Credit Solutions Ltd RE: Reliable Collections & Simply Be

[Mummy_of_Five]

Hi

 

I was wondering if anyone can help me?

 

I left a message about Reliable Collections and Credit Solutions, Was advised to send a CCA to get the original credit agreement because I dispute the amount that was added to the account.

 

This is the letter I have received from them: -

 

14th February 2008 Credit Solutions Limited

` Capella Court, Brighton Road Parley, Surrey CR8 2PG

*

Fax: 0870 3000 589

E mail: [email protected]

www.creditsolutions.co.uk

Dear Mrs Mummy_of_five,

Re: JD Williams & Company:

Thank you for your letter, received on the 12th February 2008 which has been forwarded to the Training & Quality department for response.

I have looked into this account it would seem that this agreement is not regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Credit Solutions Ltd does not enter into any disputes between the customer and our client, however I would advise you to check your terms and conditions. The terms and conditions should provide all the responses to your queries regarding liability for this debt. All other questions of this nature should be forwarded to our client.

We have been advised us that as the goods have been supplied by our client, you are liable for the balance outstanding. Furthermore, should this balance not be cleared, our client will register a Default against your name with the Credit Reference Agencies which could impair your ability to obtain credit in future.

Your payment of £1.00 that accompanied your letter has accepted as a token payment towards the balance leaving your current balance at £411.07.

Please contact our offices within 5 days of receiving this letter to discuss your proposals to clear the outstanding balance.

Thank you. Yours sincerely,

Ludmila O'Brien

Senior Quality Officer

As ypu can see the balance of the account is now £411.07, when the opening balance of the account was £52.29. The rest is the charges and interest that they have added while I was trying to get some help paying them. I had to leave work due to my husband having a very serious illness diagnosed and him needing a very serious brain operation, so i had to care for him and our 3 children whilst i was half way through pregnancy with our 4th. They were not interested on why I was having difficulties and ignored all letters i sent until this year when they answered me gave me 10 days to pay the balance, (obviously I couldn't) then sent it on to Credit solutions.

Now I dont have any idea on what to do. Any help would be gratefully received.

Kind Regards

Mummy_of_Five

[Curlyben]

Oh dear, talking about confusing the issue.

Now JD Williams and their subsidiaries ARE covered by CCA, as are ALL home shopping companies.

 

Formal Complaint

Letter before Action

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

With reference to my previous letters, I wish to draw you attention to your company's lack of compliance with my legal request.

 

On **DATE** I made a formal request for a true signed agreement for the alleged account under consumer credit Act 1974 s77/8. A copy of which is enclosed for your perusal and ease of reference.

You have failed to comply with my request, and as such the account entered default on **DATE**.

 

The document that you are obliged to send me is a true copy of the executed agreement that contained all of the prescribed terms, all other required terms and statutory notices and was signed by both your company and myself as defined in section 61(1) of CCA 74 and subsequent Statutory Instruments. If the executed agreement contained any reference to any other document, you are also obliged to send me a copy of that document.

 

As you may not be aware , failure to comply with this request within 12 working days renders the alleged debt UNENFORCEABLE in law. Furthermore, if this non-compliance continues for a further month then a summary, criminal offence is committed.

 

Furthermore you should be aware that a creditor is not permitted to take ANY action against an account whilst it remains in dispute.

 

The lack of a compliant credit agreement is a very clear dispute and as such the following applies.

 

* may not demand any payment on the account, nor am I obliged to offer any payment to you.

* may not add further interest or any charges to the account.

* may not pass the account to a third party.

* may not register any information in respect of the account with any credit reference agency.

* may not issue a default notice related to the account.

 

Therefore this account has become unenforceable at law.

 

Consequentially any legal action you pursue will be averred as both UNLAWFUL and VEXATIOUS.

 

To address you comments that this account is NOT covered by the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

I believe that your comments are designed to obfuscate and generally confuse as this is clearly a running credit account as defined within CCA s78.

 

After taking advice, I am of the opinion that your continued pursuit is in violation of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 section 40, Protection from harassment Act 1997 section 3 as well as breaching a number of the OFT Collection Guidelines.

 

I reserve the right to report your actions to any such regulatory authorities as I see fit.

You have 14 days from receiving this letter to contact me with your intentions to resolve this matter which is now a formal complaint.

 

I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you would prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

 

I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter.

 

I await your rapid response.

 

Yours Faithfully

[Movingon]

Any agreement between you and a corporate body whereby you are permitted to pay by installments is by default a Credit Agreement and is therefore regulated by the Consumer Credit Act. I would contact Consumer Direct with a view to making a complaint to the Trading Standards Office in your area. At the same time I would write to the original creditor (JD Williams trading as Simply Be) explaining your situation (copy in Credit Solutions) explaining why you have been having difficulties paying the balance and also pointing out that the agreement IS regulated as per the Act. I'm sure that others will be along to give more detail to this but the actions I post above are a reasonable start. Essentially ALL credit between a body corporate and a consumer is regulated by the CCA, whether you signed a CCA-based agreement or not and whether or not the body corporate acknowledges it.

 

EDIT: I wrote this while Curly was writing his; but his contains the further detail I spoke of. He's a good guy - listen to him

[Drexl Spivey]

Don't know if you wanted to add something like ..

I must emphasize that the £1 payment is the statutory fee in accordance with the consumer credit act 1974 s 77 (1) and is not an aknowledgement nor token payment off the alleged debt . May I draw your attention to the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996 S 24(a) in respect to this.

 

Dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit.

 

24A. — (1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect of which he has any right or interest;

(b) he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and

© he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled.

 

or not . I suppose it doesn't matter what they do with the £1 thou really , it's just that they might use it as a way to say you are acknowledging the debt amount as it stands.

[Mummy_of_Five]

Hi

 

Thanks to you all for replying to me.

 

Should I send this letter to Credit Solution? Or should I contact Reliable Collections or Simply Be regarding the CCA?

 

Kind Regards

 

Mummy_of_Five

[Curlyben]

Send it to CredSols as they are the ones chasing you.

Hey you could always send it to both

[Mummy_of_Five]

Hiya all

 

Wrote the letter to Credit Solutions and I got my reply today. Heres what it says:-

 

Further to my letter to you on the 14th February 2008 I wish to confirm that Credit Solutions Ltd has not purchased your account and we are acting on behalf of our client JD Williams. In addition to this, I would draw to your attention that your legal request was responded to within 2 days of your letter being received at this office.

 

Upon recipet of your letter dated the 12th February 2008 I can confirm that Credit Solutions Ltd consulted with our client to ascertain the content of your agreement with them. Should you have specific questions regarding the validity of your debt with JD Williams that are unanswered by the terms and conditions as supplied to you, then please send these directly to our client for response.

 

Your letter dated the 26th february 2008 refers to interest being applied to your account. I can confirm that the referred ammount for collection was £412.07 and no interest or referal fees have been added to this account by Credit Solutions Ltd. As stated in my letter on the 14th February 2008, the £1.00 payment for information was put towards your balance, however if you are contesting this action, please advise me by return and i will arrange for the payment to be refunded to you.

 

As mentioned above, we act on our client's instructions and they have advised us that this account in enforceable and therefore we have been authorized to continue with our co0llections activity.

 

In order to progress your account you must contact us within 7 days of receipt of this letter to discuss your proposals for clearing the balance on this account.

 

Thank you

 

Yours sincerely

Ludmila O'Brian

SENIOR QUALITY OFFICER

 

I only sent my letter to Credit Solutions, I think I should now send a CCA request to JD Williams and a letter to Ms O'Brian to say that I am contacting them direct with regards to the account. Is this right?

 

Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

Mummy_of_Five

[ScarletPimpernel]

You've sent a CCA which is valid; there's no need to send another. CSL are agents for JD Williams, and it seems to me that they have argued themselves into a corner somewhat.

 

Time to turn the tables a little.

 

Try something along these lines:

 

Dear Sirs

 

I refer to your letters dated xxx and xxx. I do not acknowledge any debt to you or any company you represent.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, this account is in dispute. I am advised that any credit arrangement whereby the customer is allowed to pay in installments is by default a regulated agreement within the meaning of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Therefore, the formal request I made pursuant to s.77/78 of the CCA 1974 remains extant, and you are reminded of your duty under s.175 of the Act.

 

You are no doubt aware that s.78(6) states that whilst a creditor is in default of a request for copy documentation he may not enforce the agreement. The statutory time limit of 12 working days having passed some time ago, you and your client are clearly in default.

 

As holders of consumer credit licences, both you and your client are required to comply with the Office of Fair Trading Guidance on Debt Collection, which are quite clear that failing to suspend collection activity whilst a debt is in dispute is an unfair practice. It appears, therefore, that your continued demands for payment are contrary to both the law and the OFT Guidance; you should take this letter as a formal complaint about these breaches. I require you to send me a copy of your complaint procedure, together with your proposal for resolving my complaint.

 

If you and/or your client is unable to comply fully and properly with my s.77/78 request, please confirm this in writing without delay, and refund the fee.

 

[Mummy_of_Five]

Hiya

 

Going to send this letter to Credit Solutuins and a copy to Simply Be and JD Williams, for reference, all posted recored so they will all need to be signed for.

 

Its costing me a small fortune in popstage lol.

 

Thanks for your help again

 

Mummy_of_Five

[Movingon]

Your postage can all go down as "costs" if this ever comes to court - or indeed once they capitulate you could demand that they pay your costs and if they don't you can take them to court yourself!

 

Well done so far and please keep us informed.

[dpick]

Hi just to show that it can be done the following is my thread for my wifes catalogue with The Value Catalogue (JD Williams) this will show it can be done and some of the things that JD Williams will say and do.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/104426-dpick-oh-reliable-collections.html

 

all the best dpick:)

[Mummy_of_Five]

Hi everyone

 

Today i got another letter from Credit Solutions, heres what it says:

 

Dear Mummy_of_Five

Thank you for your letter dated 16th March 2008 which has been forwarded to me for response.

I can confirm that we have received correspondence from our cllient who has instructed us to close your account on the system.

Please note that no further action will be taken by Credit Solution Ltd with regards to the above reference number, unless instructed by our client.

All further correspondance regarding your account must now be via JD Williams & Company.

Thank you.

So it seems like they have given up on trying to get the money with out having a signed agreement. I will be waiting for the next company it gets passed to now, but at least I no know where to go for help.

 

Thanks to everyone that has help me.

 

Kind regards

 

Mummy_of_Five

[Movingon]

Oh, well DONE. I'm really pleased that the information we gave you was of use. Hopefully this will be the end of it... keep your fingers crossed!!

[The GodMother]

Well done for standing up for yourself /your rights.

[bonehead2412]

hello every one i have bin reading the post and i have found them very helpfull. thankyou to everyone

 

and i hope the out come of my dealing with CSL will be the same as this one

 

i sent a prove it letter to csl on the 3 july and i got one back today 18 july saying

 

dear mr --------

 

re : acount info

 

Thank you for your letter which was received on the 3th july 2008 and has been forwarded to our training and quality department for response

 

Thank you for your request for a copy of your credit agreement under the consumer credit act 1974. Please note that this account refers to an oversdraft Facility. Therefore our client has advised us that a copy of your agreement is not available for this acount.

 

Accordingly, I have enclosed you £1.00 Payment. Should you have any Further queries of this nature please correspond directly with our client.

 

Dispite numerous attempts to contact you and several conversations with you, we are yet to receive a payment towards your account or negotiate a repayment plan.

 

Please contact our recovery agent on --------------- to discuss your proposals.

 

your sincerely

 

 

can any one help please im not shaw what to do now

[The GodMother]

please note anything in red may need changing.

 

Dear Morons.

 

I DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ANY DEBT TO THIS COMPANY OR ANY COMPANY YOU CLIAM TO REPRESENT.

 

Re Account number XXXXXXXXXX.

 

Thank you for your letter dated XXXXXXX. Contents of which have been noted.

 

You have clearly stated that your client has advised you that there is no cca under the cca1974 rules.

 

As the cca1974 act clearly states you are not allowed to ask for payment on a account where no cca is availbe upon request from me then i am advising you that as of immediate effect i will not be paying you or any company money for this alledged debt. This is within my rights as a consumer under the cca1974.

 

I understand that the CCA1974 has been about long enough for your clients and your selfs to have read and understood this act. If either your clients or yourself have not read this act the i would advise you do. I would also advise if your client or yourself have not understood this act then it is best you consult a solicitor.

 

Your sincerley.

 

PRINT DONT SIGN.

 

send by recorded delivery at least.

[palomino]

Hold on a tic.

 

Current accounts - and overdrafts on these - are not covered by the Consumer Credit Act. There isn't a credit agreement (although there may some other form of agreement for the overdraft) so any request under the CCA cannot be fulfilled as has happened here.

[The GodMother]

i thought they do as there would need to be a repayment agreement

[mr.ton]

Did Credit SoDutions give you silent phone calls?

They did with me - fools