Hi, in 2004 i took out a loan with a loan company and then had a bad health turn and had to leave my job and unable to make payments (last one made by me in 12/2005! The loan company never chased me for the payments so i left it be, then two weeks ago a letter came from county court asking for my defence. I informed the court that the loan was statute barred and waited for the judgement. today i received a letter from the debt collection people stating i made payments in 2008 which they sent me a statement for and the payments have been made by "Lewis Group" to the tune of £2500. What do i do? I never made these payments and never agreed for debt mangement company to manage my debt? can this be right? and is the debt statute barred? can anyone inform me? Thank you

I have a Santander basic account on which i will need to setup several standing orders to pay amounts between 50 and 250 on a specific date in which my pay goes into this account . My question is how reliable is their faster payments service? There would be penalties set by my creditors if they did'nt receive the transfer on the same day.

Hi Is there any known legal regulation that states that once a debt has been passed on to a collection agency you no longer have a right to pay the creditor direct? I have seen many collection and enforcement agencies state you no longer hold the right to make payment direct but where is this legally set in stone and can the Local Authority/Creditor state any reasonable grounds for refusing to accept the payment if you make it direct to them? Thanks

Wondering if someone here could offer a bit of advice. About a year ago I fell behind with some payments for a credit card,the overdue marker showing 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 0,0,0,0,0,0,4,4,3,2,2,1,0,0,0,0,0Since then my account has been running pretty well.. During this ttime I was paying in some amounts along the way but not every month. My question here is; is there any way I can check that credit file markers are accurate and whether the odd payments made during this time should have 'reset' the marker somehow. I've read somewhere that the 4's are seen same as a default by creditors.That would perhaps explain why I cann t seem to get any decent rated cards even though I'm on a good salary now. Mind you I do still have £14K on the cards though but salary covers this very well. Just wishing to tidy up my file and perhaps reduce interest payments. Any advice, suggestions would be most welcome.

Can a claimant get backdated payments if during the relevant winter the claimant was on assessment rate, then subsequently won on appeal? According to the Directgov site payments can't be made for late claims for any winters from 2000/01 onwards. My argument is that the automatic payment was not triggered due to claimant status, and that a claim could not be made for the same reason.

Hi guys, I have been looking at a number of threads and am interested in some advice if at all possible. My family and I (fiance and 3 year old child) moved to Australia about 4 and half months ago. We have been wanting to make the move for a number of years, and it took us literally 3 years to get here...so we didnt want to / couldnt give up the chance. The problem I have is I currently still owe a lot of money to the UK, roughly around the following: 15k bank loan (unsecured - never had a mortgage, etc.) about 18k on cards Up until this month, I have managed to send money back to cover MINIMUM payment amounts...but even after 3 months it is financially hitting me. Up until now I have literally worked in AU to pay UK payments, and with international transfer costs, etc. I loose x amount each transfer. I have already notified (by letter) my bank, and credit card companies of my change of address in AU - I have already had one letter through from RBS demanding payment after missing 1 payment! My question is....I realisticly cant continue to pay my UK debts. If i continue to not making payments, what will happen and on what sort of average time scale? Is there anyway that it can effect my credit rating or credit checks in Oz? (sorry that is more than one question!) I have no wish to apply for any credit in Oz, the whole idea is that we do things right this time. I am no way saying or blaming anyone other than me for what I have ran up, but part of me does hold blame with the actual lending companies I owe to. In the UK, our monthly income was £2k....pre credit crunch I was literally getting credit thrown at me hence the reason the debts are at the level that they are. I am now 30 years old, but when the firms were lending me the money I was a single young to mid 20's....I'm sure someone there should have thought hold on a second! I have never had a mortgage in my own name, so any loan or credit card I have ever had has never been "secured". I really hope you guys can give me some sound advice; as things stand, I wont financially be able to afford to send any money back to cover payments for September either, and things will probably carry on for October too. Its not what I wanted to do, it really wasnt, but the thing is western australia is an expensive place to live with a single income - we have / had no future in the uk, so have no intentions what so ever of moving back there. Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys

Hello everyone I am hoping someone will be able to answer my question regarding my mortgage payments while I am on JSA. Here is my dilemma. I was made redundant last year after 22 years as a civil servant. I received JSA contribution based for the maximum six months and have since been receiving JSA income based. I recently started to receive payments of my mortgage interest from the DWP. I have been offer a job - albeit a part time temporary job which will finish in January. My dilemma is will I have to wait nine months again before I can receive my mortgage interest payments again or is there a linking period between my two claims as I will have only been employed for around 4 months. I am reluctant to take a part time job if it means losing my interest payments and will have to wait nine months again when I reclaim in the new year. I am desperate to work and would love a full time job but this is the only job I have been offered. I really don't know what to do and the DWP have been really unhelpful. They won't give me information without having my name and national insurance number and I don't want to give it if I decide not to take the temporary part time job and they say I've not been actively seeking employment. Please help me. Thanks Flippy

Please move if in wrong area sorry! Basically I am in receipt of WRAG and get help with my mortgage interest (halifax) I cover the extra each month. My current mortgage payment plan runs out end of Dec, so the next one will obviously cost me more, of which I will not be able to afford the extra. I am not in any arrears with my mortgage and never have been. Is it worth me writing to the Halifax and asking if they could help me in any way. I know I will have to sell the house soon (there is equity in it) but nothing is selling round here I have spoken to the estate agent/s this is a dead market, plus I cannot afford to let the house go for a cheap sale, it is the only money I will ever have so has to see me through my remaining years. The house is in my name, I have no family making claims or expecting funds from the house (does that matter not sure). The chances of me working 55 suffering from depression are slim (I could not find work before I was ill) The stress of it all is unbearable and I have NO idea who to turn to for help and advice. Again sorry if posted in wrong forum.

OK, here goes. This might seem complicated but I'll try and make it simpler by using an example. AN INTRO... The company I've worked for for several years now has taken the decision to "cut" overtime payments. The company is an English company, trading in both Scotland and England. Persons may be required to work either dayshift or nightshifts, and also weekends where required. A Saturday dayshift/nightshift, or a Sunday dayshift/nightshift have always been overtime. Our contracts do not specifically state which hours we are required to work - they merely say "office hours". This could be interpreted in a number of ways. Persons are paid by salary, and not hourly, daily, or weekly. It's a flat payment, plus any overtime. THE PROBLEM Prior to the company implementing this, the old system would work as follows: Mr Smith works 5 nights a week, Sunday night to Thursday night. He's on £30k a year. His monthly salary is £2500 + overtime (4 x sunday nightshifts). Each Sunday nightshift would get Mr Smith £150. So this month, he's been paid £3100 The new system has changed in that the company have decided that the salary should now be based on a minimum of 5 shifts per week. Thus, the Sunday night becomes part of that 5 shifts. But the company concedes that this is unsociable, and now describes this as an "enhanced payment". So under the new system: Mr Smith works the same hours as previous. His monthly salary is £2500 + enhanced payments. Enhanced payments are calculated at (the old sunday rate MINUS what you get per day). Therefore Mr Smith gets £35.11 for each sunday nightshift. So the next month, Mr Smith is paid £2640.44 So what's the legalities of this? Has the company set a precedent by paying what they pay for the overtime shift? Should they have consulted employees firstly? Is this a change change to our terms? Any help appreciated. And if I've missed any important details, please let me know.

For some time now I have noted that Barclaycard incorrectly under quote my Barclaycard monthly statement interest rate. If I then pay the quoted monthly minimum payment as shown on my statement I find that next month my outstanding balance has actually " INCREASED ". I would have thought that this was not only a failure under Barclaycards own terms and conditions but is illegal. This underhand practice by Barclaycard must be adding millions to their bottom line when you also take into consideration the added compound interest to customers Barclaycard accounts. Any comments advice or similar experiences by other Barclaycard customers appreciated.

Hi I have a few accounts with DCA's that I have been paying for years. These are the ones that came back with a correct CCA. I pay around £400 a month. I have just found out I have a large outstanding PAYE account and HMRC are threatening legal action. I need to pay this off asap and am trying to throw every available penny at it. What do you think the outcome would be if I wrote to all the DCA's and asked them to accept token £1 payments for a year until this bill was paid off? They have already defaulted me years ago and most of these are due to drop off my file at the end of the year. I dont want to risk getting CCJ's an ruining my file again, however HMRC may well give me a CCJ if I cannot come to a decent arrangement with them. Has anybody asked a DCA to accept token payments for a while? Is there any hope of them agreeing to this?

i am a shared ownership tenant where i am purchasing 50% of my property the other half is rent which i am 2000 pound in arrears with, but only a small amount of this due payment is service charges. and there is no additional ground rent charges. but my landlord has demanded from my mortgage company who is the notoriously bad Santander to send them the full amount that is owed on my rent and ad this to my mortgage payments which is already in arrears of 600 pounds.Can you please let me know if they are allowed to ad this rent to my mortgage, and they are also charging me 70.00 pounds for doing so and they said there will be interest added to my mortgage account on there's arrears . this is causing me a lot of worry and concern and is only making my situation worse, damaging my credit record and this may even cause me to lose my home.can you please advise whether this is legal or not for my mortgage company to ad this rent to my mortgage the service charges is about 25% of the rent payments?which would amount to 500 pounds of the 2000 pounds they have added to my mortgage and now the mortgage company are demanding that i pay this amount or i will be in breach of my mortgage.

Hi My husband recently died, Although we had recently seperated we had not started the divorce procedings. When i reported his death to the DWP they said I may be entitled to bereavement benefit and have put in a claim for me. I am on ESA in the wrag group and it says it may affect this. I get income based ESA No one seems to be able to explain Can anyone help, if I get this benefit will they just take it off my ESA? Thanks

Hi, just wondering whether back payments will start from the date given on the Tribunal letter which is 14/11/2011, or does it go from when I appealed the ATOS and Reconsideration decisions? Any help regarding this would be very much appreciated..

Been lurking for a while and I'm sad to say that my experience with TFF is much the same e.g. excess interest, unjustified charges and unauthorised withdrawls from bank account. Before I take this to the next level I would appreciate some solid guidance on some of the things that have been said in this forum, not just personal speculation: 1. How much interest can they legally charge on a TFF loan even if it goes to say eight weeks and on what is that based on e.g. OFT rules? 2. How do I force the bank to charge back an unauthorised payment? My user name may give you an idea where I am going with this!

Hi everyone, I need a bit of information in regards to Brighthouse. My girlfriend has got a few things from them and pays around £140 per week. A few weeks back she missed one weeks payments due to not having the right amount. She walked into her local store to pay the missed weeks payment as well as the payment that was due. The member of staff informed her that there was a £20 late payment charge to be paid on top of what was owed. She said she is not going to pay it and walked out the store. She phoned me and explained what had happened. I said to her that she did the right thing, but go back in and pay the money that was owed on the account. When she walked back into the store, the branch manager tried to force her to pay the £20 charge or he will not accept the money for the account. She argued with him and he called his area manager. After a lengthy conversation he put the phone down and told my girlfriend that she did not have to pay the £20 charge. Last weekend my girlfriend had the same problem only this time Brighthouse and the store manager were using dirty nasty tactics. She missed a weeks payment and the store manager came out to her house. He told her that she has to pay a late payment charge of £20 or he will not take her weekly payments and that she will have a visit by bailiffs to remove her goods. She told him to leave her property straight away. She was quite shaken by this and called me straight away. I was raging with fury after she told me what this idiot had told her. I know quite a bit about bailiffs and what they can and can not do. I reassured her that no bailiffs will come and remove her goods. He left her his card and told her she has got until 14:00hrs to pay the amount with charges. I told her to go to the store with a friend(I live in Portsmouth, she lives in Birmingham otherwise he would of been dealing with me) and take the digital voice recorder that I gave her a while back and ask him why he will not take her payments. She walked into the store and asked the branch manager if he was prepared to put in writing why he will not take her payments. He refused to do that and that she could contact head office and speak to them. She asked him if he was willing to take her payments and he replied no. She walked out of the store and called me straight away. I told her that she should never speak over the phone or deal with brighthouse face to face and never sign anything and that she should put a video camera by the front door in case they ever come back to the house. What I would like to do is write a letter to brighthouse about what this store manager has said, also to the OFT and FSA but I am unsure of what to put in it. Has anybody else had this problem with Brighthouse. Any help or advice of what to put in this letter would be most appreciated.

Hi, Can you pl help me with the following: This is for a friend of mine who has no PC/internet etc. She's absolutely desperate and i told her that CAG had helped me with various issues and this is her situation: She has just become unemployed again after an 8 month contract working. She had previously been unemployed for nearly 2 years. She has now been told that the DWP is linking her 2 periods of unemployment and that as she will have had 104 weeks mortgage interest they will stop paying mortgage interest in August 2012. My friend understood that if you worked for over 6 months a new claim would be started if you subsequently became unemployed through no fault of your own and mortgage interest would be payable after a 3 month wait. She is now currently left with £9 a week for herself and her son to live on. Does anyone know what the rules are? Many thanks, Wrecked.

Back in 2007 I received a letter from these with an outstanding debt of £3000. At the time, I knew nothing of DCA's and went along with it. Since then I have paid over £1000 and even to this day still pay the monthly installments. Now, after learning everything I have on this forum I've realised that the debt, when they first contacted me was statute barred. Didnt know what that was at the time, also, i wouldnt imagine they could provide a CCA request. Should I been sending a request and if they don't respond should I stop paying them? The original debt was £2200 and raised to £3000. So I've paid the best part of 50% already..

Hi there, I wonder if you can help me please. On 14 April, my husband was made redundant from his job. As we had been optimistic and expected him to find work quite quickly we did not apply for JSA for him until 24 April. I am disabled and unable to work and the news that my husband had lost his job hit me quite hard so one of my siblings decided that we needed 2 weeks down where they live and drove up to get us. Just before we left, my husband received a text message saying he had an appointment at our local job centre at the beginning of May. He called them and explained that we would be in another part of the UK and that his job loss had hit me very hard, but could he arrange an appointment for the week starting the 21st of May. They said they couldnt book that far in advance, but that if we called them when we got back he would be seen within 3 days. Well we rang and he got an appointment date for 7 days later. To cut a long story short- my husband signed on, has applied for 293 jobs and has kept the Job Centre up to speed. For the last 3 weeks we have been chasing them for his JSA and kept getting told that it would be in his account at the beginning of the following week. Last week we were told it would be in his account by Wednesday this week as they were just waiting for a piece of paper to be faxed over to them by another dept. still no payments. Again they say they'll look into it. They rang back and said that as I claimed ESA and the person who had filled out my husbands claim form had ticked ESA and JSA on his application they were in the process of cancelling my ESA. My husband said no thats not what he had agreed to so they sent him to the Job Centre to fill in another form promising that once this was faxed to them the funds would be in his account last night which they werent. This morning he checked his account and 355 had been paid in. The claim was made 10 weeks ago my husband rang and asked why he had received 5 weeks of payments and the was told that as he had put "expected to be in a job by now" on his claim, that they had decided not to pay him for the previous 5 weeks, but that he could appeal this. I dont understand why saying that on a form means that he is not entitled to the rest of the money from his claim? Can anyone please help us with appealing this? I just cant understand it! Thank you xxx

I have a TV Licence for period 1.1.12 to 31.12,12 which is on the weekly payment system. To the best of my knowledge the whole amount has been now paid, and I have started to receive texts from TVL saying amounts overdue, this may be a catch up scenario, However, there blurb says I can start now paying in advance for next years licence, I get this rubbish every year, and as far as I am aware, there is no legal requirement or statute that requires me to comply and I guess that even if I dis enter this, I doubt if they will entertain paying me interest on advanced advance payments:madgrin:

Hi, I would be over the moon if someone could possibly give me any information on my dilemma Ok, back in August 2010 I was transferred from Income Support to ESA, I was in receipt also of low rate mobility which I received a 4 weekly amount and an extra £20 something included in with my Income Support. When I was transferred on to the new ESA benefit, I was told that I would continue to receive the same amount of benefit I was getting with Income Support. I finally, after many re-booked medical assessments got a decision stating I am fit for work. I appealed with the help of an advisor and won my case on 14th February 2012 being placed in the WRAG. My advisor told me I should receive all my backdated payments within 6 weeks. After many phone calls due to not receiving my appeals notice award which was posted twice and faxed 3 times The DWP have told me I am not due any arrears as they have paid them already, I am lost as I received an extra DLA component only with my ESA basic rate, can they count this component as being the same as being on the main phase?? I discontinued to receive DLA in November 2011 & my ESA went down with the effect.........HELP PLEASE......THANKS

Hi I joined Top notch Health club last year 07-11 on a 12 months non-cancelable contract. I am a student working 1 and half days a week. In the 8th month (April) of my contract I became redundant and the DD was refused. I managed to pay that month membership in cash. On the 1st of May my bank cancelled the direct debit as there were insufficient funds in the account and I have not used the gym services since. I received letters stating I owe them the remaining amount of my contract which amounts to £104.97 for 3 months. I called the accounts lady stating I have been made redundant and initially she took a "I dont care approach" your membership is cancelled and you still owe us the money. After I explained the concept of " Do you expect me to find the money up my arse? she said ok we "might" consider terminating the contract if you send us a letter of redundancy. That was my last correspondence with the gym. I asked work to give me the letter but they have stalled and due to my exams I have not pursued this. On the 13th of June I received a solicitors letter from Trevor Munn solicitors asking me to pay £174.75 to ARC Europe and threatening to take me to Northampton County Court in 10 days if I dont pay. I am aware that this case is unlikely to go to court as it is for a small amount and i hope that I can re-attend the gym when i can afford it again but this experience is severely putting me off ever going back What can I do?

I know this matter is nothing compared to some on here so I'm not expecting tons of replies but I wondered if anyone had any advice on the following: 5 years ago, I left self employment but was in dispute with a supplier about stock they claimed I owed them. To cut a long story short, they took me to court and I offered a payment of £5 pcm until the debt was cleared. The debt itself was only for £600 or so but the court accepted this and I have been paying this every month since. The creditor has not written to me (the debt is currently around £450) and told me that they "require the monthly payment to be increased to £50 per month, therefore, clearing the balance in 9 months" Should I not be able to do this, they have ever so kindly also send an I/E form that I must submit with all my personal financial information so they can decided how much is fair! I was under the impression that provided I was keeping up with the payments as per the CCJ, they could do absolutely nothing about it other than wait for the debt to clear. Am I wrong in this? can they take such action? If not, can I report them to the courts for trying to do so? Some expert guidance would be really appreciated. Many thanks in advance.