Hello All, Needed advice on the following for which I shall remain grateful as ever. For my studies I took some loan and put the remaining on my credit card (at that time I was not eligible for student loan). Since then I have paid a few, satisfied few, one CCJ issued against me and one no correspondence for last one year or so. There are some that I am paying as £1 per month, 3 of them including the CCJ one. Today I received a letter from CCS on my new address trying to fish for details starting as ''we are trying to contact the above named person regarding a personal matter.'' Contact if this person doesn't live here on...............call if you are the person......'' Now I am not sure which account is this for? Do I need to worry about this? Also I shall be grateful if some one could advise as to what is the best course of action to take with other debts that I am paying £1 per months or so. What is the most cost effective way to get rid of them? My understanding is these payments aren't the best options as they would never go away from my file after 6 years and even if they did the creditor could initiate the whole process again. Obviously, I have been naive about this, all of this started in 2007, 2008. If I would have managed these better then situation would have been different for the better. I shall be grateful for the advice as to what would be the best course of action for me now given my circumstances. My financial circumstances have not changed for better in fact I have now 2 babies and a mum to look after. Thanks, Dev P.S: Should I post this query here or under debt management thread? As both are intertwined?

Hi - I have several issues with various debt collection agencies, none of which are of my own making. There is an individual living in another part of the country with the same name and DOB as me, he keeps running up bad debts and then disappearing. Obviously, when these agencies go looking for him, I am always top of the list and so have lots of hassle trying to convince these people that I'm not this other person. I have been trying to get my credit report cleaned up recently, and am in the process of getting many incorrect address links removed, this is progressing well and when these addresses are removed, the bad debts for these addresses should be removed as part of the process. The problem I have is that Cabot have linked an address to me and placed a default on my credit report, but the entry placed on my report indicates that the default address is my actual address when it was actually at another of these incorrectly linked addresses... so basically when all the corrections have been made and the other incorrect addresses have been removed, this Cabot default will still remain as they've listed it under my address and not the address of the original account. I hope this makes sense. - I have two questions, the first one is "Is there anything I can do to stop these agencies chasing me for this other person debts? The second question is "What do I do about the above issue with Cabot? I have contacted the CRA's and they say I have to contact Cabot. I have contacted Cabot several times and each time I have to try and convince them I'm not this other person, and from the reactions I get I don't think they believe me. Anyway, I've been ringing them on a weekely basis for over a month now and it doesn't seem to be progressing at all. What should I do about this? I have also written a letter to the original lender which was Vanquis which I'm sending tomorrow requesting that they do something about this... I don't hold out much hope though as they were not very helpful on the phone. Any advice would be very gratefully appreciated as I seem to be going around in circles with the Cabot issue. Thanks, Andy. Weird issue when posting, kept saying my subject line has too many tags!

When we were working away we let our house through a letting agency who, although they had a "high street presence" did not safeguard our interests as landlords. We were naive, and trusted the firm because they had a shop front and adverts in the local papers. In short, although we were paying them £50 per month we ended up with no proper tenancy agreement, no inventory or statement of condition, no regular review, and more to the point, no agency agreement. We had tenants who were "men of straw" and lived like pigs. We found the remains of a Chinese takeaway under the sofa, and it and the sofa were infested with insects. They had a dog (contrary to the tenancy agreement we thought we had) which had used the hallway and stair post as a toilet area. Fortunately our next-door neighbour had our phone number and turned out to be a true friend. The agency "dis-instructed themselves" once they knew we were onto them, leaving us to appoint a new reputable letting agency, simply so that we could serve legal notice to quit on the tenants. The tenants caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to the fabric of the building including the need to replace ceilings and door frames, but we were lucky in that they did agree to leave, albeit after they had well "spent" any deposit we might have used to help cover some of the damages. However, when we moved back into the wreck of our "home" we continued to receive debt collection letters for well over 5 years after they had vacated. We wrote letters and phoned the various agencies concerned, but all they seemed to do was to sell the debt on to another collection agency, and they took no notice at all when we said that the tenants had moved on. Threats to report them to the Information Commissioner for failure to update their data under the terms of the DPA were simply laughed off. We have now sold the house in question, but I thought that readers of this forum might be interested to learn of our experiences. We are now NEVER going to let a house again, of course, but we would be interested to know if there was any action we could have taken to stop these debt collectors harassing us, other than what we had already done.

I do not have debt problems, and actually have no debt. I have spent much of my adult life working abroad so depending on the country I am in I have different levels of credit. In the UK I do not have great credit as have never had a UK credit card and do no want or need one. Yesterday I received two letters. The first I opened was from Farifax Solicitors. It was laser printed, and not on letter headed paper. It was not signed by a solicitor, or even a legal assistant on behalf of a solicitor. The signature was an electronic signature saying Fairfax Solicitors. The letter stated I owed £5500 to Barclaycard and if this was not paid then they would pursue me in the courts. In a little shock I opened the second letter. This was from Max Recovery services. It was the same letters as the Fairfax one, and on the same laser printed paper, not letter headed, same address, same everything, stating that I owed £5500 to Barclaycard and agreed last August to enter into a payment plan. Now all this is impossible. When I returned to the UK I looked at credit cards when finding an apartment and was told specifically by Barclaycard that they would not give me one until I have lived in the address for 2 more years, so there is no way I could have run up a debt so high prior to the agreement date of August last year. I have only been living in my current address for 9 months too. So I called Fairfax. Fairfax, for a solicitors, sounded like a call centre. My call was connected but no one picked up so I got to listen to laughing, and a room of people talking for a while before a woman picked up. I told her about the letters. She told me it was about an IVA signed last August. I did not know what an IVA was, and am still not 100% sure. I told her I have never had a Barclaycard. She then asked my DOB. I thought this was odd and feel stupid because I told her. She said this was the DOB they had on record. I told her I have never had a Barclaycard, and never signed an IVA, and have only lived at my address for 9 months. She asked of my previous addresses but I could tell from her tone that she was not interested. I asked her why and how she got this address. She then asked, out of the blue, if I have ever lived in Sunderland. I have never lived in Sunderland, or even been there. She then wrapped up quickly, saying it was a "bad trace" and hung up. I called the Financial Ombudsman's office and was told that these companies buy a chunk of bad debt from a bank for virtually nothing, as the bank has already written them off in their books. The company then search for the name via many sources and, as soon as they find matches, they blanket bomb the people they find with such letters. Innocent people, like myself, will then call, complain and say they have no debt and the company will apologize and say it was a "bad trace." There is nothing we can do apparently. I am concerned though, that my credit report has a couple of blips put on it by Fairfax without thinking, so I have asked for an up to date credit report and have mailed Fairfax asking specifically that question. Did your bad practices damage my credit score in any way? Let's see what they say. I would advise anyone that gets such a letter to be very wary.