Unfair charges are the excessive late payment and overlimit charges imposed - which are unfair since they are much more than the costs incurred in or associated with dealing with the late payment or over limit situation - so therefore a penalty - which cannot be imposed other than by a court - so illegal and unenforecable. The associated contractual interest is that proportion of the total interest charged which is actually charged on the part of the balance made up of the cumulative value of the unfair charges. Eg. Total balance £10k of which unfair charges total £1k. Associated Interest reclaimed is then 10% of the total interest charged - as only 90% of the new balance is actually due to your spending or loan advances and 10% is due to the total of the unfair charges imposed. Hope this is clearer? BD

I think the key thing is that giving them the idea that the calls are recorded is curtting down the length and frequency of the calls! What is of more relevance to me is the assertion that they are entitled to continue to call once a week - even if the harassment letter has been sent. Does anyone know if this is legally correct - or is it just another lie or bluff? BD

MBNA offered me £11k to settle £34k on 4 cards - 2 MBNA and 2 from A&L that they ahd taken over. Two points: 1. Middenmess may be right and they can't enforce debt - so find out with SAR. 2. I couldn't raise the money when they first floated the 35% offer - but they agreed to the same deal later when I had the money arranged - but with a sting in the tale - that if I didn't pay the 35% short F&F within 30 days then the deal with suspended interest and low monthly payments was off - so back on to punitive interst and minimum payments that were unaffordable. I am not sure if they were bluffing - or if they did have enforceable agreements - but for 35% and a saving of £23k I was happy to get them off my backs once and for all. Now however I know I would be able to get the unfair charges etc. refunded before doing a 35% deal on the reduced balance.

Rash I think the same advise applies as to Iambin - get balances reduced as much as possible by deducting unfair charges and contractual interest - then confirm if CCA's exist and if debts are actually enforceable. You also need to establish how important your credit rating will be over the next 6 years (if still intact). If not required then play hard ball and get interest frozen and reduce your monthly payments further to soften them up. With good negotiation and a bit of luck £7k should just about clear £21k of debt based on my experience of short settlements - I cleared £46k with £17k. If you make big inroads in th eoutstanding balances by deducting the charges etc. and some of the debts are unenforceable then you may well have a fair bit of change left over! Again this is just my unqualified (but experienced) personal view - but hope it helps. BD j

Iambin As was said just above, the key thing is to get your unfair charges and associated contractual interest refunded - to reduce the balance for a negotiated F&F. If you can afford to keep the payments up - and keep your credit rating pristeen then do so in the meantime - but I would also SAR (not CCA) them to confirm they do have valid enforceable agreements. SAR will be quicker - and you want to get the interst stopped ASAP - either by the accounts being in dispute or settled. If they do have the CCA's then, given you are not causing them any grief, I don't think you'll get a decent short settlement F&F - as they like you paying 30% APR and you are no thereat at present - but you may just get a small reduction. Anyone else been in this position? If they don't have enforceable agreements - then a totally different ball game! They would probaly eventually agree to something like 35-45% short settlement - and if you use the right letter, this will NOT affect your credit rating at all. However - first thing is to get your charges and contractual interst taken off the current balance - then negotiate based on presence or absence of enforceable CCA. If the latter, you hold all the cards - and it's just a question of how quickly and hassle free you want to settle! Th emore you arw illing to fight, the lower will be your agreed F&F - as the alternative for them is nothing. THi si sjust my opinion but I hope this helps. BD

Boo Thanks for this - but can you please clarify what you mean by "acknowledgement"? BD

No - you are hiding it well! BD

I can't see any answer in this thread so far regarding the "written contact" element in Stressed's first post. Can anyone confirm if this means we should NEVER make any contact if we are hoping to rely on a statute barred escape route? I thought it was just further payments within the last 6 years that screwed up the SB provision. Am I wrong? Incidentally I believe it might be 5 years in Scotland? BD

A+ Is this "conspiracy of personal harassment" a legal term or just your own words? either way I like them! BD

Is there no Scottish equivalent? BD

Regarding different people getting different offers.. Can this be deemed to be "fair" ? Doesn't the FOS say OC's and DCA's must treat everyone in hardship "fairly" ? What about the OFT? Would it be interested if its middle name is actually "fair"?

Why on earthy pay 25% if it's statute barred? Also forget all this cr*p about "moral responsibility" > When the DCA's start to understand morals then we might reciproctae. For the moment let's just rely on "legal" responsibilities!

I have just emerged from a long running battle with Abbey/Link. Basically I agreed a 50% F&F short settlement of an Abbey Loan over 2 years ago through BCW (Buchanan Clark & Wells). It transpired that Abbey then handed the "outstanding" 50% to Link Financial to chase up in Oct 2007 - and they took nearly 2 years to contact me. I have eventually got a letter of apology from Link - but only after threatening them with OFT, FOS, FSA etc. - acknowledging matters and saying they will contact the Creit Reference agencies to update things. It therefore looks as if my Credit Rating has been adversely affected over this for the last 2 years - not too bothered since it is shot anyway with other defaults, missed payments etc. - but have I got any grounds for claiming compensation - even for the time involved in sorting thsi out? I suppose a Link apology is as rare as a living dodo and could be sold on e-bay for a fortune? BD

I agree it's worth a go - but is it definite that CPR does not apply in Scotland - if it were to go before a Scottish Court?

I have had similar treatment with FOS. They are definitely on the side of the Banks. Is it worth starting up a thread on the FOS? If there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of this one-sided then perhaps we should write to our MP's? Mine is called Gordon Brown! On the other hand if every referral costs them £500 then we should ALL be making referrals on ALL our creditors at every opportunity!

Can anyone answer this question? I live in Scotland and am about to make several CPR requests and don't want to look stupid. What if I am asking an English-based company for CPR? BD

Dotty I did manage to remortgage even with a lot of late Credit card payments a few years - as I had never missed any mortgage payments - so worth a try, although may not be as simple in current climate. However get all illegal charges and contractual interest refunded before agreeing any F&F, and CCA and SAR them to ensure your agreements are actually enforceable. I think these two prior actions are the best way to ensure the lowest possible F&F - and you may not even need to re-mortgage - just perhaps take a short mortgage holiday or move on to interest only for a short time to fund much lower F&F deals. Good luck! BD

Hi middenmess. Your idea struck a cord. Are you saying that even if you did an F&F then you could STILL go after them for charges (and associated ) interest? I thought the F&F agreement would rule this out - just as it rules out them coming for the balance at a later date? What about if you did an F&F agreement with the DCA - would this make it easier to go after charges with the original credit card company - after all you didn't do the deal with them! Anyone know? - or even better - tried and succeeded? DD BD

Hi Dotty I had been struggling to keep up with the minimum payments to MBNA for quite a while - with a few missed paymnets and then more late and over limit charges imposed. I did get default letters and then agreed to make the usual monthly minimum payment and got the arrears" reset" so the cards seemed to be back in order. The 35% MBNA and A&L letters came without prompting - and I then sent a letter saying I would accept but only on condition this was a F&F settlement and the rest would NOT be chased up by them or passed to any 3rd party. I got this letter from Martin Lewis's web site. At that point MBNA wrote back as "OK - but if you don't pay the 35% by XX/XX/2007 then the deal's off and interest and charges will be started up again. It was therefore important to pay the 35% by the due date. I got a relative to pay, confirm F&F terms by phone and then wrote to confirm deal. I did get an acknowledgement. However I also settled a £4k Abbey loan at 50% in late 2007 through BCW (who were previously sticking out for 75% and offered 50% at one time without prompting by me). I did the same and got a letter from BCW. However just in July 2009 I got chased by Link Financial for the £2k balance. To be fair to BCW they did promptly e-mail confirmation of the deal and Link backed down by phone. I chased them for 3 months to put this in writing and have just got an apology in writing. BTW I seem to remember someone telling me that when you are in default all interest and charges are suspended - so if your credit rating is shot in any case then I don't see any downside as everything will come off 6 years after you get totally sorted out. It seems to me the key thing is to get sorted out in total ASAP which is why I am so hacked off by RBS/Direct Line - as this means the 6 years can't even start. I don't recollect them ever sending me a default letter - which is possibly why they may be able to impose further interest and ccharges. Anyone know if this is correct? BD

OK thanks

I live in Scotland. Does the above still apply? BD

This info is GREAT! I was told by various DCA's that the MINIMUM acceptable was always 1% - unless that meant paying over £60 per month when they would go down to around 0.7%. I have been a bit scared to rock the boat by reducing what I pay - in case they then started to impose charges and credit card interest rates again and also insisted on 2% minimum payment again. However I think I will now us ethe above letter and offer £1. I have family who have helped me and will continue to help me with good (i.e. low) F&F's - but I think my paying around 1% per month makes the DCA's or OC's too comfy - so I think I'll try £1 all round. My big fear is that I have a nice house with a lot of equity - and am worried about a judge insisting I sell up - as that would let the creditors get paid and my income is only about 15% of what is was 5 years ago when I first got into bother with my debts. Any views? BD

Having recently CCA'd my OC's and DCA's I have just got a "special offer" F & F deal from one - 30% off for next 7 days then 20% for 8-30 days and then 10% off for 31-60 days. Surely unless someone is already activele getting the money organised, a debtors with arrears etc. is not going to get the cash togethe rin a week? Given I was offerred 50% before from te same CCA who then reneged is this not boredering on sharp or unfair practice? Would OFT, FO or FSA be interested at all?

Andie I think your approach - and your letter - would work well in cases where a previous low F&F offer was ramped up by a DCA because the debtor was a few days late in getting the money gathered together. The letter (and cheque) could be dated before the offer expiry date and refer to the offer letter (I don't think it really matters when it was actually sent off - and VERY unlikely then to be picked up by the DCA cashier as a potential [problem]). That way I really think the DCA would struggle to claim it wasn't accepted in F&F - as they themselves could easily have held on to it for a few more days until their offer had expired - not that any DCA would stoop so low (or is it stretch so high? - from their slimy repose?). BD