Hi there, Thank you so much for replying so quickly. I will do that tomorrow and send it recorded delivery. What a fantastic site. I will keep you up to date with the progress. Thanks again. Mo.

Hi - sorry to hear your troubles with the DLA. They are a law unto themselves. I had to fight for my husband as they revoked both his awards due to a doctor who came to assess him. he was in bed at the time suffering an angina attack. He refused the doctors request to walk to the toilet so the doctor assessed him as having a 'normal gait' and 'well define muscular legs and arms'. Just how he came to this conclusion I'll never know. Anyway we got a letter from our doctor who just stopped short of calling the DLA doctor an idiot. It was this letter that played a huge part at the appeal and had the benefits reinstated. Get as much backing as you can from your GP, nurse, specialist etc.... anyone who sees you on a regular basis. Get social services involved. Don't give up as that is what they want and expect you to do - genuine cases do not give up. Good luck.

Hi to everyone. my name is Mo and I'm need of help and advice concerning a certain debt collection agency. It is a very long winded story so thank you for taking the time to read it. Here goes ......... In 1999 my husband took out a loan with Welcome finance for £500. The repayments were £79 per month for 12 months. Everything was going great and the repayments were made on time but did fall behind with a payment when he changed jobs. Then in August 1999 out of the blue he suffered a huge heart attack and had to a by-pass op. The job he was doing at the time was comission based and was probationary so sick pay was out of the question.Our income went down to £60 per week at one point until benefits were sorted out. The loan had payment protection on so we made a claim for sickness. The policy didn't cover the first 30 days and we didn't have any money to bring it up to date but it was the least of our wories at the time. Every month he had to produce sick notes which continued until the loan was paid by the insurance. But there were still 2 payments outstanding. We then received a letter & statement from them informing us he owed them £750. We thought they had overlooked the fact that the insurance had paid it off BUT this was the interest acrued on the 2 missed payments. We didn't fully understand and still don't know how this worked as to us the £79 monthly payment included the interest. In the end we took it to a solicitor (with all the associated paperwork) and even he couldn't fully understand but he put our case to them that we owed them only the 2 missed payments totalling £158. after much to-ing and fro-ing they agreed to accept £159 but wanted it in a lump sum. Well we couldn't afford to pull this amount out as we were on rock bottom and asked if we could pay by installements but they refused - it had to be paid in full. The solicitor lost interest in the case and it was never resolved. I can't really remember what correspondance we got from them after that but whenever we got any we responded with the fact we only owed £159 not the £750 they were asking for. Then it all went quiet................ Until last year. My husbands son got a letter from a debt collection agency called Ruthbridge demanding £751. He lives 30 miles away from us. He rang them asking what the hell it was all about and in the end they admitted he wasn't the person they were after. He shares the same first name but not the same birthday (obviously). They had done a trace looking for my husband at his previous address and linked his son's address. But we hadn't gone anywhere to warrant them looking for him. He was on the electoral register, was at home most of the time if they wanted to do a doorstep visit ???? Anyway it caused a lot of upset and his son was promised that it wouldn't happen again and he would not be linked to the case. But it did happen again at exactly the same time this year - again his son rang and complained. Only this time I rang them to tell them that he had never moved from the original address and to send all correspondance to him. So they sent him a letter dated 31st July demanding £751 and that if he didn;t contact them in 7 days then they would take it to court. They didn't even give him a chance to respond in the 7 days because 3 days later another letter arrived from them dated 2nd August informing him that they had advised their client (Welcome) to commence bankruptcy proceedings. He rang up and asked them to talk to me on his behalf to be told they are proceeding to bankruptcy regardless. I argued with her about what happened all those years ago but she wouldn't budge. I asked if we could sort this by installments but all she could offer was a settlement figure of £563 to be paid by 18th August. If it wasn't paid by then it would be the original figure of £751 by the end of August and if no payment is received by this date then they would proceed to bankruptcy. Can anyone out there advise me how we stand on this. I feel that there are a lot of unfair practices taken place here including the recent letters (2 in one week stating different things) and the data protection act (pursuing the wrong person). This is really scaring me and I would appreciate any help.