Thank you Dx100uk, I managed to sleep a bit more soundly last night. If they do go for a claim form, do I lose the chance to pay in instalments, as I can’t afford to pay it in one go, or else I would. Sorry for sounding so stupid about this, I thought we had sorted nearly everything and then this happened. These letters always scare me!

Ok, so is this just another scare tactic? Was just worried as I’d read online that BW always go for legal action. Thank you for all your advice

Hope this is 3rd time lucky! Photo.pdf

Yes it’s on credit file. Just had a look and last registered payment was Nov 16. It’s for £1.2k, can’t see a default date on clearscore but must be after Nov 16 anyway. Just had a look at the letter again and it’s titled letter of claim, but all says may rather than will, so hoping that makes the difference. The account was opened and ran online, no physical signatures have been made by me on the account.

Thank you for moving for me. I’m not sure exactly, but would guess at at least 1 year since we paid it. We stopped when my husbands work went into administration and he was made redundancy with no pay. That was 3 years ago and I’m sure we struggled for a while and then had to stop paying.

Hi there, I’m hoping I can get some advice from all you knowledgable people on here. We have a few debts which have ran up but this one that’s raised its head was originally a Simply Be account which was passed over to Lowell. Had the usual threatograms from them and now it’s been transferred to BW Legal. They sent a couple of letters and now have passed it to BW Scotland. The letter today says full payment or contact required by 5th April or they may start court proceedings. Now I have looked into this and I can see lots of cases where they have gone for court action, but those letters seem to be worded differently to this one. As it says we may issue proceedings not we will. Is this something I need to worry about or should I just keep ignoring for now? I don’t want to contact them as I’m very easily bullied by them and end up agreeing to things I can’t afford. Hence always being in trouble! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Fkofilee thank you so much for that, it's going to come in very handy! So just as a matter of interest I called up Lowell but withheld my number and asked as a general question naming no companies or anything if they had the facility to do what EE have said, and surprise surprise they don't! The person at Lowell advised that my "friend" contact CAB for advice on what I was told! So I have it direct from the horses mouth that they can't do this! So I'm taking it all the way now!

Fkofilee that would be great if you could give me some pointers in what to write that would be great. I just want to be able to upgrade my contracts and change price plan ect. The more I've thought about it the more angry I'm getting as they guy was on the phone for about 30 mins and kept switching his story. I had initially phoned up to change a price plan which incidentally went through fine with a different advisor. And when I spoke to this advisor about migrating my number from Orange to EE then this story about Lowell having locked my accounts came about. When I pulled him up on the fact they had just changed a price plan he went away for a while, the came back and said it was because that line was originally on EE it was allowed! He then proceeded to tell me about his experiences with owing O2 money and he offered £1 per month and that was fine and he paid it for the next 330 months, but I think he forgot his maths as he would still be paying it as it would take 27 years! I'm hoping that I'll get some sort of resolution from EE, but I think now that I've had all your opinions that I've been led up the garden path somewhat as I did wonder how Lowell had the authority to come in and block an account that has no arrears. Seems like this is a new way from EE to force you to speak to Lowell.

That's good to know re the PAC code! Sorry I have gotten my dates wrong, it would have defaulted about 12-15 months ago, I was thinking the upgrade happened last Nov, but it was the year before as the upgrades on the existing ones are due in Nov this year. I will definetely send a complaint in, but I know from previous experience that they are not great with handling them as I had quite a serious data breach issue and it was swept under the carpet, but I know now I should have tried harder to get a resolution. Thank you so much for all the replies they really are appreciated

Well it's stopping me in that I can't upgrade, leave or take my number to a new network I have to pay forever more without ever getting a new phone or even lowering how much we pay. They defaulted about 6 months ago I think. I want to do the right thing and sort it out, but as I say I have about 10 account which are SB in the next couple of months and I don't want to re-ignite them. I know I owe the money, but due to redundancy I can't repay anything substantial and I wanted to cancel and unwanted line which they won't allow me to do, so they are keeping me in contract against my wishes. I'll try EE again armed with this info and see what they say. Thanks for all the help so far

Just to update, I got the exact same chain of letters that was posted and now it's gone a bit quiet for now, but no doubt they'll be back soon but I know for sure this is now SB.

It's not the phones which are blocked, it's any activity on the account from EE's end such as upgrades, cancellations ect. Or so they say anyway! It's a new one on me tbh, but I know they can refuse your business for whatever reason so I don't want to push too hard and lose all my lines!

It's roughly £2.5k that's owed over two lines. It's the whole contract that's due because of a cock up with Phones 4 u and a little bit of my own error as well. I upgraded 4 numbers on the same day with P4U and upgraded to EE. They declined to tell me it starts a new contract and I ended up with a huge bill 5 days after I had just paid which was fine, but only 1 DD set up for Orange and EE which I thought was correct, but actually it should have been a separate DD per line as it started a new account on EE, I just let it go and then the line disconnected it wasn't being used for a while, i didn't realise and it was passed to collections and here we are. In amongst all this my hubby was made redundant which hasn't helped and we struggled to keep above water and these are way down my list. My Dads work number of 20 years in on the account though and my Mums which a she uses for her business, so I can't afford to loose these numbers, I can live with losing mine and my hubby's. I'm just at a loss as I'm trying to be sensible and pay all priority debts quickly but I don't feel this is fair as I've paid these accounts for years with no issue and there are 4 upgrade due in the next few months!

I did wonder, as they've given me Lowells number to ring and the account numbers that are in question. I checked Noddle there and one is still showing as being with EE and the other I can't find in my many Lowell entries! I asked that question and the guy from EE says that his hands are tied and all activity in both accounts has been blocked by Lowell and until I call and make a payment plan then I can't upgrade, leave, migrate or do anything. I have a line which is due to end soon and I just wanted to cancel and was told they couldn't accept the notice as all activity was blocked but we can still use our phones and I just pay as normal. Apparently if the accounts were still with EE collections then they could overwrite the desicion but now they are with Lowell its up to them and I have to ask them to unblock it! It sounded a bit pie in the sky to me, but apparently any account I've ever held with EE under them or Orange are linked so Lowell will lock the lot! So what do I need to say to EE as I really want to keep my service as my credit is so bad I can't move to anyone else at the moment?

Hi all, I got some great help here in the past so looking for some more advice. I have an account with Orange and an account with EE which are both up to date and paid on time and have been for several years, these contain all the families numbers and I get the money from everyone and pay by DD. Anyway I called up today to be told that my accounts have been locked by Lowell! Basically I have an old unrelated account from a while ago which was the result of a phones 4 u nightmare, which has been passed to Lowell and they helpfully have barred any activity on my EE and Orange account, so I've been told today, I cannot upgrade, change price plan or even get my PAC code and leave the network until I speak to Lowell! First thing I want to know is can Lowell actually do this on unrelated accounts which are not delinquent and get paid by DD every month? The guy from EE seemed to think that if I phoned up Lowell and offered them £1 per month then all would be fine, but I'm wary at having to phone them as I know they will pressure me into paying more than I can afford. If it wasn't for the fact that my Dads work number was on the account then I would tell them to do one, but EE say their hands are tied and this is all Lowells doing. I have quite a few accounts with Lowell which are due to go SB this year and I fear that by calling them it will restart anything with my name on it! If I have to call them is there anything I can say to stop them reigniting these as they go SB literally in 2 months. I'm in Scotland if that helps any. Thanks a million for any advice.

Yeah it was sheriff officers, got it stopped though as I had been paying and they were issued prematurely. Good to know this is just a typical threat letter. Can't thank you enough for your help.

Thank you so much for your help with this. I'll ignore it now and see what else comes through. Last time I saw one of those booklets was when we got notice served for council tax arrears and they did go for a judgement so that's why I panicked so much.

So do you think I can just ignore it, or should I reply saying I don't know what it relates to? It was the wee booklet that came with it that worried me more as it made it look like a serious threat.

Finally I think I've managed to attach the letter and booklet correctly as a pdf. Thank you for all the help given so far!

Nope, not even close. It's a standard debt advice booklet that you must be issued with before they can take you to court I believe. I don't know if the AIB is a scottish thing then as you've not heard of it. I'm only working on my iPad here, so really struggling to get the PDFs on so you can see what I have received. My stress level has slightly receded since this morning, but still really worried they'll just go straight for a judgement in the sheriff court.

It's a booklet from the Accountancy in Bankruptcy, I'll scan it in too. I've downloaded an app and converted to PDFs, but no idea how to get them back on here! Lol! And I thought I was good with technology!

I'll need to scan them in an my Mums tomorrow, I just took those as photos on my phone. Thanks for all the advice, I just got really scared as the AIB booklet was in it and it made it seem really serious. I normally just ignore all the threats as they say may and I know they are all nearly or are SB. I've not taken any action on this as I will admit I was young and stupid and buried my head in the sand somewhat, so I've never sent anything to Welcome.

I have ( I think) added the letter minus my address and ref number.

Thanks for the quick responses. I'll get the letter scanned in as soon as I can. It was in an envelope with a window and had my correct name and address on it, but the start of the letter was dear sirs. I'm sure I was paying by DD until I lost my job and I went into the office and made a repayment plan which I stuck to until I could no longer afford it and by that time welcome had gone bust (I think!) and the office closed and I stopped making payments. I had paid off about half the loan I think. I'm sure it's been passed around various DCA's but I've shamefully just ignored them all, so I'm not 100% sure when the default date would be, but I know 100% the last payment was in 2009. That's if this does relate to Welcome Finance, but as I say nothing on Noddle, but Hillesden did do a search in 2014, but nothing since. Thanks again

Hi there, First time posting on here, but seems to be lots of great advice! I've today recieved a letter from Nolans Solicitors saying they are collecting on behalf of Hillesden Securities Limited. I don't know whether it is a standard threatogram letter or if I need to take action. The letter seems to be standard I'm that it starts "Dear Sirs" and I'm female! And it goes on to say that I have 7 days to pay or they may take me to court and this will be able to be enforced for 20 years and then gives a list of how I can pay them. It also had a booklet from AIB included which states that it's given to me as I'm going to have legal action taken against me. The thing is I don't actually know what the original debt relates to, as I checked my Noddle credit file and there is nothing on there that has the name Hillesden or for the same amount. Also there are no judgements showing against me at all. After googling I think it may be an old Welcome finance loan which I last paid in 2009 after my local branch shut down. So I believe that it should be statue barred as I'm in Scotland, so 5 years up here. I've got an email address to contact, so does anyone have a template that I can send to say I don't know what the debt relates to and see if they can get me details of what the actual debt is? I'm just worried they go for court action as my husband is currently not working and I couldn't afford to get a wage arrestment, never mind the reaction from my employer! If it's the debt I think it is, how do I prove its statue barred? As I was paying in the branch and previously was DD through an account which is now closed and I have no access to statements. Just really worried as I was just starting to get back on my feet! Any advice is gratefully relieved! Thanks