Hi, I received a notice of pending legal action from cohen solicitors saying they have been instructed to issue a claim against me in the county court for a santander £1412 debt so i sent them a cca request. This is their reply - We must advise you that requests for copy credit agreements under s.78 The consumer credit act 1974 only apply to running-credit accounts as defined by CCA. Your account is no longer a running-credit account because your credit facility has been withdrawn because it is in default and s.78 CCA therefore does not apply and there is no time limit to respond. However we will out of courtesy request a copy of your agreement from our client for your records. Are they correct in saying s.78 does not apply and there is no time limit? They also say that there has not been an assignment of this account. What does this mean? Any advice appreciated.

I took out a loan from Welcome finance around 3 and half maybe four years ago. It was for £1000 and my payments were for £75. I paid this regularly until i ran into some financial difficulty and reduced the payments but continued to pay. Around a year and half ago I was sent a letter that stated how much I still owed. I was surprised to see that despite the initial loan and how much i had been paying and for how long the letter stated i still owed around £2000. I contacted them and said that I wanted to see a breakdown of all my payments but i got no response. i decided to stop paying until I heard from them and i never did so i cancelled my direct debit. Today I received a letter fom Howard Cohen and Co, a claim form for county court with a claim and response form. I have never seen or heard of this before so wasnt really sure what to do about it. It says the defendant has failed to make payment in accordance with the agreement and a default notice has been sent to the defendant. It says i owe £2124.66, including court fee and solicitors costs. I believed I had heard nothing from them but looking back i did get a couple of letters which i didn't even open as they clearly were not my usual bills and a couple of weird things that said things like, 'We are trying to contact you, you have money waiting from an unclaimed prize' or 'someone from your past is desperate to get in contact with you, call to find out who'. Obviously i ignored all of these. Once someone called my work and was really rude wouldn't say who they were but i had to call them back. I also ignored this, I always do. What should I do now? There is no way I can pay that money to them, im not even sure that amount can be right. I have been off work for the last month with depression and anxiety and just as i was starting to feel better this has arrived and im really worried about it. I have seen on here that others received the same and filled in the defense form. Should i do the same?

Hi I really need help and advice? I have been out of work for a while and this meant that I feel behind my debts, but this week just starting a new job. I received recently claim form from Northampton, and I ever since I have been reading the forum on how to deal with the situation. The debt was initially owned by GE Money then transferred to Santander Cards, when I was paying it I realised the sales contract was faulty, some sneaky charges had been inserted, when returned to the store they amended and re wrote a new sales contract, but still again i never spotted PPI. When I raised it with head office, the were defensive initially but later agreed to refund provided i went to the store to get a new sales contract without it. I never went to do this as store out of town. Now, I sent for CPR 31.14 request which has not been acted upon more than 7 days later. I am receiving the usual 'bulk issuer currently retrieving the documents, but the additional 14 days expiring shortly. I am also confused with their response 'we will grant you a further 14 days for you to submit your defense!

Hi, I hope someone can advise please, I had a littlewoods account, but unfortunately lost my job, and therefore due to circumstance I ended up in debt with them. They have handed the account over to Philip Cohen Associates, who are calling constantly. I have had corresponded with them once via email. I accept that I do owe them money for the debt, but there seems to be unbelievable charges.ou Could some one advise as to what to do next,as I really want to get this sorted out. Thank you

Apologies if I have posted in the wrong place. My husband had a store card which we ran into difficulties with and began to pay £3 a month as opposed to the £12 which is all we could afford. The payments were sent to CL Finance. These payments of £3 were cashed until June 2012 when we received a letter from Howard Cohen stating County Court action would be taken unless we could offer a higher payment. We politely wrote back explaining this was not an option and two weeks later a County Court form arrived from Northampton. We filled this out acknowleging we owed the money, filled out an income and expenditure form as requested and stated the monthly amount we could afford. We sent the form back to Howard Cohen within the time limit and a few weeks later received an Order from Northampton stating that they had entered judgement in favour of Howard Cohen and installments had been set at £288 per month! The Order stated that we had 14 days to apply for a Redetermination Hearing if we could not afford the instalment amount set. I cribbed a template letter from this site, emailed it to Northampton County Court asking for a Redetermination Hearing and continued to maintain the £3 a month payment to Howard Cohen. Weeks later we received a hearing date for a Redetermination Hearing for judgement to be set aside at our local County Court which my husband attended last week 31st October 2012. Howard Cohen sent no representative and the Judge agreed that the £3 a month was acceptable which was a huge relief!....however in this morning's post is a letter from Howard Cohen arrived stating that:- "You have already been advised that Judgment has been obtained against you in the .......County Court claim number >>>>>>>>>> You have failed to maintain repayment under the Order as instructed by the Court. Unless you pay arrears of £432 immediately to Lewis Debt Recovery we will instruct the Court to take one of the following actions: Send Bailiffs or apply for an Attachment of Earnings Order Once payment of the arrears hasw been made,the judgment will be satisfied and you will be able to apply to the Court for a Certificate of satisfaction which may improve your credit worthiness!" I am very confused as I thought the whole point of applying for and being granted the Redetermination was to set the installment amount at a realistic level; and if the judge has agreed how can Howard Cohen continue to hound us? What do we reply? Please help the stress and panic is beginning all over again. thank you

Hi Have started a new thread because I cant find anything more recent than 2008 on these people. Forgive me if I missed sommink - please point me in the right direction if I have. A letter from this bunch of lovlies was recently sent to my deceased fathers address - addressed to 'the executor of the late.....' The letter says two things - 1. they have been instructed by British Gas to collect a debt of £226.88 and 2. that they can help sort out the Probate. Both my parents have not long died. Dad (to whom the letter was directed) died in December, Mum in March. Their affairs were relatively simple and are all sorted. There are - and never have been - any debts whatsoever. The estate is pretty much sorted and its now just a matter of house sale (underway). It will all be done then. My brother is executor and is meticulous in all things. He has recently received a statement from BG after doing all the final meter readings etc. They inform him that the account is in credit to the tune of £7.00. So - clearly a nasty bunch and no mistake. Question is what to do about it.. 1. Do we ignore it - throw the letter away and be done? Are they just fishing for a response? What are the potential consequences of doing this? 2. Have BG really passed on the details of my parents death? If so - what can we do to give them a bit of a poke? 3. Do we report P&C to someone, somehow? Looking at CAG and other sites, they have clearly been doing this coffin chasing stuff for a LONG time. It seems I am not the only 'fatherless' one! I am disinclined to contact them - because this will just provide them with information they do not have at the moment - like names, addresses, telephone numbers - which can be used to harrass us. That said... I am aware that this kind of unwanted DCA attention can become a pain over time if we dont nip it in the bud. What to do?? WM

Hello, Hope I can some more advice after being helped previously. Part of my debts is a Santander account - which I haven't heard much from. Yesterday I receieved a letter from Howard Cohen Solicitors with a notice of pending legal action. States that they have been instructed to issue a claim against me in the County Court in respect of the above debt. Should I fail to contact them a claim will be issued without further notice. Our client has asked that we take this final opportunity to remind you of the implications of action being taken against me through the court. Then says I can stop this action and avoid futher costs by paying the whole amount now. Call Lewis Debt Recovery. (never heard from them before!) Obviously I dont want to go to court, but not sure what I should be doing now - as I know from on here, never to ring them. Could someone help me with my next step please? Been about a year since I last paid. Many thanks for anyone taking the time on this.