Hi everyone, new to forum and really relieved to find you guys... Im an aussie who moved to the US on per residency a while back. Unfortunately I had to leave upwards of $30k AUD in an unsecured loan, which till now I have been steadily paying back each month. After several months, I hit tough times financially and called my Aussie bank to ask for a grace period trying to get on my feet over here. Bottom line was the bank said they couldnt/wouldnt help me and my only option was to refinance. It was at this point I realized this is their problem, not mine and simply stopped paying back the loan. Morally it may or may not have been the "right thing" but I realized they wouldnt help, and I had no other choice. Fast forward till very recently, I have been contacted by a DCA, whose calls and emails I have ignored up till now. From reading these forums, it appears I'm not alone! Although it seems most posters here have credit card debts in australia, and have moved to the UK, or vice versa. Does anyone know what happens if I default on my loan in Australia, but live in the USA? Is it usually handed over to a US DCA after a period? I live in a state where the SOL is only a few years, so not sure if I should just wait it out, or try to negotiate a rock-bottom settlement... I couldn't care less about my aussie credit rating, as have no plans to live back there... but want to keep my US one intact. Should I just continue to ignore the DCA from Australia? I have heard acknowledging the debt/agreeing to pay them something restarts the SOL time. Any other advice from anyone? Thanks in advance for all your amazing efforts here!

Hi Everyone I have an MBNA Credit Card taken out in 2002. Due to circumstances - my wife and I have run up a debt of £17,000+. We now are in a position of being unable to pay. The thing is this has happened becuase everytime we neared the limit - MBNA simply increased it with no investigations into our circumstances or reference to us. Now we have started to default the charges and interest are racking up. I have come across the Sect 78 business. I do not understand it totally - but I am aware you can make the debt unenforcable but not "right it off". Using the letter on this site I made a Section 78 request. This elicited a response about 4 days after they received the letter. They rang, and first of all denied having the letter, until I told them I had the recorded delivery sig, then they spent the next hour trying every trick in the book. They told me they had never lost a Sect 78 case (is this true - probably not?) that my card was legit - that they would comply with the sect 78, that a court had deemed that they had a month to do so and not twelve days (as the law says I believe), that then turned into six weeks in the conversation then back to 21 days! When I go on the attack - with things like this I am accused of being rude! They tried co-ercing me into paying, then bullying by threatening my house (but a second charge cannot force you to sell as I understand?), then using tactics to assualt my "guilt" - like "Do you think it is fair that you spent 17k of our money but refuse to pay it back". I simply replied that banks are greedy and the real debt minus charges and interest was probably about 5k. The other issue is that they have threatened me with both UK and USA Law stating that they are an American Bank! I continually try to get them to confirm this in writing but they won't, nor will they supply me with recordings or transcripts of calls. I see a Subject Access request coming here. I did make an offer of 10% to settle the debt, they turned it down by telephone but refuse to do so in writing, and refuse to come back wiht a coutner offer as asked. The upshot is I received a response to the Sect 78. It is a photocopy of my original tear off slip from the bottom of the app form (I think). It has my sig but no box for theirs - however across the small writing is a signature from them with a date stamp. My suspicion is this has been added recently. There are two tick boxes for PPI, there is a tick in the "not wanted" but it is not mine, as I use left handed ticks and this is right handed. However I have not paid PPI. There is also a photocopy of the back of the tear off slip which seems to be some sort of rudimentary but not full T&C with an interest rate table. The interest rate here is considerably lower than the present one. There is also a copy of the current 2010 conditions, but not as far as I can tell the 2002 ones. I ahve now had a letter from Optima Legal, stating that they have been "instructed" by MBNA but encouraging me to contact MBNA. I rang the number given for Optima but the phone line was on a loop stating the lines are busy. By using my wife's contacts (she is a legal sec) we got a number and got hold of them. At first they denied they had been intructed but simply had been asked to send the letters. I said that "instruction" means something specific and that now I would only deal with them as this would be reasonable. They did not like that, and I asked that their client sent all their requests etc via Optima so lines did not get crossed. In the end, the guy sort of admitted that the letter was confusing and offered to do just that. I am guessing the instruction doesn't exist in law terms (Optima do not have a file on me) and that this is simply scare tactics? If so it has backfired a bit. If MBNA wanted to say that they were thinking of putting the file across to OPtima, then they should have written to me, not Optima stating that they had been instructed when they hadn't. I continue to get letters from MBNA, one saying they are dealing with my complaint (I whinged about Aegis being useless) and I assume they are dealing with UK and USA law question. I also keep receiving various notices by post email and telephone. I keep asking them to send it via Optima since they are "instructed". Yesterday I spent an hour on the telephone with a lady at MBNA who again claimed they had never lost a case, was unclear about the UK USA thing, accused me of being rude everytime I attacked them, would not answer my questions, and when she made comments refused to put them in writing (until the end - but we'll see what transpires) stating that they are a "Telephone Bank" - pah! When I suggested that if they were to take Legal Action they needed a paper trail she dismissed this. My point is I won't be bullied on the phone, and it seems that I am unusual in that respect, as soon as I attack and catch them out (lots of times) I am accused of being rude or wasting time thier time - charming. Sorry about the long post but I need some help with what to do next. I cannot afford the upfront fees for someone to look at what MBNA claim is compliance with the Sect 78 request, nor do I understand this myself. Can someone take a quick look, and am I even in the correct section of the forum? Please, what should I do next? Cheers Chirpy