I am looking for advice for my husband and I over a matter that resulted from a mistake on my part regarding the full payment owed to Open + Direct under a "buy now, pay in a year" scheme started on 28th December 2002. As the household typist, I deal with all correspondence even if my name is not on it, so my husband as debtor signed all of the letters we sent to them, usually without reading them, as for 35 years I had never got it wrong so he trusted my accountancy and correspondence skills. There is always a first time….. I sent a cheque to Open + Direct for £1000 “in full and final settlement” on 12th December 2003 by Special Delivery post, to arrive by 6th January 2004, the “cut-off date before the credit agreement kicked in, not realising that I had picked up an agreement from the previous year with the same company, which was for £1000 (and which had been paid already). I should have sent them £1300 to clear the current outstanding amount. When my husband telephoned them just before Christmas 2003, Open + Direct stated that they had received our cheque and the account was cleared. On 30th December 2003 my husband telephoned Open + Direct to enquire when he could expect to receive their letter confirming the clearance of the agreement, and was told that no cheque had been received. I had checked and knew that the Special Delivery letter had been received by Open + Direct on 14th December 2003. However, not wanting charges to kick in, I sent another cheque for £1000 Recorded Delivery, and confirmed that it was received on 2nd January 2004. So they had two cheque totalling £2000 for a £1300 debt, and we expected £700 back, less, no doubt, a small administration charge for their inconvenience (whether justified or not). My husband telephoned them on 2nd January and they confirmed receipt of the second £1000 cheque “in full and final settlement” of the debt. I cancelled the Direct Debit in late January 2004, signed at the time of the original agreement, as the debt had been paid in full as far as we were concerned. On 9th February 2004 my husband received a letter from Open + Direct stating that they had added £25 to our account for doing this. What account? We checked the agreement and discovered my mistake, but they had received two cheques totalling £2000 so where was the problem. Apparently they had now “lost” one so the credit agreement began for the outstanding £300. I wrote to them on 11th February 2004 stating that we thought them disingenuous for stating on two separate occasions that they had received the cheques and then “losing” one, putting us in debt. It was clear from both my letters that we believed the £1000 to be the amount owed “in full and final settlement”. They could have at least alerted my husband just after Christmas 2003 when he spoke with them on the telephone that £1000 would not clear the debt, so that at least the second cheque could have been made out for the correct amount. We were so disgusted that we sent them £355.69 to pay for a ‘fridge taken out on a similar agreement the previous September, which still had six months to run. We could have paid the full amount of £1300 and can prove this financially I sent a Recorded Delivery letter to Open + Direct on 21st May 2004, demanding some response from them, as we had heard nothing from them since the original agreement was taken out, other than their letter regarding the cancelled direct debit. They responded on 27th May 2004 saying that if we paid them £1913.39 (for the outstanding £300) they would accept it as a special offer, because the £1000 just stopped our account from going into arrears. We actually owed them £3105.96. What!!! On 9th July 2004 my husband dictated a letter stating that is must be obvious to them that it had been a genuine mistake on my part, and asking what had happened to the second £1000? He also asked them to spell his name correctly, something they seemed incapable of doing. No response from them whatsoever was received.. On28th May 2005 we received a letter dated 12th May 2005 from Open + Direct saying that we were £1020.24 in debt. My husband telephoned them on 30th May 2005 and spoke to a gentleman who, having been given the story, promised to put the account into suspension whilst investigations took place, send us letters from them that we were missing, apparently and get a member of staff to telephone us within a few days. We received another letter from Open + Direct on 10th June 2005 saying that we owed £1030.26 together with £25 for sending this letter to us, with no mention of any investigation taking place. My husband sent e-mails to Open + Direct on 10th, 20th, 21st June, 22nd and finally 29th July 2005 asking for the promised missing documentation that we had “apparently” been sent previously, and asking why no member of staff had telephoned us as promised. We have heard nothing from Open + Direct since. Meanwhile I had been busy on the internet trying to find out who the regulatory body was that covered transactions such as ours. Open + Direct’s website did not list the information, so I wrote to the FSA on 29th August 2005, explaining the situation and enclosing full documentation. They telephoned me to say that it was not in their remit and suggested I write to Trading Standards, which I did on 7th November 2005. They said it was not in their remit either, as Open + Direct are based in Belfast. We received a letter from Wescot Credit Services on 28th December 2005 (dated 19th December 2005) stating that they had been assigned the debt by Open + Direct and that they wanted £3630.96 to clear the account. I wrote to Wescot Credit Services on 29th December 2005, enclosing all documentation and explaining why we felt this was all wrong. We received a reply on 2nd January 2006 stating that Wescot Credit Services would make enquiries and meanwhile the account would be frozen. We heard nothing more until 12th June 2006 when we received a red Final Demand from Wescot Credit Services for £3830.96, including £200 legal charges(?). I rang them and said that we were still awaiting the results of their investigations, and asked what was happening. They said we should write to Open + Direct and ask for the documentation that we are missing (purportedly) to be sent to us, which we did, but predictably there was no response. On 27th June 2006 Wescot Credit Services send us a letter threatening court action, and the possibility of forcing us to sell our house to pay the debt! I wrote back to them on 29th June enclosing paperwork and asking why they were threatening court action when we were still waiting to hear about their investigations, and pointing out that at the time the unsecured loan was taken out by my husband he was not on the title deeds of the house so the fact that he is now joint owner could have had no bearing on the granting of the loan, as they claimed. On 5th July 2006 Wescot Credit Services wrote to say that they were still investigating, but on 6th July 2006 we received a two page legal rebuttal saying that they had the right to put a charge over our property if we did not pay, but that they would contact Open + Direct to see where the missing paperwork was. On 11th January we received a notice of court action from Wescot Credit Services, the first communication since 5th July 2006. They are claiming £3630.96 now, and the case is to be heard in Kingston-upon-Hull. I think that we should respond in that we are admitting part of the debt and offering to pay the £300 in full, together with reasonable interest since 6th January 2004. We also want the case heard at our local court not 300 miles away. Our defence is that we do not know the truth about what happened to the 2 x £1000 that Open + Direct received, and believe that they did not tell my husband that we were in error in stating that the cheques were “in full and final settlement” because they wanted us to become committed to a credit repayment whereas clearly if we paid in full they made nothing out of us. The lack of communication when promised, ignoring our letters and not sending copies of theirs that they purportedly sent to us will also be raised. We do not want to go to court, but believe that attention should be drawn to the ridiculous amounts of money being made from outrageous interest rates, more so when we can show that the company had the money and yet somehow lost part of it. Any advice will be gratefully received.