Please can you can help. Today I had a letter from IDRWW regarding a debt from 2009 to HSBC Middle East. I took loan out to pay a debt, lost my job, had to leave the region due to visa rules, was unemployed & had long period of instability. I had given my parents address when taking out the loan and have had zero communication regarding this debt since 2009. It's a relatively small sum of money (£2700) but i'm self employed on a low income so can only afford very small repayments at moment... I'm very anxious about how best to deal with it as I fear it will escalate into a bigger problem. I fear they won't accept my small repayments - and could dump load of extra penalties on me that would make it unmanageable. In principle i'd be happy to pay something as I prefer to clear my debts ....what is the precedent for dealing with this? Thanks in advance for your time reading this.

Hi all, I'm kind of in the same boat with these guys, http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?476654-Australian-Debt-Complete-Credit-Solutions&p=5042016#post5042016 but for a far less amount ($5k). Im based in NZ - long story short the debt is in my name, but don't trust your (now ex) girlfriend in an absolute manner to settle the debt on breakup, even though its hers! No amount has been paid on this in two years. What is a reasonable timeframe to propose for a payment arrangement? Its a rather small(ish) amount, so I do know they won't be spending large amounts of time/money recovering a debt from someone based overseas. Any and all advice/direction would be greatly appreciated. The lady on the other end is an absolute hothead and hung up on me, so I'll keep that ace up my sleeve if they try to play hardball (I did state I was recording the conversation). Total amount - just over $5kAUD Debt - Personal Loan with Commonwealth Bank Im based in NZ - long story short the debt is in my name, but don't trust your (now ex) girlfriend in an absolute manner to settle the debt on breakup, even though its hers! No amount has been paid on this in two years. They have been trying to call me for months, but have ignored, but I did pick up a call from them expecting it to be someone else this week. Documentation (Notice of Assignment of Debt) has been emailed through to me on request. What is a reasonable timeframe to propose for a payment arrangement? Its a rather small(ish) amount, so I do know they won't be spending large amounts of time/money recovering a debt from someone based overseas. Any and all advice/direction would be greatly appreciated. The lady on the other end is an absolute hothead and hung up on me, so I'll keep that ace up my sleeve if they try to play hardball (I did state I was recording the conversation). Cheers

hi I have uploaded 2 letters that I have received from robinson way. the first asking me if I lived at an address in Cyprus. which I did from 2006 until 2010. the 2nd telling me that I had a debt owed to HPH2 (ex Lolyds overseas) for £3037.00. I did have a loan in 2004 but due to loss of job while in Cyprus could not keep up the payments last payment was early 2007. since then had on contact with anyone regarding this debt until 2 weeks ago 1st letter. then the 2nd letter today. note on the 1st letter theres no mention of them being a DCA can you advise me on how to deal with this please Thanks

Hello I really need some help please. I bought a solid gold christian name necklace from 'My Name Necklace' and purchased their 12 month warranty at the same time. Just inside the warranty date, the chain broke, I completed the online claim form along with a photo of the broken chain ( The warranty covers chain breakage ) The company emailed soon afterwards on 15th November stating: We apologies for the situation. We can send you another chain. A prepaid return envelope will be sent so that you can return your original item to us.* Please let us know if you agree. Please note that this envelope is already addressed to us and prepaid. Simply place your item in the envelope and drop into any mail box. There is no need to add postage or go to the Post Office. Please let us know if we could be of any further assistance. Best Regards, Allison Brown My Name Necklace Customer Service Team I replied stating I would use the envelope but as the order cost me £116.00, I would not be popping the envelope in a letterbox, and would pay extra to send tracked. 2 weeks passed, and the addressed envelope hadn't arrived, I messaged again to report this, was told that the returns envelope can take up to 3 weeks to reach me. I realised the compary was overseas, so had to accept this. At today's date there's still no envelope I've contacted the company again and they are just lying / fobbing me off by saying they have escalated my complaint, and then I hear no more. I've asked for the company address and they won't supply it. All communication has to be done through their webforms only. I may have found the address through Google search, but it may not be correct: Mynamenecklace 14455 N Hayden Road Suite 226 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 I'm wondering if there is a procedure similar to the UK 'small claims' that can be done with an overseas company? Can anyone advise please? The necklace was my daughters 2015 Christmas present from me. To be honest, she only wore it a handful of times as the chain is so fine, that she was frightened it would break, and unfortunately the chain caught on her jumper, and snapped when she tried to release it, albeit very carefully. Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

I'm talking here about calls overseas whilst in the UK not roaming. I just made a 25 minute phone call to Belgium from London and have been charged £25 for it! That's £1 per minute - extortionate! Do the new EU regs not apply to cross border calls from your home country? Seems odd to limit roaming charges whilst abroad and then let the phone cos charge what they like when you are at home. The irony is I travel a lot and have the Eurotraveller service enabled. When I call this number from abroad I get charged nothing under Eurotraveller - apart from the usual daily fee which covers all calls. So I am in the absurd situation of paying several times more for calls in the UK than when I am roaming!

BANK - barclays & 1st credit PROBLEM - Barclays sold my UK debt to 1st credit and I now live in Spain INITIAL LOAN AMOUNT - £4900 AMOUNT OWED / REMAINING - £3509 LOAN START DATE - 10 FEB 2012 LOAN TERM - 60 months LOAN MONTHLY REPAYMENT AMOUNT - £106 reduced to £5 COLATERAL - None REF: Barclays sold my debt to 1st credit against our agreement when no payments where missed or late. NB My situation can be classified under 3 forums and I have posted this message under 1st direct, barclays and debts abroad. My apologies for any confusion. Hello Everyone, I took a loan for a car in England to do my job as a support worker for children and adults with disabilities. The loan amount was £4900. In December 2013 I went to live in Spain perminantly and do not have a source of regular income. In August 2014 I was unable to continue repayments of £106 and agreed with Barclays bank by telephone to reduce my repayments to £5 per month for 12 months, to be reviewed 12 months later. I paid all these repayments fully and on time. 12 months later, in August 2015 I contacted barclays by telephone again and agreed to continue repayments of £5/month for another 12 months until August 2016. . I paid all these repayments fully and on time. I received a letter on 12 November 2015 (dated September 2015) from Barclays stating that- - they (Barclays) have "transferred the debt you owe us to a company called 1st Credit Ltd" and - "1st Credit Ltd will contact you to complete an income and expediture review to see what you can afford to pay after a minimum of 3 months" and - to cancel any standing orders to Barclays I made a payment of £5 on 12th Nov 2015 online using the 1st Credit website. I shall make another payment using the 1st credit website of £5 on the 3rd December 2015. I will continue paying £5/month. I would sincerely be grateful for advice and have some questions I would like ask: * I have read on the internet that the UK is stopping people at airports from leaving the country and demanding repayment or prison. This frightens me because I am going to visit my family soon (they payed for my air tickets). Would this affect me? * I live in Spain and do not have either a telephone number or a postal address so: -how are 1st Credit going to telephone me to "agree a repayment plan"? - they only have my email address to which they have posted 2 messages, one as a payment confirmation of £5 and one as an "Introduction to 1st Credit". I have not posted any emails to 1st credit. * Barclays sold the debt to 1st credit and broke the repayment agreement whilst it was still in effect. How do I stand in this situation when the agreement as made by telephone from Spain? * I dont want to be bullied and put under mental stress by debt collectors. Will they try to chase me in Spain when I am continuing to make payments of £5/month? * Will 1st credit chase my family or partner's family for repayments? NOTES: *I have limited communications and no motorised transport, so phone calls must be done by cycling to the nearest town. *I cannot receive phonecalls. Internet / email communictions must also be done using an internet cafe in the town. *I have absolutely no colateral, no vehicles, no property, no savings / investments, no jewelry and I am not married by english law to a person with any colateral. Thank you all for your help. Love and Light.

Its been 2 years since I heard from Erudio. In April 2014 I sent off the deferment template letter from here along with original pay stubs which qualified me for deferment. Since then I have had no contact from them, until today. Today I got 6 x "Notice of sum in arrears" going back to August 2014 in one envelope The cover letter was titled "Remedy of Account" and basically says they have been sorting stuff out and havent charged interest but will do so on June 1st. The letters tell me I am 2 years in arrears. They seem to basically have ignored my application for deferral in 2014. Any advice on how to move forward would be appreciated. I do still qualify for deferment and live in the USA, if that makes a difference. Thank you

I normally get a pension payment from Belgium the day before the end of each month. Nothing today (I realise it's a Bank Holiday) - It's a BAC payment so why did it not happen today and I am likely to get it tomorrow

My daughter has moved overseas (2yrs) she did have cards and student loan, in the UK she lived at home and does not have a property here. Letters that came addressed to her I would return to sender with ''moved overseas'' written on - now she has a CCJ application from a card company - what can I do? I don't want the heavies banging my door down.

Hi to all, it is my first post to this forum since and I would like to thank in advance for your help. Recently, last January got myself in trouble with one of the Forex broker companies. The price on one of the pairs went down a lot and caused a lot of people to have negative balance on their account. I was one of the unfortunate ones, having woken up with -50k GBP on my trading balance (invested just few, since I don't have a lot of money). Next day the company went into insolvency due to poor risk management, etc... and huge negative balance (30+ million pounds) and a company hired by High Court of Justice have taken over to deal with the insolvency process. While most of the Forex companies are forgiving the negative balance, they say that they will not do that and everybody is expected to cover their balance. They are still looking over all clients accounts and once they are done, they will send an email to everybody in the next few weeks, with their current balance, giving money to those that have positive accounts and asking to pay from others that have negative balance. Now, I am not willing to give them full amount since I don't think it is only my problem, they should have reacted better as well, but their risk management were poor and now they are trying to put blame on customers. But, ... After they sent an email that I should pay, I heard if I ignored it after two weeks they can sell my debt to a debt collectors agency. And I would like to try to avoid that. What are my options? To send an email that I disagree with their balance? Do I need to give some reasons, or simply saying I disagree is enough? In that case they have to take me to court to prove that negative balance is accurate, is that so? Since I am not resident of the UK, but Slovakia, and I have never lived in the UK, the court they have to raise a complaint would be in the UK or in Slovakia? As well, at the time of opening of my account I lived in the Middle East. Since they had their office over there, I was contacted my that office to sort out papers required for an account. In the end, I got my account with them without providing half of the required documents for opening an account. Is it a valid point to use that argument and claim that my contract and everything else (negative balance) are not valid, even though I traded with it (never withdrew any money from it though.), since the contractual requirement were not fulfilled at the first place. Any advice is a great help. Cheers, idiom

Hi There, I recently accepted a role for a large travel company working abroad (in Turkey). Staff are put on temporary short-term contracts with wages to a UK bank account. My main concern is the contract and the right to annual leave. As far as I am aware, UK employment law still applies as it is a temporary contract based overseas. In the contract, it says employees work 6 days a week and all employees must take half a days annual leave each week. As a result, all employees essentially work 5 and a half days a week. My question was whether or not this was legal, and if so, why don't all companies do this if they don't fancy paying staff annual leave? It all seems a bit underhand and I am wondering if it is worth challenging either before or after I finish work with the company. I am also concerned about the contract including an opt-out for the 48 hour a week, considering the wage is a few hundred short of £1000 a month. However, accommodation is included. With this in mind, I assume minimum wage obligations are being met by the company? I work it out as £3.50 an hour (exc. free accommodation). Here is a selection of text that I am concerned about. Any advice is much appreciated. No Overtime "Your salary will be paid by equal monthly instalments in arrears less any deductions required by law or agreed between you and the Company. No overtime payments will be made for additional hours worked." Training Costs "You are obliged to pay a fixed amount of £300 or consent to allowing the Company to offset this amount against your final salary, as a contribution towards trainings costs incurred if: "The Company dismisses you for poor performance or unacceptable behaviour within your first assignment period. Should your final salary not cover the full amount of the training costs incurred by the Company, the Company will endeavour to recover the outstanding amount from you." Taking Annual Leave You will generally be required to take 1⁄2 day annual leave per week during your period of employment. Prior to booking any additional annual leave, you should discuss and agree the dates with your Manager. If you do not use your holiday entitlement in the relevant holiday year, the entitlement will be forfeited except in exceptional circumstances where the Company agrees in advance to the carrying over of holiday. Payment in lieu of any annual leave will only be made when you leave the Company. (For the avoidance of doubt, you will not be entitled to any payment in lieu of the entitlement in any other circumstances). Any thoughts or legal opinions shall be much appreciated. AnonLurker

Hi dx, digging up an old post I know, you say that a post 98 student loan can be statute barred. Could you expand on how one could go about having your loan statute barred? I have been living overseas for around 10 years and have no contact from SLC until about a month ago.

I am currently in Taiwan, living here for a year. I worked in the UK part of last tax year, i am due a refund from HMRC. Is it possible for someone in the UK to contact HMRC on my behalf, as the time differences and cost of calling are high. Any help would be appreciated!

Dear All, my situation is that back in 2011 I went back to Singapore in a rush that I couldn't close my account at HSBC France I was using during my studies and a debt of about 800euros and more is due now I dont even know exactely how much. Now I will be studying in the UK I want to open an account at HSBC UK in London. When I will open a bank account at HSBC UK will they know I have an account at HSBC France and will they know that I have a debt ? If they know that I have a debt at HSBC France will they collect it from my HSBC UK bank account ? will it be automatic or can I fix a date chosen by me to pay it back ? If HSBC France will collect the money from HSBC UK do you recommend to open at other banks in the UK then ? Thanks a lot.

Greetings one and all I have read a lot and this is basically a polite enquiry for info that I have thus far been unable to locate. I am not by any means advocating this as a recommended course of action, I just would like to fully understand all of the implications. So please, no moral coaching necessary My question is this. Suppose a British SLC customer with a post 98 loan who has not yet began repayments moves overseas to somewhere like Thailand or China, and then stays there without informing the SLC of her whereabouts what can the SLC do to recover the debt? Thanks in advance TVLF

Greetings. I have a couple of questions and I would be very grateful if I could get some input. First of all, I have a new style loan which I took out when I started at university in 2000. Secondly, I'm not attempting to get out of paying it back. My situation: I've been out of the UK since mid 2006 and I didn't inform the SLC nor provide them with contact information. Naturally I haven't completed any overseas assessment in that time. I've (finally) attempted to resume contact with them and sent them updated contact information. In reply, they seem to have sent me what looks like a stadard letter saying: "You notified us that you left the UK on 25 June 2013 for more than 3 months etc. Please complete this overseas assessment form within 2 months etc." As I said above I actually left the UK long before then. They have taken the date of my most recent letter as the date which I left. On the form I have to say when I left. What will happen when I return the form with the my real date of leaving the UK, which was July 2006. Will there be some retroactive charges or something like that? I have full records of all earning since I've been here and I'm WELL under the repayment threshold. Would it be safe to... allow... them to continue their incorrect assumption regarding the date I left and just give them my last 3 pay slips? As I said I'm not trying to get out of paying back this loan. I'm trying to make things right. But I don't want to incur any wrath that I needn't. Many thanks in advance for any advice or information anyone can give me.

I lived overseas and following a relationship break up had to move back to the UK. My home overseas was placed on the market and with 3 children (one severly disabled) I returned to the UK. An accident prevented me from working and I claimed income support. The dss accepted the overseas house was on the market and no income was generated from it. I was required to give updates every 6-12 months and during that time reduced the asking price. Our situation remain unchanged. Last week I was sent a letter telling me that benefit was suspended as they had not received the latest form back. I had posted it 2 wks earlier and phoned the office immediately. I was told that if I went to the office and filled out a new form my benefit should be reinstated. However I have done that and they are now saying it all needs to go to a decision maker to determine if I am still eligible as I still have the property as capital. I am floored and worried sick! Last Sept the dss asked for an updated valuation on the property and I couldn't get an agent to value the property without charges that I cannot afford. I provided the initial valuation and evidence that the property was up for sale, and they accepted that. I now have debts overseas as I have been unable to keep up with local taxes (council tax equivalent) on the property. Advise please.

I have just received a form N1 claim (CCJ) on behalf ofZopa for £1, 500. My husband and I are now living in France, no longer UK resident, this claim has come out of theblue, sent to our old UKaddress. In the year we have been here we have found it difficult to organisemoney and banking. We are notfinancially able to pay it off, due to my husband being out of work, but do not want to shirk our responsibilities.We are up against a deadline due to them not having our overseas address. I feelreally concerned and worried about this. We are very much in the dark as to howto respond at such short notice. Should we phone/email or have we time to fillout the form and send it back to them? Is there any advice on the bestimmediate course of action?

Hello all! Looking for some advice please... I moved to S.E. Asia 18 months ago, and to date have been managing to make the monthly repayments of approx £400 GBP on my debts. My situation has now changed as I am 5 months pregnant, and health insurance will not cover any of the hospital expenses which I will have to pay in full. Plus the ongoing expense of raising the baby. As such, I would like to know if it is worth contacting the banks to see if they would let me reduce my repayments to something more manageable on an Asian income? I have a credit card with HSBC approx £50 per month A personal loan with Tesco approx £200 per month Overdraft with HSBC approx £100 per month (will be complete in March) Plus approx £50 per month misc interest, student loans etc The credit card and Tesco loan are my main concerns, especially as over £40 per month is to pay interest on the credit card. Please understand that I DO want to repay these debts, just at a more manageable rate. Thank you in advance for any advice

I recently used the services of an Accountant overseas in another EU Member State. During out initial free consultation they gave a quote for work, but then did not do what they were quoting for saying they could not go any further, So I was surprised to see an invoice in the post for work carried out which was the same value of what was quoted for even though, I am surprised they wanted to charge as that was not the agreement, I just think they could not be bothered. I am going to write an email contesting the invoice amount and time spent. If I decide to ignore the payment or refuse to pay, substantiating my reasons. What is the likely hood that they will chase the debt, they are obviously overseas and the amount is under £400. Thanks

Trying to change Uk driving licence to a Spanish one. It is a legal requirement to change over licence as i am a resident of Spain now. Trafico Spain have faxed a licence verification request to DVLA but DVLA simply say" We have not received any request. Trafico can prove the request was sent. I have repeatedly phoned DVLA but getting nowhere. I need to talk to someone from the office that deals with licence exchange but all i can get through to is a call center 0044 300 123 6801 Has anyone else got any experience with this dept? or offer any other ideas.

Greetings! I havent got any sleep for weeks since the Lloyds TSB is chasing me. The story goes as following (pardon my broken English, I live in eastern parts of EU): About 5 months ago a close relative of mine died. I was the sole inheritor of her property, consisting of an apartment and several loans. I have taken care of 2 out of 3 debts. The third one is Lloyds TSB and the sum is 3000 GBP. Since one of those 3 loans pretty much crippled me financially (I am still quite young) and the apartment is, well, everything I have! Lloyds got my address through solicitor, who took care of the inheritance process. By the local law inheritance goes as following by my best understanding: Inheritor notices the solicitor -> solicitor notifies all the local banks to get information about outstanding debts and assets, as well as gathers other information about assets. (this is the part where I did wrong - to my knowledge, she had some assets held by Lloyds so I listed it down and solicitor contacted them about me being the benefactor) -> 30 days is given for other relatives to claim their part of the inheritance, if they have any legal reason to get anything. -> benefactor is notified about the debts and assets and the case is closed if there is no dispute. The benefactor is obliged to cover all debts marked up in the documents then received, as well as any new ones that surface within a year. About a month after receiving the mentioned paperwork, I got a formal letter from Lloyds, claiming that my relative had a debt (suspiciously round amount?) with them and I should notify them if there are sufficient funds left from the estate to cover it. Well, there is the apartment but selling that would mean me being homeless, since the market value is quite low and I can not afford a rental. Enclosed was also a quite massive form, called the Assets and Liabilities Form, that demanded quite a lot of sensitive information, including bank acc. numbers of the deceaseds' other bank accounts, list of valuables, contact information of other benefactors and so on. I decided to ignore that letter, about 3 months have passed and I received another letter, this time in a more discrete envelope. The letter again asks me to confirm if there are sufficient funds blah blah and they can not drop the account until I have returned completed assets and liabilities form, which, as stated on the form itself in veeeery fine print, is pretty much a legally binding contract - if I fail to inform the bank accurately about ALL the assets the deceased had and the bank finds out, I have agreed that the bank should take legal action against me. quoth the letter: We would remind you that if the late XXXXXX had any assets then there is a legal requirement for outstanding debts to be settled before monies are paid to family or friends. To sum things up: I am certainly unable to pay that 3000 quid. I would like to avoid responding to them. That would be the last line of defence for me. Making the inventory of the deceaseds' assets can be only handled by a solicitor and before the inheritance is finalized. Furthermore, asking about bank details should be a violation of information protection laws in my opinion. But telling them that could mean that the debt could be handled by local inheritance law, meaning that I most certainly must pay it. The latter letter seemed quite computer generated. Signed by Mrs. XXXXX, Centre Manager. Scare tactic? The deceased was not UK national, neither am I. Long story short, how long would the ignoring tactic hold and how much chance could I actually stand avoiding that debt? I am quite scared here, I just started independent life. Any help is appreciated! Thank you!

My son got ripped off by the system some years ago. His college tutor advised him to redo year 2 of his course. So he took the advice, didn't complete the last few weeks of year 2, and intended to restart that year the following Sept (2007). However, the college converted into a university in the meantime and he was told during the Summer holidays that he couldn't retake year 2 as planned. He appealed and was told he could return at the end of the school year to retake only the bit he'd missed. The Student Loan Company (SLC) deemed that would amount to part-time education and so he would not be entitled to continue his student loan. Without the loan, he couldn't continue and so was forced to drop out. SLC then deemed that he'd intentionally dropped out and so was liable to repay the loan in full. I suspect that the SLC decision is perverse, but that's not the point of my post. Since leaving full-time education, he hasn't earned enough to take him over the payment threshold. He's now emigrated to Australia and set up his own business that's making insufficient profit to take him over the payment threshold. Unfortunately, SLC are demanding that evidence of his income be verified by an accountant or lawyer, which would incur significant professional fees. I have to ask why a copy of his tax return to the ATO would not be adequate and whether SLC have the right to demand that my son, effectively, spends a large proportion (more than he can afford) of his income on having his accounts professionally verified/audited when the only reason for doing so is SLC's demand? All help gratefully received.

More than 2,000 students potentially face deportation after a London university had its licence to teach and recruit overseas students revoked. London Metropolitan University has had its right to sponsor students from outside the EU revoked, and will no longer be allowed to authorise visas. Ministers say the university is not tracking course attendance and that many students have no right to be here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19419395

Hi all, My credit report is actually blank at the moment as all of my defaults from 2007 have dropped off, BUT I'm just a little paranoid that maybe defaults were not registered in the first place, so can anyone help me out with these questions: 1. Is it possible that my 5 years of token payments would have stopped them from registering a default ? 2. Are they able to register defaults many years after the event 3. Has anyone done a SAR from overseas and if so...is the fee a flat fee of GBP or did you need to add on more ? My concern is that I may have defaults applied now if I stop paying due to my current financial situation, OR they might try to log a second default (i.e. is the CRA actually going to know that one was registered 7 years ago). My aim is to stop paying token payments so that these are sold to Australian DCAs, which at the moment seems like a good idea, as they will be easier to deal with in terms of logistics, timezones and reduced F&F offers. ^ and if anyone has any advice or experiences to share regarding my idea please chime in, am open to suggestions