Link Financial have done a mass mailing of Default Notices re: assigned accounts.

[xfox]

Hi, just wondering if you can help. I have the same problem as Link, but it's with 1st Credit.

 

I have a default on my Equifax credit file that appeared this week from 1st Credit.

It's says I defaulted in June 2005, and it was last updated July 2006.

 

It's possibly something to do with my previous address, but somehow they've put the default on my new address. Is this allowed?

 

Can 1st credit purchase a debt from my old address, then give me a defaults on my new address??

[angry cat]

A default will remain on your credit file for six years, if you change your address (move) the default will remain on th file, your new address will be added.

 

If you were defaulted in 2005, that date will not change.

 

AC

[angry cat]

by robcag:

 

During the conversation I told him that Link had bought a load of lemons, ie unenforceable accounts. I told him that the default notices (which he said the management had decided to send out due to the fact that MBNA had not previously done so) that had recently been sent out were invalid".

 

I do not believe that Link sent out the (mass mailing) DN's due to the fact that MBNA had not previously done so. It is blatantly obvious that Link did not even bother to check each and every MBNA customers file;

How could they have?

Link are assigned these alleged debts in blocks;

Link did not, do not have access to the data that would provide that sort of information!

 

Rob, I hope that your pie tasted wonderful...

 

AC

[FANTASY CHARGES]

A snippet for you FANTASY CHARGES! or anyone interested!

 

LINK Financial, LINK Financial Forms GBP250 Million Partnership , pressrelease

 

I doubt that anyone who has been a victim of Link's tactics, would want any of their money invested in a pension fund associated with Link...fingers in lots of pies.

 

AC

 

great link

 

there is some very bad PR if we could find out who the pension fund is

 

making money out of peoples misery is not exactly the current flavour of the month !!!!

with much worse to come

 

anyone fancy emailing the major press ??

[tierisch]

Well my letter has gone to Mr Fingleton so will be interesting to see if i get the same brush off as well!!

 

On another note...is Royal Mail in cohoots with link? Lost count of the number of track and trace letters to Link i have paid for and never able to track. When i complained i just got some lame excuse and a book of stamps from RM....oh well perhaps i could use one to send a christmas card to link lol!!

[angry cat]

I actually emailed mine to Mr. Fingleton; no acknowledgement, nor response yet.

 

I have never been able to obtain proof of delivery of Recorded Delivery letters sent to Link, from Royal Mail.

 

However, I did obtain one...eventually, in relation to a Special Delivery letter;

probably received by a bod in the buildings mail room.

 

Remember that companies can have their registered office anywhere; their accountants or by using firms such as Jordans!

 

AC

 

p.s. I will NOT be sending Link a christmas card!

[tierisch]

Haven't gone over to the dark side......so won't really send link a christmas card perhaps just an invoice for all my wasted time!

[angry cat]

If Link continue with their unfair practices they will get more than they bargained for.

 

Never underestimate the intelligence of the Consumer!

 

AC

[phatram]

Links latest offering in reply to my CCA request,

 

LINK

[

 

Link Financial Ltd PO Box 30095 LONDON SE17WU

 

 

Link Financial

 

 

29 October 2008

LINK Ret. No: XXXXX

 

Dear Mrs P

 

Thank you for your recent letter. I can confirm the information you requested has been ordered from MBNA Europe Bank Limited and we hope to provide this to you as soon as it is received. Unfortunately this is taking longer than previously anticipated. I can confirm we are holding your account until this situation can be resolved.

If you have any questions or queries in relation to this letter please feel free to contact me directly on .

 

 

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

 

LINK Financial Limited

 

[angry cat]

OOH, another breach of the CPUTR's!

 

Nice smiling face:

Link Financial - Customers

click onto the next page for another helpful, smily face...

 

AC

[angry cat]

Link Financial - Licences and Memberships

 

Note, their consumer credit licence is still awaiting renewal

 

AC

[angry cat]

Link Financial are a member of the CSA

 

http://www.csa-uk.com/csa/upload/Industry%20CSA%20Code%20of%20Practice%20-%20final%20logo.pdf

 

Clearly, they have not read the above code of practice!

 

AC

[phatram]

....

Edited November 11, 2008 by phatram
wrong thread, sorry

[robcag]

 

Rob, I hope that your pie tasted wonderful...

 

AC

 

Sorry AC, missed that! Yes, thanks, the pie was perfect. Rest assured I wouldn't have let the telephone conversation run on long enough to ruin the pie.

 

Needless to say, Mr. Link hasn't phoned me back with an update on the missing agreement yet. I guess he hasn't yet managed to 'get to the bottom of it' as he said he would, because he's already at the bottom of the pond.

 

Cheers

Rob

[angry cat]

by robcag:

"Needless to say, Mr. Link hasn't phoned me back with an update on the missing agreement yet. I guess he hasn't yet managed to 'get to the bottom of it' as he said he would, because he's already at the bottom of the pond."

 

Well, you know what they say...patience is a virtue!

 

AC

[angry cat]

No response from Mr Fingleton yet?

 

I see that Link are still up to their tricks!

 

AC

[tierisch]

Nothing for me....but then again OFT took ages to respond to my earlier complaints!!

 

Link have been very quiet with me.......good!

[di.harry]

Wow! I've been away for a month from the forums to get married and this has grown to a five-star thread!!

 

I've got some news from LINK. To fully understand you might need to go back to my previous posts in this thread: #17 & #196... but in short: I have an account in dispute with LINK for over two years. They first contacted faxed (!) my father in Greece (about 4-5 years ago I moved back to Athens after having lived 16 years in London ) to ask him to contact them (actually another collection agency from Cyprus acting on behalf of LINK) about a debt that I own them (regarding an MBNA account). This was a nasty way of approaching me (plus illegal) - see post #17 for the full story.

 

Anyway, I wrote to them a complaint & asked them for the CCA (sending them 1 pound), etc. It took them more than a month to send me an agreement that didn't have my name on it! It belonged to someone else . So I wrote back thanking them for proving that this Link account has nothing to do with me. A year later I received a letter demanding payment for the same account . I wrote back with a copy of the agreement they had sent me. Half a year later, they sent me the DN you all received!! So, I wrote back a strong letter saying that this is unbelievable, harassment, bla bla, etc. (basically I formally complained.)

 

While waiting for their answer, I wrote post #196 here in reply to another user, and there I mentioned WESCOT, another DCA to which I had been sending payments for six months until I did a financial revaluation with all my creditors, to which they replied that they could not find my account :eek:. That was an MBNA account: MBNA, 6 months earlier had told me in a letter that my debt was transferred to WESCOT, so I should continue my payments with them... which is what I was doing for 6 or so months. So I wrote back to WESCOT and tried to find out what was going on, but they had NO RECORD WHATSOEVER of my MBNA account on record, even though they happily cashed my cheques... So I thought forget that... if they are so unprofessional to have lost my account details then I'm not going to tell them I owe them 4 grant... let them keep the lost 6 x (cheques for whatever small amount I could afford to pay them at the time).

 

So why am I telling you all this stuff? please be patient, for in just a bit it will all come together.

 

Let me tell you what LINK wrote back to me :

 

"Thank you for your recent letter. I can confirm MBNA Europe Bank Limited provided us with the wrong agreement in relation to this account. Unfortunately this wrong agreement was then forwarded to you. This is not company procedure." (That's right, I think company procedure is to provide no agreement )

...

"The ethos of our company is based on respecting each customer as an individual and bring as helpful and professional as possible." ("ethos" a nice Greek way that they love using/abusing - see Link Financial - also what does "and bring as helpful" mean?)

...

"Please accept out apologies if you feel this has not been the case here. MBNA Europe Bank Limited has since provided us with the correct agreement. Please accept out apologies for any upset or confusing this may have caused you, as this would never be out intention. Please find a copy of the correct agreement. Please forward us an updated financial statement so an affordable repayment plan can be organised"... etc.

 

The enclosed "correct agreement" is a two page photocopy of a loan agreement, indeed signed by me 6 years ago. This is the missing WESCOT account !!

 

I don't know if this was LINK's fault or MBNA's. WESCOT was definitely useless having no record of my account after having paid them for 6 months. I believe that all of them, MBNA, WESCOT & LINK, played a role here.

 

So what do I do? Of course, if this is indeed my account then I am willing to pay it off slowly and add it back with my other accounts in my dept reduction plan (which I manage on my own). Note that I already have 2 other MBNA accounts with LINK (for over 2 years), which I've been happily paying - we've got an agreement & there I had no problems with them. One of the debts is almost paid off now....

 

However, before adding this x-WESCOT, x-MBNA account to my repayments, I need to write to all my creditors and inform them, as currently I am paying back the max I can afford, based on my current income & expenditures. If I now need to add a new account (note: this account was in my repayment plan when I was paying MBNA and WESCOT, but a year after the account disappeared from WESCOT's computer, I removed the amount from my "list of creditors" and the information I base my repayment plan.) My next financial revaluation with all my creditors is around January, so then I can add this account to my plan and divide payment fairly between my creditors in a pro rata fashion, etc... but I can't do this now. I'm already paying all I can back, so I can pay zero(0) for this. In the next revaluation, I will have to reduce payments to all other creditors, in order to allow for this new/old/lost&found account.

 

So my first question is can I tell them to wait till January? Or perhaps I offer them to split the amount I'm paying them for the other 2 MBNA accounts, now proportionately between the 3 accounts (they won't like that of course) until my next revaluation.

 

However, the 2nd question/issue I have is even more important. In their last letter they don't tell me the outstanding balance. In previous letters they had given me a figure which was much higher than the WESCOT account. What about my payments to WESCOT? Who do I complain to? MBNA, WESCOT, LINK, all of them?? The extra amount should not be interest or charges as MBNA had agreed to NO interest since my 1st repayment agreement. I've never had a letter from WESCOT while I was paying them, only the one in which they returned my revaluation pack saying that they can't find the account, but I do have a letter from MBNA saying that the account moved to WESCOT... but no letter that WESCOT returned this to MBNA, or gave it to LINK.

 

There is something not right about this, and I'm sure I need to complain to all these companies.

 

Perhaps I write back to LINK for statements and consider the account balance in dispute. Any ideas?

Edited November 14, 2008 by di.harry

[The Phantom]

Unusual that nobody has replied yet. The thread was so active....(?)

I think you need to get your money back from Westcot first, as these appear to be payments for your LINK account.

You need to complain to MBNA for giving you wrong information ref assignment of the debt and to Westcot for cashing/ taking payments even if there was no account to book these against and not informing/refunding you straight away

Have a look at the last post in this thread

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/169827-todays-day.html

 

There is a link to a form from the OFT to complain about a DCA. Complain about Westcot taking your money without having an active account and MBNA for providing wrong information.

That money then needs to go to Link if they have the relevant enforceable agreement in hand and are now looking for payment

It would appear MBNA assigned the debt to Link but told you it was Westcot. They obviously caused this mess in the first place:(

[di.harry]

Thanks for your reply Phantom - very useful, it makes sense, so I'll do exactly what you suggest.

 

Looking back at my files, I find out I had been paying Wescot not for 6 months as I thought (it's been 2 yrs since then), but for 27 months!!

 

There is a slim chance that Wescot was indeed responsible for the account during that period, but then passed it back to MBNA, who then sold it to LINK, and so LINK might have taken over the account afterwards (and just maybe the Wescot payments have been taken into consideration).

 

Since LINK didn't give me a figure for the outstanding balance in their last letter, I wrote back to them asking them for a statement of the account, under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 [section 77-79] (apparently the same rules apply, as when asking for a copy of the Credit Agreement: send them 1 pound, they have 12 days to reply, and are unable to enforce the agreement until then.

 

Cheers,

Harry

[mummybird]

Just an update - I telephoned Consumer Direct, who passed my complaint onto my local Trading Standards. I have spoken to them and have now sent copies of all correspondence between ourselves and Link. I feel a bit concerned that they may be a bit out of their depth. Can I say on this site which Office I am dealing with?

regards mummybird

[The Phantom]

Di.harry: Yes, if so much time has passed since then, you need to find out exactly what was going on with these accounts.

You can always do a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request)

Edited November 22, 2008 by The Phantom

[di.harry]

Yes, if they don't reply or if the statement of account they provide does not include the Wescot payments, my next move will be a S.A.R. Cheers.

[angry cat]

di.harry,

 

I believe that your best course of action would be to SAR all three parties; expensive I know but you need to get to the bottom of what has been going on. Make sure that when you write to Link that you marke your letter;

ACCOUNT IN DISPUTE and...

don't forget to mark your payments;

SAR FEE ONLY

 

AC

[angry cat]

Just an update - I telephoned Consumer Direct, who passed my complaint onto my local Trading Standards. I have spoken to them and have now sent copies of all correspondence between ourselves and Link. I feel a bit concerned that they may be a bit out of their depth. Can I say on this site which Office I am dealing with?

regards mummybird

 

 

I don't see why not, it is not a state secret and bearing in mind that Lambeth TS, will not admit that other consumers have complained about Link!?

 

AC