid every month ever since)

At the time the Bank agreed to charge no interest on either the credit card or current account, although sadly I do not have this in writing anywere.

The bank has now sold the debt onto Asset Link Capital and I have had a letter from them asking me to setup a payment plan with them but the £300 current account debt has now grown into a £1100+ debt!

Its obvious the bank has been charging interest on this account all along.

Interestingly, the credit card debt has not had any interest added to it.

Im at a total loss as to what to do about it and would be very grateful for any help.

I do not mind paying off genuine debt that Im responsible for but to charge that amount of interest is criminal.

PS. After reading through some other cases is it feasible for me to request a CCA for the Credit card debt and I dont think a CCA would help with a current account?

Thanks in advance.

Ignore debt collection communications.

Send a Data Protection Subject Access Request to First Trust for copies of all records on the current account and credit card.

In the request letter, ask for copies of all file notes, all statements of accounts and in particular any records regarding to an agreement made in 05/06 for no interest or charges to be added. If you click on subject access request there is a link to the standard template letter.

Thanks for the reply,

I have a Subject access request from October 2014 from them ( a friend at the time was advising me on financial matters) and I can find nothing in the notes regarding interest or charges being frozen. To be honest I cant make much sense of them as its a printout of 150 so pages titled CACS report, I did find the name of the person from the CAB who dealt with this back then but after ringing them she no longer works for the CAB.

Should I request another SAR? Sorry if I seem a bit confused but my illness makes it very difficult to process information at times.

If worst comes to the worst what is my best course of action for resolving this, CCA the credit card and token payment for the current account?

Thanks again.

Ok, no point sending another.

You could write to the Bank asking them for confirmation that back in 2005/06 following intervention from Citizens advice that interest/charges were removed and no longer to be added to the account.

Don't mention the debt being sold and the issue.

Get the Bank to confirm what they agreed at the time.

so you received a letter of assignment.

Did the bank continue to send out annual statements before selling the debt on?

Does the new demand have a breakdown of how the debt is formed?

With a SAR it is supposed to be intelligible so what you received didnt meet the requirements on a SAR as they are supposed to send explanatoty text with their reams of figures.

That is a stick to beat them with but they wont be sending you it now but you have good grounds for a complaint when you ask again and get the same type of data.

That should get them a ticking off and hopefully a refund of your tenner (I know but even a small victory is still a victory).

you can ask Link for a breakdown of the amount and they will have to chase it up with First Trust or they wont be going anywhere enforcing the debt.

So, ask link for a breakdown first and then SAR to First Trust if they cant provide anything meaningful

I bet some of the original charges were unlawful so you will be able to reclaim these from Link.

They wont have paid that much for the debt so if they have to pay you say £100 that is probably more than the debt cost them and they have no way of wriggling out of it, the liabilites go with the benefits to them.

If you are lucky you get back the charges plus interest so the end result is that they will owe you more then the origianl amount, your debt is cleared and you get some cash. Wouldnt that be a result.

For the moment you pay the £1 a month if the assignment is real as per the original agreement. they will ahve to go to court to vary that and they might not have the correct paperwork to back up their decision.

Thanks so much for your answer, its a weight off my mind.

Found the exact figures for the debt and the current account was £417, the credit card £661 so on the current account there has been nearly £800 interest.

The SAR is pretty unitelligible as you mentioned, no explanatory texts or anything, just a bunch of codes and figures really.

By the way, I had PPI and insurance on the credit card so I dont know why it was never settled through the insurance.

The bank never sent me annual statements and the new demand from Link only has a total figure, no breakdown at all.

I'll follow your advice now and firstly ask link for a breakdown and SAR the bank,

should I offer to pay Link the £1 per month immediatly or wait until they give me a breakdown? Also, when I get the SAR back how do I know what charges are unlawful?

Thanks for your patience and for the advice

cash cowed blind

quite honestly id just stop paying both of them

link never own enforceable debts anyway.

a DCA is NOT A BAILIFF

and has

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS.

dx

also 1st trust were an irish bank

are you still in Ireland?

why are you blindly paying a English DCA for an irish debt???

Cheers Id be tempted to stop but couldnt handle the doorstep hassle from them,

can they not chase it through courts etc or screw up credit file if payments stopped?

Yes still in Northern Ireland dx,

most of the english dca's have agents acting on their behalf over here as well ;(

doorstep hassle?

they are NOT BALLIFFS!!

where this come from...

not been talking to these muppets have you

Thats true dx and I'll keep that in mind Going to try it re: ericsbrother and see how I get on..

... I'll keep you's posted and let you know how it plays out.

Just finished the letter asking for the breakdown so that'll get the ball rolling.

Cheers for the advice everyone, it IS appreciated.

By the way, I also have a copy of the agreement for the credit card and PPI is included in it, is it worth my while contacting the original creditor about this or should it be LINK?

I didnt have the card for very long so cant imagine Id be owed very much.

always the OC

cheers