"Abbey" have now written in response to my request for the CCA Agreement, over two months after my initial request was sent. IMHO their letter is a nonsense: "Thank you for your recent request. In accordance with section 78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, we enclose a copy of the credit card agreement (original and current) including applicable terms and conditions and your most recent statement of account. I can confirm that a copy of the original credit agreement has been requested for you and should Abbey be able to provide us with a copy, we will forward it to you. It may be helpful to explain that we are not required to serve a copy of the credit agreement which includes signatures, as the law expressly permits lenders to omit signatures from copies of all credit agreements. What we have to send to you is a true copy containing all the necessary material terms and conditions. For avoidance of doubt, all the necessary and prescribed terms are included in the enclosed credit agreements. If anything needs clarifying please call us on freephone 0800 068 3558 Monday to Thursday 9am-9pm, Friday 9am-6pm and Saturday 9am-1pm. Yours sincerely Gail Powell Customer Advocate Office" My initial points are: Their only enclosures are a copy of MBNA letter dated 30 April 2009 addressed to me but never received saying: "Thank you for getting in touch with us. We're pleased to enclose a copy of your most recent terms and conditions." and a copy of MBNA terms and conditions - [i took the card out around 1995 via Abbey not MBNA] - and the copy of my last statement. There is no "copy of the credit card agreement (original and current) including applicable terms and conditions" that Abbey's covering letter refers to. Surely their statement that "all the necessary and prescribed terms are included in the enclosed credit agreements" is a nonsense, as firstly they have not provided any "credit agreements" and if they mean "terms and conditions", then the one provided relates to current MBNA terms not the original Abbey terms. The letter quoted in full above is on Abbey letterhead, yet the text refers to "a copy of the original credit agreement has been requested for you and should Abbey be able to provide us with a copy ...." from their wording I presume the letterhead should be MBNA not Abbey. I would be extremely grateful if someone would point me in the right direction as to how best to word a reply. Many thanks in advance.

Thanks WelshMam2009. Yes, my daughter's ex certainly was and still is having "fun and games" in making matters far more difficult than they should be! So much so that if I posted regarding other issues, it would read like War and Peace! It wasn't until he left my daughter and Granddaughter that we discovered various worrying correspondence that he had obviously hidden so well even he had forgotten about it. The problem is trying to piece together the bits and pieces and that, to date, we have not found any other correspondence in regard to this specific issue. All added to his being very difficult and verbally threatening with regard to seeing their daughter! An absolute nightmare! (My daughter has recently sought the services of a solicitor with regard to the non-financial issues, but at this stage the restrictions of legal aid entitlement mean that dealing with the financial matters cannot be taken on by the solicitor, although the solicitor is aware of what looks like a fraud situation). To answer your question regarding whether bankruptcy proceeding were ever issued, we are presuming not as the letter refers to my daughter having this "one last chance" to prevent that happening by contacting them. The correspondence with Halifax regarding previous settlement of her credit card balance is presently being stored by a very good friend along with many of her possessions and we will ask him to dig out the letter, which we are certain did refer to "full and final settlement", however, our worry is that this latest issue may relate to another unknown debt previously sold by Halifax that has been incurred by her ex in her name. P.S. Thanks also to cerberusalert for your response. I agree that it would be wise to obtain a credit report for my daughter. Just so much to deal with at present that it's all quite overwhelming for her. Thanks for the advice.

Many thanks for the quick response silverfox1961. Your thoughts are along the same lines as mine, which is very reassuring. I have read the letter template you are suggesting and think it is more than appropriate. My only concern is that any letter would, by necessity, need to give mine and my wife's address as being my daughter's temporary address and I am aware that DCA's etc. are not averse to ignoring what they can and cannot legally register with CRAs. Do you or anyone else have any thoughts on this point? I really cannot see any way around the address issue and do not feel that ignoring the letter entirely is a good idea. Thanks again.

My daughter has recently received a letter from HL Legal Solicitors acting on behalf of CapQuest Debt Recovery Ltd, relating to a debt CapQuest allegedly purchased from Halifax PLC for almost £3000, which she has no knowledge of. The letter goes on to say that in April 2008 a Statutory Demand for bankruptcy was sent to her and that no response was ever received. (She has no knowledge of this either). Further, it goes on to say that in July 2007 she agreed to repay the debt at £45 per month and that payments were not maintained. (Again, this cannot be the case as this is the first correspondence she has seen with regard to the alleged debt). They continue by saying that if she fails to contact them a Bankruptcy Petition will be issued. My daughter has no knowledge of this debt, although she did have an account and Credit Card previously with Halifax. Following an acrimonious split from her partner early this year, Halifax wrote to her regarding an outstanding £1,100 balance on her credit card that her ex-partner had run up as an authorised user. (He had suppressed all correspondence and she was naively unaware of this debt also). A full and final settlement at approximately £800 was agreed and paid in respect of the credit card debt. (At the time, she had enough to cope with and I had not discovered CAG, so "helped her out" of what we thought was an isolated problem). Also at that time Halifax were asked whether there were any other amounts outstanding and she was told no. To further complicate matters: Following the split with her partner, the house they privately rented was lost and she and her four year old daughter are presently residing temporarily at our house. The letter she received was redirected by the Royal Mail. My initial thoughts were to write to the solicitors denying any knowledge of the debt or their allegations of earlier correspondence and/or agreements to pay and demand that they return to CapQuest /Halifax to provide legal proof of the debt. However, as I have said above, neither CapQuest nor the solicitors are aware that my daughter is currectly living at our address and I am wary that adverse information could be registered against our address. Any help and guidance would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance (and apologies for the length of post explaining the background).

Thanks for the advice again. I wasn't aware that CCCS was set up by the Banks and from what you say I think payplan will be my choice if it comes to that. For the meantime, my thoughts are that I'll try dealing with things myself in the first instance and will post updates on this thread if that would be okay? Must say that I'm still feeling very apprehensive, but definitely not as desperate as I was before I found CAG and in particular your helpful and reassuring posts. Thanks again.

Hi loobyloo85 and many thanks to you and dx100uk, your replies are so very welcome. I have completed the Debt Remedy questionnaire via CCCS and this suggested calling them to discuss options, which I have yet to do yet as I am at work during their opening hours and calling from work is not a viable option. I suspect the option of an IVA may be a possible suggestion, but am worried that bankruptcy may be their advice, which I am desperate to avoid at all costs. At present the available surplus after payment of priority debts is probably only £100 at best, but I am actively looking at making more budget reductions to give me more surplus, so an IVA may be possible. I think that dx100uk suggestion will be my initial starting point and see what transpires. That said, I just hope that such action will not backfire if an IVA is CCCS's suggestion. I don't see why it should if I make at least a monthly nominal payment as a gesture of my best intentions, but I must admit that it does worry me. Thanks again folks for the advice.

Hi dv100uk and thanks so much for responding. Am I correct in saying that you're suggesting it would be best to use a two pronged approach - i.e. send the CCA request letters AND (separately) send letters telling them I can only pay £XX? I have yet to send the initial CCA request to Bank of Scotland, but did send a CCA request to Abbey just over a month ago, so they've definitely had more than the 12+2 days. Minimum payments to date have always been made and on time, but this simply cannot continue and it is extremely disheartening to see that my payments for so long have merely covered their interest and made no inroads at all into the debts themselves (literally thousands of Pounds). To further compound matters, in the last year or so, both companies have increased their rates substantially (more than doubled in one case) "following a review of my account" which has only made matters far, far worse for me. Before I lost my previous job and for a while after, I was always being tempted by both companies offers of interest free periods, increased limits and all the usual offers. Yes, I know I have incurred the debit balances, but it would be very interesting (pardon the pun! ) to know how much of the outstanding balances comprise their interest charges. I suppose I have been far too optimistic and obviously far too easily led by their previous "offers", but it does boil down to the over enthusiasm of these companies over many years to tempt people with increased limits etc. without any assessment as to whether the customer's circumstances justify the ridiculously high limits given and then to cripple the customer by hiking rates just at the time they could least do with it. I suppose the above is me stating the obvious and I apologise for that. Thanks again for your advice, any further advice will be very much appreciated.

Following redundancy in late 2007, a significant period of unemployment and then having to take a job with a much reduced income, I now find myself unable to meet my two large credit card monthly payments, with no means of meeting these commitments in the foreseeable future. The totals are £15,000 (Bank of Scotland) and £21,000 (Abbey). Having read through the forum for a while now, I did send the CCA request letter to Abbey (which I note is run through MBNA) by Special Delivery with a £1 Postal Order, but never got a response. The 12+2 day period has long expired, however, I have so far not sent the next letter as I suppose I am fearful that if it transpires that the agreement is enforceable and I have to then negotiate with them, this action may influence their "helpfulness" in accepting reduced payments and freezing interest. Matters are now extremely pressing. I did manage to pay this month's minimum to Bank of Scotland, but simply do not have anything like the £400+ minimum payment Abbey require in a few days. I suppose I have been putting off the inevitable for a long time now in the forlorn hope that I could find more lucrative employment, but in the present climate I have realised that I was being overly optimistic and "crunch time" has arrived. From reading previous posts I am aware that MBNA in particular are not very good at finding original agreements, but does this apply to Abbey whose credit card is run through MBNA? Would the considered opinion be: 1. To send the follow up letter advising that they have failed to comply with my request for the CCA, advising that the account is clearly in dispute and cease payments for the time being, or 2. Bite the bullet and write to them offering token payments and asking them to freeze interest? Even then, unless they offered to refund the huge amount of interest I have already paid to them over the years (the account was taken out in approx. 1995 at an Abbey branch), the debt would never be repaid in my lifetime. I am so confused as to what the best course of action would be and for my sanity need to be at least doing something. Any advice at all will be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.