changes to the Credit Agreement - enforcable?

[sismile]

I have posted in the past about my debt with Paragon.

 

I have a question regadring changes to the CCA. In February 2000 Paragon wrote to all customers in arrears offering to come to an agreement. If I paid by standing order they would consolidate my arrears and report to the credit reference agencies that my account was up to date. All I had to do was sign the form, include two cheques (one for that month and one for the next month) and set up a standing order. I did all this as agreed and instead of updating my credit file, Paragon removed all details of it from all credit reference agencies (weird?).

 

To date I have paid back several times what I owed back then and still have a huge debt.

 

Recently I was made aware of two court cases regarding Paragon. One was in my local county court (Northampton). Paragon v MR A. Paragon won and Mr A launched an appeal, the main point of his appeal was this ammended agreement. Paragon decided to settle out of court once they knew this was being used. In the second case Paragon settled out of court as well.

 

I'm told that the agreement made in 2000 was an ammendment to the consumer credit agreement but wasn't completed with the statutory formalities under section 61-63 of the consumer credit act 1974.

[Curlyben]

All agreements, amended or not, must comply with CCA, in this case it sounds like they have realised that what they did in 2000 didn't and as such they are worried.

[sismile]

Seems that way.

 

So the document they sent would have been a change to the consumer credit agreement because it changed some of the original terms? (like showing an account in arrears as up to date on a credit file).

[Curlyben]

Yep.

It is likely that the 2000 agreement was a completely different account with limited use, ie paying off the previous loans.

So that being said there should be a "new" agreement that complies with CCA.