Hello,I've just been notified that I have Private Pension with Standard Life that I took out about 14 years ago. I had completely forgotten about it and only ever made one opening payment.I've just had a letter from Standard Life (the first one in those 14 years) telling me that I have a couple of thousand in the fund. My question is, can I cash this pension fund in and get my money back now? It will be pretty useless as a pension but I could do with the money at this time.Thanks very much.Andrew

Yes, I will do. Thank you very much.

Yes, I have tried but have to call back in the morning.

Dear Sequenci, Thank you for your reply. I haven't checked to see if the Judgment exists at this stage because I don't have a case number. I can also categorically say that at no time have I had any papers/documentation served on me prior to, during or after the case came to Court apart from the letter that arrived this morning informing me that it had all been done and dusted.

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice on the following: This morning I received a letter from Young & Pearce Solcitors who are based in Nottingham, informing me that they have obtained judgment against me for the sum of £3,077.56 for outstanding university fees. They have stated that I have 28-days to discharge the monies or the CCJ will be registered against me. Their letter starts off: As you are aware we have obtained Judgment, and the balance shown above is due and payable forthwith.... Whilst I acknowledge that I do owe some university fees my defence is that (a) I only owe £3k in total of which I have paid £1,500 of it. (b) I have an existing arrangement with the university, and have done for the past year. The fees are due to be cleared by June, which I have budgeted for. © I was not made aware. I have had no correspondence whatsoever from the university, solicitors or any other party informing me that this was even going to the County Court. I have had no correspondence whatsoever informing me of any Court date. Only the letter this morning informing that it had been to Court. If I was informed I would have defended myself and shown my arrangement with the university and shown that I have not been in any breach of the arrangement. Apparently the hearing was in Nottingham which is about 150 miles from where I am based. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to either get this case re-heard at a Court in my area (Can I do that?), appeal, overturn or generally get this unjust judgment reversed, struck off or at least something to give me the opportunity to defend this action against me? Thanks very much.

Cabot - Harassment, not giving account info when asked, not reducing debt when payments are made. Credit Security Limited - Harassment, adding on covert charges, not responding to queries, failure to provide documentation when asked, failing to keep correct and accurate records of account, abusive messages, threatening letters, taking payment and denying it has been received, buying/selling my account without informing me - the list goes on and on - even worse than Cabot.

Hi 42man, I've just checked the total amount that has been added to my original debt and I'm rather embarrassed to say that the total additional charges that have been put on to the original amount owed is 203%. But the question is who put these charges on? The blood has just drained from me.

Thank you very much 42man. I shall send the credit agreement request off immediately. As far as I'm aware the total debt increased by approximately 30% over what I owed on the credit card. I'm don't know who put this charge on (Barclaycard or the DCA). But I suppose the good news (if you can call it that) is that this figure has remained constant - so far anyway. I shall write to Credit Security too and ask Subject Access Request but I know all that will happen is that they'll pocket the £10 and I'll never hear from them. This has been par for the course with them. I know they have been rather lax to say the least but my complaints to the official bodies citing the points you've raised and others, just seems to have gone unheard or addressed. Which leaves me to think if the official route is inactive, what options are open to me/ It seems as though these types of companies are completely unregulated. Thanks for your advice. Very useful and informative.

Hello to everyone at and in The Consumer Action Group, I came across this while trawling through the Net hoping to find some information on my particular problem, and what a great site it is. So I thought I’d start my first post off and see if any of you oracles out there can offer me any advice and/or guidance. I’ve read a fair number of postings regarding Credit Security Limited and Cabot (in all their guises) and so not to be one to go against the grain I thought I’d share my experiences as I seem to have both these rotten eggs in my basket at the moment. Here’s my story… I have been paying off a Barclaycard debt for two years after my financial situation went belly up and went to a DCA. This first DCA was a company called FIRE. After about two months I was informed by letter, that CABOT had bought the account and that I should, from that point make all payments to them, which I did. About two months after that and out of the blue I had another letter from another DCA called CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED. Their first letter to me stated that I was behind with payments and went on to issue threats of court action and the rest of it. I wrote back to them and stated that as far as I was concerned I was up to date and had been paying CABOT. A few more exchanges of letters and they wrote back and “confirmed” to me that they were now the owners of my debt (although they never showed me any official documents to that affect). I was also alarmed to note that on each successive “ownership” of my debt, not one of these DCA’s ever took into account the money I had already paid the previous “owner” and started the debt off with the original figure. When I wrote to ask them to take this into account and to adjust their figures on my account, or even just to ask for a balance, I never received any reply. So since then I have been paying CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED my monthly agreed payment. Throughout this time (nearly two years with them) they have never provided me with a statement on my account, despite numerous requests. Each letter I have had from them (every few months they would send me letter threatening court action even though I have always met my monthly payments and have the documentation to prove it) states that I owe more money than the previous letter. So it seems that despite having all interest stopped and continually paying them each month my debt is forever increasing! Again I have written to them asking them to clarify… well everything really and again I have never had any response from them. I also ran out of payment slips four months ago and have written every month for the past four months, requesting more slips in with my payment. I have not had any response at all. My personal feeling about CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED is that they are totally unprofessional and are not far short of being crooks themselves. Anyway, to bring things up to date: this morning I had a letter from CABOT (Financial) telling me that they were now the owners of my Barclaycard debt and that I should now pay them. So things have no gone round in a complete circle and I now appear to have been “sold” back to the very first DCA I had in the first place. I have not had any correspondence from CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED to this effect. To add insult to injury, CABOT’s letter also states I their calculations, that I owe them nearly the total of the original debt. According to them, in the last two years I have only paid off £2.86! Once again all of my previous payments have not been taken into account, passed on or whatever is meant to happen. I am so frustrated, angry and gobsmacked that I feel like I’m going into melt down. And so if anyone can offer me advice/guidance on how I should approach this and what action I can take, I would be really, really very grateful. Also just as importantly, I would also like to know what procedures CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED and CABOT should have taken to inform me of this “selling” of my debt and passing of information between them and what recourse I may have given how unfair and how inaccurate it is and who is the onus on to get it right? Should I start by asking CABOT for a copy of my credit agreement under the Consumer Credit Act 1974? Lastly, during my troubled time with CREDIT SECURITY LIMITED, I not only threatened to but did write to all of the various official bodies concerning CREDIT SECURITY’S unreasonable, illegal if not unlawful behaviour, which seems to contravene so many of the rules/laws/standards of the Section 40 of the Administrtation of Justice Act and Trading Standards. I never heard anything back from any of them. Has anyone else had cause to write to and report a DCA, and if so what was the response you received? From my side of the fence, they all just seem at best to be toothless organisations and at worst the same set of the ‘Old Boys Network’. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know I’ve gone on a bit but in a strange way it has exorcised some of my frustration and anger just by writing it down…. only some, not all by any stretch. Your help is really appreciated.