Hi Rory32 Many thanks for this. But wouldnt writing to say it's statute barred be recognising the debt? We dont have any papers showing it was dealt with - esp as its over 19 yrs ago. Sorry to be a pain UPDATE - They've just called me at my work place asking to speak to my mother..... | asked the man to repeat the name; again he said my mum's name so I replied "this is harassment & she does not work here"....... Now im getting really concerened - what do I do?

Please help. Early last yr my mother rec' letters from a debt collection company called RED, LOWELL, whatever, for a Barclay Credit Card debt which was settled back in 1990 with the help of Citizens Advice Bureau - basically written off as she was in critical debt. I googled Red on the net & found out what kind of an organisation they were - aka - buying statute barred debt. Just to be on the safe side I took my mum down to CAB who told her to ignore the letters & not to send any correspondence to them, even to state that the debt is statute barred. We have heard nothing more - until last saturday when mum rec' a letter from BCW saying Red/Lowell had passed the debt to them & she had X days to contact them before they would send bailiffs round & take her to court. Mum got distressed so i reminded her that the debt was statute barred & to ignore the letter. Tonight i checked our landline voicemail & there was a strange automated company telling her to call back an 0871 number. Our number is ex-directory! I Googled the number & found out it belonged to BCW &, quite obviously, a very suspect company chasing debt. What I would like to know is - is what BCW doing legal? Do they have any right to send bailiffs to our home? And how on earth did they get hold of a number which Barclay has certainly never had as we changed our number a few times since then & it's ex directory. What are our rights? Do we have any at all? Does she need to pay back a debt that was settled/written off nearly 20 yrs ago? We're now panicking that bailiffs will show up at the door. What do we do??? Any help would be greatly appreciated.