Its just a general question which I would be interested to know others thoughts on

General advice needed please, I have posted other threads about Mackenzie Hall but am still confused re my husbands outstanding debt. He has not paid them anything in over 7 years. I made token payments of £10 per month to previous DCA's when he wasn't living with me because I was sick of getting letters addressed to him, the payments came from my account, he has never acknowledged this debt to them. Therefore my question....in the eyes of the law is it still statute barred because he has never made payments or acknowledged debt, or did I inadvertantly restart the clock by making token repayments! Debt is not connected to me in any way and my name is not on any agreement (if one still exists)

Phonesurgeon - thanks, but I can't do anything until I get my PIN, which doesn't seem to forthcoming despite my efforts! I will no doubt have to ring them again and hang on for a couple of weeks before being put through to India where they won't understand what i'm saying!

I think its called Choose to Refuse and i've just signed up for it! However I am having trouble getting hold of a PIN number and was stuck in a queue for so long the other night I gave up and emailed them, am still awaiting their response. I think its a great service, I think I might subscribe to the one that bars withheld numbers as well

Have posted previously re Mackenzie Hall would appreciate advise on a specific point. if the debt is my hubby and his ex's names and neither of them has made a payment or communicated with MH or previous DCA's in over 7 years, I have made token payments (£10) from my bank account. Hubby has had NO dealing with them and made no payments from his account. Will the account be classed as statute barred or not? Any advice gratefully received! Thanks

Hi Peppa. First thing, don't call them....ever. Read some of the other threads on here about MH and follow the advice of the very knowledgable people who post here. I'm a novice on here also, but I'm sure somebody will be able to tell you how to go about sorting MH out, just don't ring them!

Well the people that are BCW never rang back so I presume they just misdialed our number by mistake however having ignored Mackenzie Hall and hearing nothing for a few weeks, we received another letter with the "reduced settlement" bit. I promptly wrote not at this address on the letter and posted it back in their prepaid envelope to them! Would appreciate someones advice on my last post above about whether the debt would be classed as statute barred as its only me thats been making payment/correspondence and the debt is not in my name? Thanks

I don't think moving house makes much difference, Mackenzie Hall posted my husband a red card to our new address and we are not even on the voters role. I presume they find addresses from your credit file. We had a few emails back and forth, we have asked for a copy of the agreement, nothing has arrived, we changed email address so they couldn't bother us, so far we have heard nothing else. My husband's debt is about 12 years old and goes back to his previous marriage, he has never paid anything to them or communicated with them, I paid £10 per month from my bank account for a year or two to the previous DCA's, but have no intention of paying them anything else. As far as I'm concerned because they have had no communication from my husband and no payment from him, its statute barred and until they come up with paperwork etc we will continue to ignore them.

I do actually think that the RBS group are buying up the whole world! Hopefully I won't have any more claims in the near future so won't have to worry about UK Assistance again! The bloke really was very arrogant and I am very much looking forward to seeing a copy of his report, if there is anything derogatory (sp) in there god help him We have our buildings and contents insurance with Direct Line along with our car insurance (2 claims in 2 months, first one car was a write off!) and our pet insurance, so they have paid us quite a bit in the past few months. However prior to that we hadn't claimed on any of our insurance (bar the pet insurance) for years, so I don't think they can really complain! If we wanted to change buildings/contents insurance companies who do you recomment, bearing in mind they must have offices in the UK to deal with any problems, I can't be doing with all these overseas call centres! Anybody who we deal with who has their call centre oveseas, we immediately cancel our policy/subscriptions etc and go somewhere else! This is a great site with very helpful and informative people.

Nailpost - thanks for your reply. These companies are a nightmare, in a way I hope they do ring back, so I can very politely tell them where to stick their phone calls. What worries me though is if they have got our number, where have they got it from? I've tried BT and they say "number is ex directory" so they obviously don't give it out and if and when we apply for anything I only ever give out my mobile number. Hopefully they misdialled. I asked MH for a copy of the agreement (they thought they were dealing with my hubby as it was all done by email) they told me 1st Credit had to provide this and it would take 3 weeks, I informed them it should be with me within 12 working days (this has now well passed). I'm wondering whether MH have passed it back to 1st Credit, who in turn may have passed it on to BCW. However the fact remains that although I had been paying £10 per month for a debt which wasn't mine and the funds only ever came out of my bank account, my hubby hasn't spoken to them or paid them anything for about 10 years, so I presume the debt is actually statute barred from a legal point of view? Would you agree with that or would that not be the case because I was paying them?

I have previously posted about Mackenzie Hall and having followed advice on here have not heard anything more from them , however when we got home yesterday I checked our phone and there was an 0845 number showing as having rang, I did 1471 as you do and it stated that it was from BCW Group. I have read about BCW on here and am now thinking that somebody else is chasing this debt. However we are ex directory and never ever give our phone number out. Is there anyway these companies can find out ex directory phone numbers? It is possible of course that it was merely a coincidence and they may have misdialed. They did not leave a message on the answerphone, obviously if they ring back they will be told they have the wrong number. We are a member of the TPS so as theory should not receive any telephone calls from anybody unless we have given them our number. Any advice you can give would be most welcome - thanks

You will probably receive a little red postcard from the idiots at MH, whatever you do, don't ring them, they are a nightmare. Always insist on communication in writing. There are various threads on here about MH, have a look at them and no doubt you'll pick up some very useful info

My father died in 2001 and just before Christmas my sister recevied a letter from the DWP enclosing a letter from some pension fund or other. My father apparently had a pension from donkeys years ago that he had forgotten about and which my mother had also forgotten about. My sister signed the forms and got them witnessed by a solicitor and sent them back and received a cheque for over £5,500 which included accrued interest from 2000 which was when my father reached 65. I would think Norwich Union have probably got the figures correct and the sum no doubt includes interest. I would agree with Gizmo the 3 x salary probably would only be paid out if your father had died whilst still employed by them. We have a similar clause in the pension fund I am a member of at work.

No the assessor was from UK Assistance, I hope I don't have to deal with them again!

I believe Mackenzie Hall are a DCA and not solicitors, but of course I may be wrong, my husband has had some of their nasty letters sent to him which we are ignoring, there is lots of useful info on this site and some very helpful and informative people - I'm sure somebody will be able to give you some good advice.

Well after a quick phone call to Direct Line on Friday I received confirmation to go ahead with the bathroom! Thanks to those who gave me some very good advice on this site - I'm looking forward to my nice new bathroom and hopefully not having to deal with Direct Line's rather unscrupulous assessor again!

How would they go about getting what they call, "conclusive proof"? I don't blame them for looking into the matter, I would expect them to, it was actually 2 claims, one for the loo which cracked in December but which I did not report at the time as it was still functional and we were going away the same day. We then had a serious car accident, which wrote the car off (not surprised direct line don't like me the car was insured with them also!). In early January my hubby was doing some diy and the varnish remover fell from the vanity unit into the bath with the lid off, he was out of the room at the time. I reported this as soon as it was discovered and at the same time thought I might as well report the damaged loo. The hand basin also got splashed with the varnish remover and I rang back and reported this. My argument is that they are implying I am lying when I'm not, that we didn't see the varnish remover fall is one way of looking at it and assessor implied it could have been one of the cats, which I suppose is possible but as we weren't in the room we really do not know. that the assessor is now lying about rocking the loo cistern is another matter and one that has really got my back up, we have paid for the damage to be rectified ourselves and will also be paying for the new flooring as the old was ruined when the leak occured while we were out, we could rightfully claim that back if we wanted to be awkward. I can't believe they would go to all this trouble when they could just say we aren't going to pay out, which we would accept. However if we withdraw the claim now they are going to think we were lying in the first place and that isn't your case. I appreciate your advice though - thanks

Well they can't have conclusive proof can they, because they weren't there! We have already caught out the assessor who was also assessing the loo which was cracked in a previous incident the month before, he called round, checked the loo bowl and then rocked the cistern back and forth before commenting, "the bowl is cracked bu the cistern is ok" we have now sprung a leak from the W.C pipe but when we complained that it could have been his fault he stated he never touched the loo and intimated I was a liar and told my husband "he would have to prove that he had touched the loo". We have asked for a copy of his report under the data protection act, because if he can blatently lie about that we wonder what other fibs he's put in his report. I must admit I don't care whether they pay out now or not we have the funds to replace the broken things, but it is now a matter of principle. I despise these insurance companies who are so quick to take your premiums, but do all they can to not pay out.

So they would cancel the policy even though the accident happened as we said it did? I think I might get in first and cancel the policy myself as they appear to be using every trick going to get out of paying, whereas they could just say to us, we are not going to pay and we would say fine, we will pay for it ourselves and cancel our accidental damage as its obviously not worth having!

Anybody offer me some advice, Direct Line don't seem to believe how we damaged our bath and sink, we know how it happened, but the assessor seems to disagree with us, I am worried now that they might take us to court - would this be likely to happen - I have sent off my signed statement etc to them, because we haven't done anything wrong, are they just trying to get out of paying and hope the scare tactics will make us withdraw our cliam. - Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

My hubby had a similar letter from a debt collection agency last year saying they had referred it back to 1st credit, we now have Mackenzie Hall chasing us, but we are ignoring them for the time being as my hubby himself has not had any dealings with any of the companies for years, but I have, even though the debt isn't mine, we are still waiting to see if that makes it statute barred because it was only me making payments from my bank account and, in theory, nothing to do with him! Just be aware that although they are not chasing anymore, they might have passed it onto another one of the vultures!

No payments have been made to this account by me since it was transferred for about the 100th time to yet another company last year. As all payments have been made by me as opposed to my husband over the past year or so they cannot say he has admitted responsibility because he hasn't - nobody from any of the previous companies has ever spoken to him, only to me thereby breaking the Data Protection Act themselves. This debt was incurred prior to his divorce from his ex and i think its from 1996 (I can't believe they are still chasing it) We have decided to return everything to sender, and not open anything, we are ex directory so they can't ring and we have deleted the email address we used in our original correspondence. They have only said they are acting on behalf of 1st Credit (however original debt was to Avco), it will be interesting to see if copy agreements come through, although we did not send the £1 PO, so they can say we haven't complied I guess. However we are not going to worry about it, I presume that if a CCJ had been issued in the past my husband would not have been able to get a credit card or a mortgage, and he has obtained new ones of both recently. I might get a copy of his credit file to check though.

Thanks to those that gave me advice re Mackenzie Hall, however I am still a tad confused. I had been paying my husbands "debt" at £10 a month to 1st Credit (the debt was originally with Avco - what they are called now goodness knows) anyway to cut a long story short this debt seems to have been passed from collection agency to collection agency, I was paying £10 per month but said my husband didn't live with me etc. When the card from MH came through the letterbox I responded via email, however I did not say I was my husband, they just presumed that was who the email was from, they declined my offer of £10 per month and when I asked under the Freedom of Information Act how much they had purchased the debt for, they said they hadn't and they were acting on behalf of 1st Credit. I asked for a copy of the agreement etc and they said it would take 3 weeks to be provided by "their client" but that as I had admitted the debt was mine I had to pay it. I told them I wasn't my husband, but me (and they can't prove otherwise from an email address) and they said I had broken the Data Protection Act, hmmmm yea right! They then said they would only deal with my husband and would he ring them, to which i responded that he doesn't live at my address. So my question...would they be acting for someone or have they bought this debt and shall we just send everything they send to my husband back to them, "not at this address". I have deleted the email address so they can only contact us by letter now- any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Help - We stupidly responded to a letter from MH as we had previously been paying £10 a month to the previous owner of this debt (1st Credit I think), they have obviously sold the debt on to MH. MH said £10 is not enough and nor is the £250 in full and final one off payment (ok the debt is £2,500 but always worth a shot). I sent the email and previous payments have come out of my account although its hubby & his ex wife's old debt. He has not admitted liability as such as everything has been from me and only via email - where do we stand, I have emailed asking for sight of the original agreement etc. Should we just ignore them and hope they go away?, will they take the matter to court - should I set the dog on them if they call round to the house? Any advice on how to deal with this mickey mouse company would be much appreciated - thanks - Duffers Mum