This has reared its head again - moved onto ACT credit management now. Have had a couple of standard threat-o-gram letters and emails - latest one warning of impending potential maybe possibly might want to issue county court proceedings (as below): "e have written to you previously regarding the above debt. Despite our efforts, you have failed to discharge the balance owed to our client. Therefore, we are taking our clients instructions on issuing legal action against you. If our client wishes to proceed, your file will be passed to our Legal Department and a summons or initial writ (depending upon the value of the debt) will be submitted to the appropriate Sheriff Court. The sums due will include the principal sum, judicial expenses, warrant dues and chargeable interest. The appropriate service copy will be served upon you either by our Scottish Solicitors or, possibly, Sheriff Officers instructed by them. Should you fail to act upon receipt of the service copy court document, decree may be granted by the Court. Upon our receipt of the extract decree it will be our intention for this to be enforced by Sheriff Officers, if appropriate. Furthermore, your debt will be registered against you as it will be reported to the Credit Reference Agency. The decree will be enforceable up to a period of twenty years. The Decree will be recorded on a Public Registry and any third parties conducting a personal credit check on yourself, will have access to this information. This is your final opportunity to rectify this matter without need of the said action. We will allow 3 days for your response." Now ignoring the basic and clearly deliberate errors in detail (i.e will be reported to credit ref agency which makes out as though they have any right to report before CCJ+30days) this looks to me like another desperate attempt to get some sort of contact/ dialogue going. I have simply ignored all letters / emails. Should I be doing anything else at present? If by some miracle I receive a summons I am more than prepared to defend it (though may need some guidance)

Received another letter from these guys today, have scanned with relevant details removed as per below Now this letter bugs me and I have a few queries: The "outstanding balance" has increased inexplicably - no mention of how what where why or when they have decided to add cost on ( I know this will be due to "admin fees" but shouldn't these be mentioned?) It mentions "In default of payment" - How can anyone be in default of payment when no legal judgement has been given r.e whether any contract for payment exists? "judgement is not removed even if satisfied" - Judgements are removed if paid within 30 days? "Payment must reach us within seven days" Is there a template against which I can check what these guys have written? As far as I can see (whilst I am by no means a legal expert) there are some misleading lines in here - can/ should I report this to anybody? I intend on making no contact directly with these guys r.e this "debt" and will only respond to a court summons upon which I will offer a defence as per previously (though I may need help wording this)mentioned, I will also be opposing the apparent additional fees listed here. I assume this is a sensible way to go about things?

*edit - assume this was moved *

Sorry to bring up an old thread but this matter has reared its head again.... Have started to receive correspondence from a company called incasso with regards to university fees. Since my last post I gained judgement against my former employer, copied the university in on this and told them I believed this to be clear proof of the agreement of my old company to pay my fees. In the time it took to get this judgement through the company went inti administration/were liquidated. I never paid any further monies to the university. They were never able to provide me with evidence of my agreement to their terms for payment of fees. All went quiet until I recently received correspondence from incasso. The letters I have received are quite frankly unprofessional and are clearly intended to threaten the recipient I to payment. I am fully prepared to take this back to the small claims court. I am not confident that I would win any case but there must be a degree of responsibility accepted by the university for this, they failed to ask for payment for several months, sent an enquiry which was responded to, never replied or applied for payment for several more months, tried to chase me whilst iggnoring evidence that another party agreed to pay them and waited until I legally proved this by which point it was too late. Apologies for the mini rant, I am unsure on how to proceed, do I respond to incasso or ignore them and see what action they actually decide to take? Alternatively I could respond in writing but in all honesty I have no appetite for dealing with and collection agency, or "solicitors" as they would prefer to be called in this case. I have now had two phonecalls, to which I have only stated they should go back to their client and that I will only respond to written requests ( tbough clearly i havent to date)

Have decided to respond to my former employer - sending a further copy of the invoice from the uni to myself, a copy of an email which states I have become responsible because of the employers default along with a contact number for the university finance department to confirm i have arranged payment with them. Also decided to state in this response that I have no issues with my former employer making payment direct to the university. Hopefully this evidence will be enough to convince the court that a loss has taken place (in terms of my breach of contract meaning the amount of the fees has not been paid either to myself or the uni, who are now pursuing me). This is now my main concern, although it may well be unfounded

Thanks again, it's very frustrating not really knowing the ins and outs of whether what I am trying to claim is realistic or not. I dont want to give them any excuse to try and wriggle out of appearing in court or paying this debt.

Yes fairly clear, from the credit control document: " If the student has arranged for the fee to be paid in whole or in part by a sponsor, the Finance Office will invoice the Sponsor directly. In the event of a sponsor defaulting on payment, it is the student’s responsibility to pay the fees. The student will receive an invoice for all outstanding fees. This invoice will be due immediately as per the standard terms and conditions." I also have the statement : "Your sponsor xxxxxxx has advised the University they would not be paying your tuition fees. As a result of this the student then becomes liable to pay the fees" These are clear to me, however I am concerned about how to deal with the information my former employer has requested from me and also whether proof of this debt will be enough or if I will need to make a full payment before resubmitting a case (which I really do not want to do as I simply cannot afford to pay the money out over less than say six months)

Yeah that makes sense and unfortunately backs up what I suspect too. As the employer have defaulted on payment the university will pursue me for it - they have already invoiced me directly and there are terms and conditions within university documents that confirm this too. Surely I shouldn't have to pay this money out before claiming it back, afterall it was part of my contract of employment with the company.

Quick bump for this - any input even if just opinion is more than welcome. I am tempted to send the invoice (which i already have done) over to my former employer and inform them this is proof of financial loss - if they query this I will either a) state it is not for them to decide what constitutes financial loss b) state that as their breach of contract has resulted in the sum of £xxx not being paid to either myself or the university, this along with the invoice from the university is the financial loss. Which makes sense to me, as part of the terms of my employment were this money should be paid either to me or the university directly, the fact that it hasnt means I have incurred a loss, regardless of whether I have completely paid the debt to the university or not (I gave them the opportunity in writing to pay the monies direct to the university before lodging court papers) does this make sense? My real problem here is my complete lack of actual legal knowledge - This makes sense to me but I don't want to make a fool of myself in court.

Sorry to drag up an old thread again but i'm now looking for further advice. I have sent in small claims forms which have now been delivered to my old employer. They have just contacted me asking me to provide documentation supporting the recent payment I have made to the university with regards to my claim. The only documentation I have available is the invoice I received from the University. I have not made full payment to the university yet, only agreed a nominal monthly amount until my case is heard - will this be a problem? I assume they are looking to go down the road that I have not suffered any actual loss yet and use this to try and have my claim dismissed. This is a worry - I cannot afford to pay the £1750 to the university in one lump sum to substantiate this. In my opinion this should be irrelevant as the contract between myself and my old employer is not affected by whether I have paid any money to the university - only by the fact that they have failed to deliver their obligation - am I correct? If so what should I be repsonding to my ex employer with ,if at all?

Quick update on this - seen solicitor last week who agreed small claims would be the way to go here. He however was not so confident that I would be succesful as he believes the employer would try and play the email off as an enquiry rather than an intent to pay, obviously the outcome would be determined by the courts view on this. I have instructed him to send a letter to the former employer (fees were very reasonable for doing so imo), so I have a formal record of requesting they pay the fees before starting small claims proceedings, and have spoken with the University r.e payment should (or when) they refuse. As an aside from all of this I am now wondering whether I have any other recourse available to me for seperate matters. I was given only one weeks notice (I had only worked there for around 7-8 months however) including the use of my company car and had no formal contract, although I did have a clear letter of offer. Should I be looking into taking any further action against them, or have I left this too long (let go in March)? Previously I was concentrating on finding further employment and had put it down to 'the way things are just now' but their recent unethical behaviour has angered me to say the least.

What I am concerned about with small claims court is if I was to lose the case - am i not right in then thinking that I can be made to pay the defendants costs? All I have in terms of evidence is the email which I've detailed above - whilst I consider this to be a clear intent to pay these fees there is no guarantee that others will see it as such. I'm going to make an appointment to see a solicitor (is there a particular type of solicitor ishould be seeking?) and following their advice probably have them send a letter to my old company, copying in the university. If this fails to receive an adequate response I will make a payment plan with the university and begin small claims proceedings against my old employer, representing myself. Does this sound like a solid plan of action?

Ok, thanks again for the help it's been very useful

Ok thank you for the help, I'll get in contact with a solicitor and take things further. I appreciate the replies Will I be within my rights to attempt to claim legal costs from the ex employer?

It contains my name as the subject, doesnt mention my student id, specifies the company name and adress in the email signature at the bottom as well as the directors name and contact details. Fees were to be paid anually - the University also made an error and did not send out an invoice until after I had left the company. I have had a response from my ex employer now, confirming that as far as they are concerned there is no written agreement in place between us. They sent me another copy of the email that I have already mentioned, stating they do not believe this confirms any agreement. They also sent me a copy of a training 'request / authorisation' that they claim would have to have been signed by myself and a director to enable this to have taken place. I have never seen nor been made aware of any such document.

Thanks for the replies, I never had a contract, I only ever received a letter of offer from the company which i then accepted formally- this letter did not mention the University attendance as it was later agreed (though at the time of interview it was agreed the discussion would take place). The email doesn't state the amount of the fees (as they were not known). It simply states that if the University confirm the amount, the director would confirm an address to send the invoice too. It then goes on to query whether the company could claim any fees back through construction skills funding, but that is really all the content that is in there. It was sent directly to the university, with a university email adress however, would this suffice? Do I have anything to go on with the verbal agreement that was made before I started attending the University between myself and the Director (Who has now left the company, on bad terms i believe)? Or the fact that the company released me for one day a week to attend from October until March when i was made redundant?

Hi all, hopefully somebody can give me some advice here as i'm not sure what my next step is: I left my last employer in March (was let go due to lack of work etc) - they had agreed to continue putting me throuhg my 3rd year of university attending day release. This involves the employer paying my fees and giving me one day off a week to attend during term time. Around christmas time the university claimed they had not been paid - this was down to a university error, they had never sent an invoice. My director at the time sent an email along the lines of: "I can confirm xxxx is in our employment, please confirm the amount due to us and i will provide an address to send your invoice to" This was the last I heard of the matter. A week ago i received an invoice from the university for the full amount of the years fees (£1750). I immediately queried this and was told the employer hadn't paid them. In my mind this is irrelevant to me as the employer has agreed to pay the fee. The university obviously do not see things this way and have in their finance policy that they will pursue the student should his/her sponsor default. I contacted my old employer only to find that the previous director has now left, and there is nothing signed by him to say that the company will pay the fees. I have informed them there was an email conversation going on and they are going to check this out but so far things are not sounding hopeful to me. My written offer letter from the company makes no mention of this as it was to be discussed (which it was and then agreed). All i have as physical evidence is a copy of the email which i detailed above (which is vague). This does however have the directors name and email address at the university that it was sent to (the university claim not to have received this) Where do I go from here, I do not want to be put in a position where I have to pay these fees when a company who ultimately let me go with 1 weeks notice agreed to pay them for me, if they had not done so I would not have attended! To date I have contacted the old employer as above and recently written the university an email requesting a copy of all communication between myself, the university and my previous employer. They have yet to respond and in all honesty seem uninterested. I appreciate I may need to seek legal advice on this but I dont want to spend money on legal fees only to get the answer "Just pay them" I'm also not sure who i need to actually seek out for proper legal advice on this?

I accept what you are saying in that I have broken the contract and therefore should pay a fee here, however given that the contract itself is variable (i.e i could quite easily have dropped all my services down to the basic level as per a previous post of yours) why shouldn't there be some negotiation in the termination fee applicable? With regards to them breaking the t&c's i'd have to re-read through them and highlight the section I believe they have broken. I appreciate that tarrifs can change however the two different rates they have charged in a single month, to the same number at the same time of the day. (Possibly clutching at straws with that i know) I've already tried asking them to look at the call that was made to myself, however whilst they acknowledge a call was made they claim to have no log of who made the call or any notes of what was said to myself. I find it highly unlikely that no notes were made however i can only go on the information i am being given by other members of staff, who at the end of the day have no reason to lie to me.

That may well be the case but Virgin media's t&c's don't indicate what the charge will be therefore they must justify this fee in some way which they cannot do. Remember that they only agreed to waive any fee after i pointed out the different charges per minute to the same telephone number hence(i believe) breaking their own terms and conditions. After this conversation my attention turned from the fee they are/ are not charging to moving house as I (foolishly) believed everything was rosey with virgin media. At the end of the day I have paid the amount asked now, and whilst I am still angry with them and would like to get it back it is not an amount i cannot afford. Although I will have to check my credit file to ensure they havent registered any defaults (although i know this is not a full blown default as such) against me or I will be looking to take further action, especially considering the confusion surrounding the whole matter.

I can possibly provide a little bit of insight to those on here looking to go with sky for phoneline / bband. I took a new package with sky recently (tv, phoneline and broadband). Sky wont begin your phoneline switch /install until the Tv is in and working, which is understandable. However 3 weeks after my television services had been installed i had still heard nothign r.e my line provision from sky. I was told there had been an error in the sky system and no order had been sent to BT. This went on for a fortnight at which point i simply cancelled the order, went with Bt for my line - they activated it in 3 days (£11.50 pmonth with free evening and weekend calls and no connection fee, although i had a dead dial tone in the property) and O2 for broadband (£10/month for 20mb as i am a mobile phone customer, i also get 3 months free and then £75 cashback from Quidco so essentially it's all but free this year) This actually works out cheaper than skys deal and by all accounts O2/Be are the best broadband suppliers available at present. Might be worth considering.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no proof other than their slightly vague reply they sent to my initial letter as it was discussed via a phonecall (from them to me, which conveniently they have no proper record of), which was what prompted me to write to them. I understand the fee is variable, which is fine but I wanted justification from Virgin media which of course they could not provide. It certainly does not cost them 75% of the amount i used to pay to cease 3 services hence why i was unhappy in the first instance.

I'm having an ongoing problem with virgin media r.e a disconnection fee. As a bit of background, I was in a 12 month contract with Virgin media (having renewed) when moving home meant the services could not be carried over. They did offer their adsl service and phoneline but they wanted well over the odds for these so i declined. I was informed at the time there would be a disconnection fee on the account (which i was expecting anyway) and at the time i was told this would be £150 (approximately) - this worked out about £30/month. I argued that whilst there was an implied fee in my contract, there were no figures stated and i was not willing to pay Virgin media almost the same amount for disconnecting services as i had been paying per month for the use of the services (contract was for £38/month for phone/tv/bb). Unless they could prove to me that this cost was fair and a direct cost to them. Of course they could not do this and several emails went back and forward. I changed tactic and re-read my contract which implied that if Virgin media changed their charges for services without informing me then their contract was null and void. I checked my bills and found that they had charged me differing amounts / min to the same number at the same time of the day so sent this off in an email explaining exactly why I was now not willing to pay any disconnection charge. I received a phone call from Virgin media a few days later asking if I was happy that the process had been sorted out and telling me that Virgin media infact owed me around £50 as a refund for services. I accepted this but was highly suspicous so decided to confirm this to them in writing. I have copied in a portion of my letter below: " Dear Sirs, R.e Cancellation of account number 918858404 As per my recent telephone conversations and emails to your representatives I would like to confirm that I wish my services to be cancelled as of the 02/01/2010. If you wish to send somebody to collect your equipment after this date my contact address will be: xxxxxx As per my conversation with one of your representatives on Thursday 03/12/2009 (pm) I would like to confirm that I accept your’ waiving of cancellation fees and refund for £58.00 to me. As I pay you 1 month in advance I have cancelled my Direct Debit with yourselves as of today (16/12/2009). Should there be any further pay per view / telephone charges etc please deduct these from my refund before sending any remaining due funds. Alternatively I will make payment via debit card if this is more suitable. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that whilst I have been mostly happy with your services I have not been impressed with the lack of communication and sometimes lack of knowledge that has been apparent within your organisation throughout the process of cancellation. I hope this is something that can be improved in the future. " I recieved a letter in response confirming the cancellation date and stating that the outstanding balance on the account was £40.00(approx) but the cancellation of direct debit was fine as this was advanced billing and would be credited to the final bill. This letter did not state anything more with regards to the refund i had been promised etc but did have a small paragraph apologising for my problems. To my surprise, early last week i recieved a 'default' notice from Virgin media for the magical £150 disconnection fee which i had not paid, requesting the sum within seven days. I called virgin but got nowhere and was constantly told the fee applied, even although they had called me and I confirmed in writing that there was no fee due. Not wanting to cause myself any problems with credit rating etc (although i am highly dubious that this would be a 'real' default) I paid them the sums due. My question now is, where do I go from here? Clearly I am very unhappy about having to pay this amount despite being told it had been waived but what steps can I take to get it back? The thought has also crossed my mind that I am infact fighting a losing battle and should basically give up now. Ps apologies for the long winded post!

Old andrew you're not really helping to be honest i keep getting messages to my hotmail saying i've got replies only to find what's basically waffle. This is not meant to offend but unless there is information that may help me please do not add to the thread

Thanks for the replies, I have requested copies of the pcn's and nto's and correspondence, however did not include the £10 as i wasn't aware i had to word it as a subject access request. Given that they have not even acknowledged my letter, and that it has been sent recorded delivery, with delivery proof do the council not have some time limit to reply to my request? i.e 30 or 60 days? I have checked today and this was sent on the 03/01/08 I'll have a look at the other forum too, thanks Forgot to mention, the charges are £90 each so £180 Plus a 'charge' that has been added - im not aware of how much but i'd hazard a guess at £30 a ticket. Not a chance i'll be paying that

I have done but unfortunately it is not his area of law