No idea - but it may be a good idea to change a land line to a mobile or vice-versa.

New email address - different bank account - change name details (example if previously registered as William Albert Smith = WA Smith) - change address slightly (if 28 Station Parade change to Ground Floor Flat, 28 Station Parade).

I'm off in an hour so this will be my last posting until I return to the UK. As far as I remember the debt collectors envelopes were plain with a return address on the reverse and maybe a company logo on them. There was nothing stating they were from a debt collector on the outside. Just remember you are in control so pay only what you can reasonably afford if you are able to. Don't volunteer anything else and keep off the phone to them. Make it clear you will only communicate by letter. Make your position clear to them and do not engage in endless letter tennis with them. They will attempt to get as much money out of you as they can in the shortest possible time so do not commit yourself to anything that may cause you financial problems down the line. Get it into your head you are in control not them.

I'm off to Africa on business for a couple of weeks shortly so will not be able to keep tabs on your thread again until I return to the UK at the end of the month. So my advice it stop worrying. The wheels of the debt collection industry revolve fairly slowly. You will not get a flood of letters. But you may get a flood of phone calls at all times of the day and night. Answer them and wait for them to identify themselves. If they are debt collectors close the connection and block the number. If you do have any contact with them make sure it is in writing only so you have a verifiable paper trail that can be referred to at any time. If they freeze your account so you cannot pay off the balance at a figure you decide (NOT THEM) - I would ignore them but make sure you have proof the account is blocked. They are shooting themselves in the foot by not allowing you to reduce the balance. When the account is frozen you cannot do anything with it. Get on with your life. Stay well away from any gambling temptations and remember this will not appear in any credit reference reports. Take it as a lesson learned and thank your lucky stars you did not dig yourself a deep hole with credit card and bank loan debts to feed your addiction. Good luck - I will check your thread again when I am back in the UK so keep it updated. There are many here who will give you all the re-assurance you need and any help in dealing with these people.

Your position is not untenable in any way. You have already mitigated partially any impending disaster by opening another non Paypal linked bank account so they cannot arbitrarily seize what they want. First thing to remember you are in control here. Whatever you offer to pay them must be something you can reasonably afford even if its only a pound a week and you must pay it to Paypal. If like me they freeze your account then there is no way you can reasonably pay them. They are not going to give you another account to pay it into. The reason I got into difficulties with them was because I had recurring large payments being made to a supplier of mine which continued after I was rushed into hospital for series of emergency operations. When I came out of hospital Paypal had simply frozen the account which I discovered when I tried to pay money into it to alleviate the huge deficit that had accrued. So I paid nothing of what I owed. I received about 4 or 5 threatening missives which I ignored as well as any phone calls. I tried for several months to make payments into the account and in the end I gave up. Despite all the threats nothing actually happened. If you read all the answers to your posting as well as all the other Paypal posts I doubt you will find any evidence of Paypal doing very much to enforce outstanding balances and funnily enough they do not make it easy for those that wish to repay them as I discovered. So stop getting yourself into a flap over something that is very unlikely to be nothing more than a storm in a tea cup. Make or start you offer to re-pay them at a figure you can easily afford then forget all about them except to make your regular payment if you can still do so. DO NOT under any circumstances get yourself deeper into debt over this.

You are getting yourself into a state without reason. Paypal will chase you but only for a limited time then contact will cease. My debt to them was never repaid. This was not deliberate on my part - I did try to pay money into the Paypal account that was in negative territory but Paypal had frozen the account so I could not transfer anything into it. If this happens to you make sure you take a screen shot showing it was not possible to pay them. Under NO circumstances pay anyone other than Paypal - DO NOT attempt to pay any debt collection agency unless possibly they have purchased the debt. As far as I know Paypal do not sell on debts so pay no one but Paypal. It is highly unlikely you will be doorstepped and Paypal do not use credit reference agencies so your debt will not affect your credit scores. If things have changed I am sure someone will put me right here. In my case I still owe Paypal a considerable amount but as there has been no contact from them for several years the debt should shortly become statute barred which means they can chase the debt but can no longer enforce it (this happens after 6 years of no contact). Do not borrow money to repay Paypal. If you do go down the route of paying them only pay what you can easily afford. Do not get yourself deeper into debt because of this.

Paypal over all the years it has operated in the UK have not, to my knowledge, taken anyone to court. Saying that there is, I suppose, a first time for everything though it is highly unlikely you will ever end up in court. You have the taken IMHO the first correct steps in isolating your income away from the Paypal debt by opening a new bank account that is not linked to Paypal. In my opinion there are two options a) contact Paypal and offer a monthly repayment figure that you can reasonably and easily afford. They may come back asking for an income expenditure breakdown. This they cannot insist apon - only a court can order you to produce this. Remember they are going to try and obtain as much money from you as they can whatever your circumstances so make sure you only pay what you can easily afford. b) Totally ignore them. In this case close the linked bank account to Paypal. You are likely to get a flood of letters threatening all kinds of dire repercussions mostly from their in house debt collectors. If Paypal act true to form this blizzard of paper will eventually stop and you will hear no more from them This was the case with myself - but then my debt, though considerable, was not as high as yours. If you have not done so get some help for your gambling addiction and forget Paypal until they actually issue Court papers which, as said, is highly unlikely. If it happens then come back for advice on how to deal with it then.

A quick update. The seller did eventually make contact blaming his error on the couriers used. This was wrong as the courier did deliver to the address on the package which was mine - it was the name that was wrong. Anyway I informed him I was around for a week or so and to arrange collection in that time. But no contact was made again and I disappeared abroad for several weeks. Lo and behold the package is still here and my son informs me there has been no contact from anyone attempting to collect or arrange collection of it. Anyway I have decided to dispose of it as I doubt it will ever be collected or collection will ever be arranged now. If he does come back at a later date I will direct him to the municipal dump informing him his goods were time expired and he can, if he wishes, sue me for the loss.

Many thanks for the reply and link - much appreciated. I have absolutely no problem the trader collecting or arranging collection of his goods. They are his and not mine which I understand. My problem is he is not responding to my messages and has, so far, not bothered answering his telephone. I have told him I have his goods and I have given him my contact details to arrange collection of which there is a record in the eBay messaging system. Now I cannot wait forever for him to contact me as I spend a great deal of time traveling. At the moment I am at home for the next few weeks then there is only my son at home in the evenings. How long is it reasonable to wait for the seller to make contact before I can dispose of his package. I am not going to pay to return something that I did not order and do not want - or am I being unreasonable here? For me it is a bit of a dilemma as the goods are not mine and I do not want to break any laws in disposing of something that does not belong to me particularly if the seller wakes up in a few weeks and reads my messages trying to contact him - and then starts making noises about his package.

I usually buy my dog food in bulk through eBay and have had no problems with my orders. BUT this time I received two packages instead of one from my supplier. One was correctly named and addressed and the second had a name unknown to me and my address on it. Yodel, the delivery company, simply dumped both packages outside my front door despite someone being in and they were discovered several hours later. Through the eBay messaging system I informed the seller about his mistake with my telephone number so he could arrange collection and deliver to the correct person. So far - and it has been over a week now - a deafening silence! We all make mistakes from time to time but this seller seems to have a reputation - looking at his feedback - of not responding to his customers inquiries or concerns. This dog food is not cheap at about £50 a bag so my question is how long do I have to wait before I can safely dispose of this wrongly delivered item? I myself do not want it and I can quite easily donate it to one of our local dog rescue centres.

Well done. I bet fewer than one in a hundred complainants stick the course and insist on compensation when these companies screw up. So to settle the odd case of the few that go the full way is just playing the percentages to them.

I really do wish that was true!! In reality very little is done. You can complain but the assistance you get is minimal in such cases. My son was arrested in Dubai a couple of years back on suspicion of carrying hashish - he rolled his own cigarettes. He was there over a national holiday period so the Embassy was closed. The emergency number went to the Foreign Office in London who basically said he was on his own. Very fortunately I have some influential Emirati and Kuwaiti friends who banged the drum on his behalf - the British authorities did nothing. The Dubai police held his passport - he was not confined to begin with - whilst they said they had sent the tobacco for testing. He was allowed to go off with me and my friends on a motor cycle tour of the UAE. We were told the test results and everything would be ready by the end of the tour. When back in Dubai he was re-arrested and held - no test results and no Embassy help. Without his passport my son could not leave the UAE - he had not been charged with anything. With the help of my friends we convinced the Chief of Police to deport him. By that stage anything to get him out was OK with us. We had to produce a valid air ticket - this was done - he missed the flight due to some contrived admin error. Another ticket had to be purchased - this time using all the influence we could muster he was taken to this flight in handcuffs and his passport was returned to him on the flight when the cuffs were removed. No embassy help at all! Complained vociferously to my MP on return. My son got some message saying it would be looked into - unacceptable etc. etc. but nothing happened. I could not follow up as I was by then in Kuwait for a couple of months and my son did not want to follow through when I returned to the UK. I dread to think what would have happened to my son if I had not been in Dubai at the same time and had my local friends with me as the Embassy were a total waste of time. In Kuwait for sure and possibly other Gulf countries it is common for a passport to be held by the authorities until financial obligations have been settled. I have not heard of - and I worked in Kuwait for over 20 years - the British Embassy doing very much about it. I am not saying they do or did nothing but if they did it was never common knowledge yet it was common knowledge that some British Expats could not leave until their debts were paid off in full.

The only way they can enforce a Kuwaiti debt is if you are foolish enough to set foot in Kuwait again. Then your passport would be seized until you re-paid the debt. This did happen to me fully aware it would happen when I returned to Kuwait in 1991 after the Liberation of Kuwait. I worked in Kuwait prior to the invasion and had a car loan which remained partially unpaid. When I returned to Kuwait my passport was held and I could not leave until the loan was paid in full - which I did quite easily and my passport was returned to me. A word of warning - be careful even if you transit Kuwait traveling elsewhere. It is unlikely anything will happen in such a scenario but international laws will not protect you if you owe a debt to a company, bank or person in Kuwait as much happens according to what is called locally Wasta which roughly translated from the Gulf Arabic means influence. If the owner of the debt gets whiff that you are transitting he will use Wasta to get you arrested and held until the debt is paid.

I used to work for City Sprint albeit a few years ago now - out of High Wycombe and Slough. It is surprising to learn the phones are not being answered because it is a 24 - 7 operation with the phones out of working hours being switched to a central service. The control operators are still some of the same when I worked there and they cannot understand not receiving your calls. Either you are miss dialing or you have an obsolete number. If the package had been wrongly or badly delivered the courier responsible would have been told to go back and collect the package and deliver it properly. Deliveries all need a signature and are GPS tracked. Make sure the number you have is correct and call again - failing that call their head office in London and complain.

As stated ignore Paypal. If you want to pay them off do so under your terms not theirs. Pay only what you can realistically afford and only pay THEM do not pay anyone else. You can safely ignore them if you wish because after an initial flurry of threatograms things will go silent. Your only (MINOR) problem would be if you needed to use a Paypal account again at some time in the future - for example to use eBay. To open a new account all you need to do is change your details - use a different email address - use a different bank account and change your address details slightly. Registration with Paypal is automated so if the details differ slightly you will be accepted as no human monitors this as far as I have been able to ascertain.

Thanks Old Cogger - will do as you suggest.

Capquest in all their recent messages (by letter) state the account was purchased from Marbles Credit card - so they are presumably still the owners? And that NCO are just managing the account on their behalf. I have got a copy of the notice of assignment here somewhere that Capquest sent when they purchased the debt. Anyway do I send to Capquest or NCO?

Thanks DX - as always I appreciate your input. Received a letter on Saturday informing me the debt has now passed to an outfit called NCO Europe Ltd so am presuming my CCA request now goes to them rather than Capquest? I will send on Wednesday - I'm away for a few days. Will post up again once I have received a reply from the new owners!

Today I received my SAR details back and they were extremely sparse. No signed agreement and no copy or mention of a default notice. Now i did SAR this account when it was a Beneficial account and they came up with the signed agreement. Since then it has changed hands a few times. My question is - since there appears to be no signed copy any more can I put this account into dispute until they can come up with a signed agreement. All they came up with this time is a copy of terms and conditions and a ream or so of copy statements and a computer print of of some kind of account log. This I have carefully gone through and no default notice sent is recorded. The original Beneficial SAR made several years ago I still have somewhere but it is in storage in several dozen large boxes. Is it worth tracking this down or is it best to let sleeping dogs lie and ask Capquest to prove I owe the money?

I have been in your situation and currently have a Paypal account with a substantial negative balance. As Paypal have frozen the account I was unable to pay anything into it to reduce the negative total and have given up trying to do so. Paypal passed my account to two different DCA's - both of which are offshoots or affiliates of Paypal themselves. All their letters and phonecalls went unanswered or if they caught me on the phone I refused to go through their security procedures simply stating I was refusing to divulge such information over an open phoneline to someone I did not know. There were the usual threats of possible further actions and visits none of which materialised. As this negative balance is now well over two years old it is a dim and distant memory. I have another paypal account which was easy and problem free to open - despite the negative balance account. All you need is a different email address and bank account!! Paypal have never (to my knowledge) taken anyone to court either themselves or their in house DCA's. The likelihood of them doing so is as remote as you winning the jackpot on the lottery or the Ayatollahs in Iran converting to Christianity. So simply forget about them and move on. Or if they still allow you to pay into the account (unlike me) and you wish to do so simply pay them what you can realistically afford and no more.

Thank DX - will do. I will need to contact Marbles and send them a SAR as I don't think I still have a copy of the default notice amongst the reams of paper referring to all my defaulted accounts of yesteryear.

Looking for a quick bit of advice. Capquest purchased a defaulted Marbles credit card debt and are reporting it as a current credit card account with themselves. They have been doing this for about a year or so and I only noticed when I checked my credit reports with both Noddle and Clearscore. I have written to Capquest requesting they either prove I have a current credit card account with them or remove the entry from my files with the credit reference agencies. They have replied with a copy of the notice of assignment showing they purchased the debt. Now I have no argument they now own the debt - my argument is they are telling porky pies reporting I have a current credit card account with them and that the marbles account defaulted about seven years ago. As they are giving me the run around who do I report them to for entering false information with the credit reference agencies?

I just wish my local authority would take action against anti social motorists in my area that park on pavements completely blocking them - not partially - but completely!

Postage from China is very cheap probably because the Chinese PO is still government controlled unlike here where it is now a company enterprise. For me Post Office prices to Asia for parcels make my goods uncompetitive outside Europe - and the same applies to private courier companies. Anyone exporting to these areas is at a disadvantage regarding shipping rates - anyone importing has a built in advantage with the low freight/shipping charges from China, Vietnam, Cambodia etc.

Thanks again Ericsbrother. My wife and I certainly appreciate the time and effort made in responding to these posts and the encouragement to take on these leeches and give them a kicking in the gonads. Although my wife has a dread of anything to do with our legal system she was sufficiently incensed to take this as far as she could. She and her friends are amazed that something so unfair and unjust can be turned into a threat of court action. To be fair she stood her ground in the face of overwhelming pressure to simply pay what CEL wanted in the general understanding there wasn't a chance in hell of winning. This was because so many of her group had simply accepted such unfair demands for money in the past. Hopefully if CEL get a good kick in the gonads this cash cow attitude will be kicked into the long grass and these people will be more willing to stand up for themselves.