I think the way the money was used is irrelevant to a claim for irresponsible lending. Lenders are meant to assess suitability to lend and should notice patterns where lending is regular, especially loans that are repaid and taken out again the same day or week, loans that were rolled over etc. I know the Ombudsman has sided with cases where gambling was clearly an issue and was clear on bank statements. If they were to start consider gambling as a reason not to accept complaints then any lifestyle choice would become fair game for them to refuse a refund i.e. eating too much, drinking too much, driving an expensive car, spending too much on kids toys etc etc

consistency is not the fos strongpoint - out of 10 cases with basically the same facts I had about 7 different opinions - all bar one of them all upheld but sometimes you need to stick their nose in the main facts....the recent curveball I have had thrown at me was an adjudicator not upholding complaint against safetynetcredit despite another ombudsman saying I was in a clear cycle of payday debt with another lender who was lending to me at same time and another adjudicator confirming it was clear I had a gambling problem!!

Does having a gambling problem have any bearing on an attempt to claim interest/fees back due to irresponsible lending?

Have you anything ongoing in the UK e.g Bank accounts, properties you own.

 

Do you have any other debts ?

 

Make sure UK creditors have your Foreign address and ideally your UK credit record should indicate you are resident abroad. What can happen is that some UK DCA's seem to conveniently not tell their Solicitors the debtor is abroad or the Solicitors does not notice. They then get a sneaky CCJ using the last known UK address, which can be difficult to get set aside, unless you can find issues with the debt. If you did not tell the original creditors you had gone abroad, Courts would not look at set asides purely based on you not being resident in the UK.

 

If you have debts in the UK exceeding £5k and own any UK property, you should be more energetic in getting your foreign residence fully recognised by UK debt owners. There have been cases where DCA's have bought debts exceeding the Bankruptcy threshold with a view to going after property assets.

 

As has been said, if you are living in the Middle East, it would be difficult for DCA's to enforce these debts, unless they somehow don't know you are abroad, so get a UK court judgement, which they look to take further.

Apologies for the late reply. Thanks for the advice so far. I have no assets in the UK at all. I have one debt which will be paid off early in the new year. aside from that nothing. I do have a uk bank account. I emailed them today and asked if they have received any account statement from the original creditor to prove the debt and if they could not supply one I would consider the matter closed. They replied by email and said they were still waiting on the statement and were under no obligation to provide one within a set period of time anyway. Seems an awfully long time to get a statement, almost 4 months. I assume the ball is in their court so I will leave the matter unless I hear from them now.

I will just leave the matter now I think. I am a permenant resident abroad which they have acknowledged and I have no plans to move back to the uk anytime soon.

Can't they just send stuff to a previous (UK) address?

They could but I do not have a UK address now so I wouldn't receive it. They have also acknowledged in my emails to them that they accept I am living abroad and I have given them my address and contact details here.

I am not trying to avoid paying, but to receive a demand for payment by email from a firm you have never had dealings with about an account I know nothing about I would expect a little more information from them. My main query was why if they bought the alleged debt they seem unwilling (or unable) to supply me with details relating to the account.

As you are out of the UK in a country which adjudication for the UK Courts is almost non-existent, Id say you are pretty safe.

Who is the DCA and what account is it?

Lowells are the DCA. The account was for a firm I had never heard of, hence why I asked for details as I have no paperwork at all relating to the account.

Hi,

I currently live in the Middle East and have done for 4 years. I recently received an email from a UK DCA claiming I owed some money (£2,500) in the UK that they were chasing. They said the debt had been assigned to them. Without acknowledging the debt was mine I asked them for my own peace of mind to provide me with an account statement showing me how the figure they claimed I owed had been arrived at. They said this would take up to 60 days to get from the original lender, longer in some circumstances. This was in early August and as of now I have not heard back from them.

Any advice on what I should do? I was going to write to them asking for an update but part of me thinks I should just leave it. I would obviously like to draw a line under the matter but am unsure what to make of their lack of contact.

Thanks in advance.