A friend of mine was persuaded to allow another friend of his to use his debit card over the phone to pay an arrangement fee to FLM Loans. The person in question told my friend that her mother was acting as the guarantor and she just needed to use his card to pay the initial arrangement fee. She handed the phone to my friend who was just asked by FLM for his name and his card details. The friend gave him the cash for the transaction and he thought nothing more of it. Having just checked his bank statements he has found that FLM have been debiting his account for the last few months at the rate of 50 pounds per month now totaling 250 pounds. He spoke to FLM who were most unhelpful and would give him very little information, in the end they agreed to send him a transcript of the telephone call (yet to be received). His bank have confirmed that the transactions were via his debit card and not via DD or SO. I can't see that he could have been duped into being the guarantor without his knowledge as their website states that the guarantor must be a homeowner, which he isn't. I've advised him to "lose"l his debit card to prevent any further payments being taken. Has anyone come across anything like this before or have any suggestions to help him get his money back. I can only imagine that this must be an error on FLM's part. The friend in question has gone awol so he can't check with her as to whether she has any information or has indeed been making any repayments

I've seen off Muck Hall a couple of times now. I don't bother to write to them I just email the Compliance Manager directly, usually have a response within a day. I've pasted an example below of my last dealings with these pirates! Dear Sir, I have today received a letter from you reference 911***** I must advise you that I am in possession of a letter from your company confirming that this alleged debt is Statute Barred and that my file had been closed. As you will be able to see from the email below, you thought it appropriate to pass the alleged debt to MacKenzie Hall who I in turn advised that the alleged debt was Statue Barred. It would now appear that the alleged debt has been passed back to you and you persist in wasting both your time and your shareholders money in pursuing me. Because of the following two actions by your company: 1. Passing the alleged debt to Mackenzie Hall after writing to me to confirm that the alleged debt was statute barred and therefore being complicit in continuing to pursue a statute barred debt. AND 2. Having received the case back from Mackenzie Hall, continuing to pursue me despite having already provided me with confirmation in writing that my file had been closed. I must advise you that I now consider this to be harassment. May I take this opportunity to remind you that the OFT Debt Collection Guidance states further that "continuing to press for payment after a debtor has stated that they will not be paying a debt because it is statute barred could amount to harassment contrary to section 40 (1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970". I now expect you to reply to this email confirming that your files have indeed been closed. Unlike your previous letter which is clearly an untruth, you did not close my file, instead passing it to MacKenzie Hall, who incidentally are known as an extremely unethical company and have been the subject of investigations by the OFT and local Trading Standards. An opinion I am also beginning to form about your company. Should I ever receive correspondence regarding this alleged debt again I will without further reference to you pursue legal action citing the Administration of Justice Act 1970. Furthermore I will seek substantial damages from you and any company associated with you for the considerable stress and distress you have caused. I will also be lodging a complaint with the Leeds Trading Standards Office regarding the fact that I have, on file, a letter from you stating that I would receive no further correspondence from you, yet you continue to pursue me. I will be providing them with copies of all correspondence. Regards Me From: rsands mackenziehall To: me Subject: RE: Reference M1******** Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 Mr *****, I am in receipt of your email below and I note the contents accordingly. I feel it prudent at this stage to inform you that Mackenzie Hall received your case on the 22/12/09, we were not informed that you had previously notified Lowell that your account was statute barred and would not be paying as such. May I ask you to take this email as confirmation that the account has been closed and returned to our clients. Mackenzie Hall shall undertake no further collection activity and we apologise for any undue stress and inconvenience this matter may have caused. Regards Rob Sands Compliance Manager From: me Sent: 14 January 2010 18:25 To: complaints Subject: Reference M1****** Dears Sirs, I have received a letter from you today with the above reference. I was contacted some time ago in reference to this alleged debt by Red Debt Collection Services which I understand to be a part of Lowell Financial. Upon receiving said correspondence I advised Red Debt Collection Services that this debt is now Statute Limited. Shortly afterward I received a letter from Lowell advising that the debt was indeed Statute Limited, that my file had been closed and that I would receive no further correspondence. You can imagine my dismay to receive this letter from you today. May I take this opportunity to remind you that the OFT sat under their Debt Collection Guidance on statute barred debt that "it is unfair to pursue the debt if the debtor has heard nothing from the creditor during the relevant limitation period. Furthermore, the OFT Debt Collection Guidance states further that "continuing to press for payment after a debtor has stated that they will not be paying a debt because it is statute barred could amount to harassment contrary to section 40 (1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970". I assume your letter is the result of an administrative error and I look forward to confirmation of such, should I receive any further correspondence after your confirmation I will immediately instigate legal proceedings against you and seek damages for harrassment under the abovementioned act. Regards Me

Thanks for all your comments so far. Nearly at d-day, WDA are expecting to be repaid on Thursday but my wages will be going into my new account. I'm reporting my debit card stolen tomorrow and canceling WDA's direct debits at the same time. My main concern is Halifax paying them in some way resulting in me having an unauthorised overdraft but I've done all I can there short of closing the account which I can't do just yet due to the £100 authorised overdraft. I'm going to contact WDA on Monday and tell them I can't pay this month and see what they come back with.

Hi, I have been trapped in the payday loan spiral for over a year now and can no longer afford the repayment. Each month I have borrowed more to try and make up for the interest charges. Funny how when you re-loan they give you the option to increase but not decrease the amount borrowed! After reading some of the great advice on here I have set up a new bank account (Snatch-West) and have arranged for my wages to be paid into that at the end of this month. I've moved my non payday loan direct debits to my new account. I'm going to cancel the WDA direct debit a few days before they are due to take payment to try and avoid any bank charges. There won't be any money in the account so I assume I won't need to report my debit card stolen (I'm assuming that my bank won't charge me for a failed debit card payment?). I have a small overdraft of £100 on the account I have been using so I suppose Halifax are going to get on my case about that when they realise my wages aren't going in there anymore! I also can't close the account at the moment as I don't have the £100 to pay off the overdraft unless I take out another loan with a different company, but seeing as I would have to default on that one too it's probably not a good idea, although tempting! I will owe WDA £925.00 which I do want to repay but can't realistically afford much more than £50 per month. My questions are: 1. How do I stop WDA adding lots of charges to the above amount? 2. How do I stop them calling me at work (I'll be on leave when the proverbial hits the fan)? 3. Should I contact them before the payment is due? 4. Is there anything else I should have though of or be doing? Really appreciate any comments, it has taken me so long to get round to doing this but they are crippling me.

Thanks for your help. I got an email back from Alan Stewart, need to gather some more info for him. Unfortunately I didn't send my SB letter recorded so have no proof. Will not make that mistake again. What I am really curious about is how the hell they got my direct number at work? I would love to know, could be a DPA issue, the only financial type institutions who have it are Wage Day Advance and Halifax.

This bunch of sharks got in touch with me last year over an old student loan debt. Did some research and concluded that as I had a 1995 loan agreement and that I had not made a payment or even had any contact with anyone for about 10 years regarding it it would be statute barred. I had a telephone conversation with one of their agents and told him such, he said I owed the Govenment money so there was no way out of it. I sent them the Statute Barred letter and awaited a response. I had heard nothing after a couple of months at which point I moved home. Within two weeks of moving into my new home I had an enquiry letter from them (god knows how they got my new address so fast). I decided to ignore it as I was too busy to deal with them. Today whilst at work my direct line rang, it was a BT voice text message from them asking me to call quoting a reference. I can't even imagine how they got hold of my direct number at work or even know who I work for. I haven't ever given them this info and they don't seem to have my mobile number (yet!). I can't have them calling me at work, they never responded to my statute barred letter and seem to be relentlessly pursuing me. I'm going to send them the statute barred letter again and tell them in no uncertain terms that the only correspondence I expect from them is a letter confirming that fact otherwise I'll sue for harrassment. The letters I got at my old address were awful, saying things like they were going to freeze my bank account etc (something perculiar to Scottish Law, not even sure if it could be done to someone in England?). Has anyone had similar experiences?

Brilliant, thanks for the clarification I'll get writing

I have a couple of old debts and have recently had letters regarding them. From what I have read I could use the Limitation Act to stop these companies contacting me because: I have not acknowledged the debts for over six years AND I have not made any payments on the debts for over six years However, some advice I have read states that they must not have contacted me for six years as well. I'm pretty sure I have had sporadic correspondence from them over the years, I've moved house quite a lot and it's taken them ages to find me most times but have just moved again and within a month 2 letters! Does the fact that they have written to me in the last six years mean that I can't apply the Limitation Act? All advice appreciated