Hi all, in 2008 I took out a secured loan of over £10k from Welcome and within a few years struggled to make the payments. The loan went to Cabot on Welcome's demise and then to Ascent. 2 years ago, instead of consulting this site(!), I started paying Ascent less than £100 a month (don't want to be specific, in case they're on here) and this has brought the amount down. The balance is still over £10k and there is a charge on my property. Having spoken to Ascent, I have asked for a settlement figure and they want and income/expenditure thing (not something I trust, it's just to see what they can squeeze out of you I think) before giving me one. I have offered around £4k. My main priority is to get the second charge removed. And hopefully for a substantial discount or nothing. Any advice from here please?!? I understand now that I shouldn't have paid them anything but as there is still a charge on my property I felt I had to.

Dear Caggers, need some advice on this. We took unsecured loan back in 2010 for £9000 with Black Horse. Everything was fine until we run into financial dificulties in October 2012. Wrote to black horse asking for reduced payment plan and that was agreed for 6 months. The last payment we made was in January 2013, after which we contacted blackhorse again to lower reduced payments as we could not cope. They never responded to us. Two weeks ago we received letter from Ascent collections stating they acting on behalf of Blackhorse to collect the debt, followed by Blackhorse letter stating that Ascent Collections are now dealing with our debt. We wrote to Ascent to offer monthly reapayment but have not heard anything back. What do we do now? Should we wait or send another offer of payment? We dreading going to court over this. Please advise us what to do.

Irwin Mitchell took me court and gained a CCJ against me 5 years ago. Payment was offered and excepted and has never been missed. However, today they sent me a statement and despite paying over £70 a month I owe £3k more than when I started and they now require me to complete an I&E form. Do I have to do this seeing it is a CCJ ?

Hello, has anyone heard of Ascent financial services? They want to come and do a review of a relative of mine as they have arrears with the Halifax. They made a plan to sort the arrears on phone with Halifax and next thing get a letter from Ascent. Do they have to undertake this review as they really don't want to and want to stick to the agreement they have with Halifax. Thanks.

I had a credit card from sygma on which I owe £2335. they obtained a ccj on 1 April and interim charging order on 17th May. I am in the process of declaring bankruptcy and have now received a notice of a full charging application to be heard in court on 14th July. I have been receiving financial advice re: bankruptcy, and have been advised to pay this before the bankruptcy. I have the £700 for the bankruptcy. Should I write now and offer £700 and the rest instalments? Also should I ask them to accept my offer in writing and put that when it is paid they will fully remove the charge from the land registry and clear the debt from my file? Is there anything else I should specify? Thank you.

Hi I currently have mortgage arrears and have a court order for suspension of eviction in place where i have to pay extra each month. In December my payment was a bit late but it has been made, I have received a letter, dated 24.12.2013, from my mortgage company that they have passed my details to a company called Ascent Contact. This company have now visited my home and left a letter asking me to contact them to "discuss my arrears". the letter states there is a charge of £70+vat if I meet them, if i refuse to meet them a charge of £40+vat will be debited to my loan to cover the costs involved in offering this service, at which point the mortgage company will have little alternative but to progress legal action!! On the letter it says "At the meeting we will discuss your current financial position and, hopefully, be able to put in place affordable payment proposals with the lender based on your circumstances. This is an excellent opportunity for you to find out what solutions are available to assist you". I don't know what to do about this as I feel i've been to court and given them all my I&E details and feel that there is some sort of ulterior motive on the part of the mortgage company. Any advice will be gratefully received

I had a loan from Black Horse back in 2007, I got in to difficulty pretty quickly as my bonus got unexpectably cut. I made an arrangement and kept this up until I was made redundant in May 2009. Since then on and off I have been making payments. My account was passed to Ascent early 2012 and I made an arrangement to pay £50.00 per month. At this time I had once again been made redundant and was living off my redundancy. I managed to keep this up until Nov 2012 when the money ran out. I had a conversation with Ascent where i assertained that my £50 was being swalled by at least £80.00 worth of charges and interest per month. On Nov 23rd I wrote to black Horse and made a subject to access request. I wanted to see if I could get some of the charges back and the interest frozen. They responded on jan 16th. It took a while to get all the info together and I had just started a new job I responded on Feb 10th asking them to refund charges which I'd calculated and freeze interest. I also included income/expenditure details and offered a token payment of £10 per month until I was back on my feet. I did not receive a response to this letter, it was sent recorded. April 7th I sent another letter and inc a copy of my Feb letter and again no response. 3 weeks ago I signed up with noodle and checked my credit file- Black Horse or rather Ascent have issued a defualt notice and a CCJ at my previous address, this was done on Jan 31st even though they had my new address in November but I think even earlier than that. I contacted Ascent and they said they werent sure why it had happened and they would look into and call me within the week, 2 weeks passed and nothing I called them, they said they would called me back in ten minutes after a week nothing today I called again. Took ages to get through and then the person on the phone said 'would it be ok to call you back' and I said actually no way! v v long convo which went nowhere. Manager called me this evening and all she is saying is they will set aside CCJ on previous address and reissue on my current address. This isnt acceptable to me for the following reasons: - They had my current address and had written to me so why did they sent to previous address? She tried to say they're allowed to send to my last known address but that wasnt my last known address - I could not off a defence because of course I did not receive the paper work - I was waiting for a response from Black Horse, which I still have not received, it was not as if I was ignoring the matter. BH also sent Ascent my february letter but neither responded - I dispute the default being dated 2013 because this account actually defaulted in 2008/2009. The fact that Black Horse chose not to apply the default at that time is not my fault. Furthermore I did not receive the default notice as this was also sent to my previous address - Ascent are trying to say it doesnt matter because the fact remains I havent made a payment since Nov I have been writing to BH and they have been ignoring my letters. I did make an offer of a token payment and if this was not acceptable they could've come back and discussed. I think Ascent have sent the paperwork to my previous address on purpose. I need to try and sort this out! Next year apart from this I am clear!!! I cant start this 6 year sentance again. Please help!