1st Credit Statutory Demand

[all alone]

I have received a statutory demand from 1st Credit dated 27th September, posted 29th September (2nd Class) received 1st October. This is a debt owing to Goldfish, it was originally sold to Moorcroft Debt Collections who agreed to accept £50 per month via standing order. The debt was for just over £12,000. I paid Moorcroft on time each month and then in January this year I received a letter from 1st Credit saying the debt had been assigned by Goldfish to them, no communication from either Goldfish of Moorcroft, and the payments continued to Moorcroft. The debt had increased by over £1000 and there was no mention of any payments made against the account. In a nutshell I have since written 1st Credit some 8 times asking for a breakdown of the additional charges and were the payments since September last year have gone. They have never responded - the majority of my letters were sent recorded delivery - They did send me a standing order mandate for £150 per month - an amount I cannot afford - I set this up changing the amount to the original agreed amount of £50, I also wrote and asked them if they would agree to this with a provision of increasing the payments in line with my salary increments, they again did not respond, until sending the SD. I am now at my wits end with these people. I have no equity in my home and nothing of any value that could be sold. I sent them a postal order and CCA request via recorded delivery after I received the SD, I have not acknowledged receipt of the SD. I have all the correspondence sent and the correspondence received both from Moorcroft and 1st Credit

 

My questions now are:

 

Did I send the CCA too late - i.e. after the SD had been sent.

Have I admitted the debt by paying these people £50 per month, therefore blowing any chance of having the debt set aside

What options are open to me now

 

Any help would be most appreciated.

[PGH7447]

Hi and welcome to the CAG, firstly do ot panic about this SD, 1st crapit are using this as a scare tactic.

 

you need to get this set aside by registering at the local court, someone will be along shortly with the correct steps.

 

also you can CCA anytime you wish, if you were happily paying moorcrap and then agreed to the same amount to 1st crapit a judge will look very dimly on their blatent attempts to try to force you into a payment plan you cannot afford.

 

good luck

[42man]

OK....firstly try and relax as best as you can, as you may (or may not) have seen already there are quite a few other posts on these forums where there have been others in exactly the same situation as yourself....what is staggering is that despite you paying them they have done this !!! they are being unreasonable !!!

 

You have 18 days from the date of the receipt of the demand to submit forms 6.4 and 6.5 into the courts you will find them here -

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/dca-legal-successes/86067-getting-statutory-demand-set.html

 

you need to dispute the debt substantially, ring up your local county courts and find out if they handle bankruptices / insolvencies, if they don't they should be able to tell you the nearest court that does.

 

When you take your forms down to the court, you must ask them to 'swear' in the affadavit, which is usually free, (solicitors will usually charge £5 to do this) and I believe the central London courts charge £12 !!)

 

Please have a read of these too....

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/dca-legal-successes/156970-omg-connaught-first-credit.html

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/dca-legal-successes/103839-cca-1st-credit-connaught.html

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/dca-legal-successes/161411-off-court-within-week.html

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/135078-me-1st-credit-stat.html

 

The courts in the majority are against the Insolvency service being used as a tool for debt collection....!! (as you will read in the threads above)....

[42man]

If you need some help, or aren't sure of anything please do SHOUT !!!

[all alone]

Many thanks for the advice

 

When I go to the court with these forms do I need to take all the letters etc I have received from both Moorcroft and 1st Credit. I have copies of all sent and anything I have received including the letter from Moorcroft accepting the offer of £50 per month. I've also noticed in the links you attached that some people have asked for costs from the DCA is this normal practice I would not have thought that the court would look favourably on paying costs to someone who owes such a lot of money.

 

There are not court details on the SD sent by 1st Credit just a phone number. I am loathed to ring and ask for this information as this would prove I had received the SD

[PGH7447]

You go to your local court to get it set aside, and yes you can claim costs, you are being put out by these cretins. so make em pay for the inconvenience

[42man]

If you ignore the stat demand they can then petition for your bankruptcy,

[42man]

As mentioned above, courts do NOT look favourably on those who abuse the Insolvency Service....!!!

[UnitedFront]

Good luck with this (no longer)Alone!!! As you can see there are loads of people here that will help you through this!! you can fight these horrible people!!

 

I am fighting a simmilar situation for a member of my family at the moment!! http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/162489-statutory-demand-stature-barred-2.html#post1748453

 

With all the help and advice available here and the benefit of each others experiences we can win against these monstors!!

[all alone]

Hi

 

I was not going to ignore the SD. After reading other postings I thought I would just apply to have it set aside without contacting 1st Credit. I'm not sure if they sent it correctly and if the information on it is correct. I know the amount they are demanding is incorrect, and they do not quote any court details just a phone number (I'm not sure if this is wrong or not). In the "Particulars of Debt" section they give no details of intermediary assignees - not sure if they should have mentioned Moorcroft there,and not details of any charges which have been added, there obviously are some as the debt increased. All it says in this section is "The debt relates to sums due under account number xxxxxx with Goldfish Bank Ltd. The debt was assiged to the Creditor on 13/03/2008. The amount due at the date of this demand is xxxxxx"

 

Do you think I should contact 1st Credit again and tell them I intend to apply to have this set aside, and the reasons why? That way I suppose they would know I was not just ignoring them

[havinastella]

No, just Ignore them.

 

Also, when you have not had a reply to your CCA request after 14 days, cancel all payments to either company.

 

Also made sure you really hit Crud 1 with costs.

 

Jogs

[42man]

When 1st did it to me....(and made me bankrupt)....all I had EVER received from them was a letter saying 'YOU OWE US THIS' !!!! no statements, no notices of assignment, no agreements, (let alone any having the prescribed terms), no default notices....and when I sent a Subject Access Request to the orignal creditors, they couldn't find ANYTHING on their files about me whatsoever !!!

[42man]

What happens is you submit your forms to the courts, 'swear' them in and it goes to a judge and he/she decides if there should be a hearing, the judge will also request the 'other' side to turn up too, if you get a friendly judge then he/she probably wants to make an example of the Debt Collection agency who are abusing the court system (as you can see from some of the threads above).....1st Credit rarely turn up to court......

[UnitedFront]

Really??? That's absolutely shocking!!! Was this in your pre-CAG days??

[42man]

You are quite entitled to dispute a debt at any stage.....(especially now as you probably know a little more already about your rights)....to be honest I would want to stand in front of a judge and show my disgust at the way they are abusing the Insolvency Service as a means of debt collecting disputed debts....

[42man]

Without the unbelievable support both moral and legal from CAG I would have been sunk.....

[madjenny1]

42man. You say 1st credit did this to you, made you bankrupt? do you mean they actually, petitioned to make you bankrupt? Did you receive a SD? if so, did you try to have it setaside etc? Can I ask was this for a credit card debt? As I was lead to believe this was very rare for this type of debt!!!

[madjenny1]

To answer my own above question,I have just read through all your threads 42Man, I must say i am shocked at what happened to you, but so glad you managed to fight it and win. Just out of interest, have you ever heard of this happening to anyone else, as I was blown away by it all!!!!!

[all alone]

When I arrived home from work yesterday there was a letter from 1st Credit regarding my CCA request the letter informs me that the document requested is retained by their clients and they will advise them of my request and arrange for the document to be sent as soon as possible. The letter is from their administration department - I sent the request to the Litigation Department. Does this now mean they can take as long as they want to send the agreement?

 

Incidently this letter bears exactly the same signature as the Statutory Demand!

[42man]

Well put it this way, 12+2 working days after your request, if they haven't supplied it then the debt is unenforceable.....

 

Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations

1983 (SI 1983/1569)

2 Prescribed period

The period of 12 working days is hereby prescribed for the purposes of each provision of the Act specified in Column 1

of the Schedule to these Regulations relating to the duty indicated in Column 2 in relation to regulated agreements

 

 

SCHEDULE

SECTIONS OF THE ACT IN RESPECT OF WHICH A PERIOD OF 12 WORKING DAYS IS PRESCRIBED RELATING TO DUTIES IN

RELATION TO REGULATED AGREEMENTS

Regulation 2

Section of the

Act

Duty

(1) (2)

77(1) Duty to give information to debtor under fixed-sum credit agreement.

78(1) Duty to give information to debtor under running-account credit agreement.

79(1) Duty to give information to hirer under consumer hire agreement.

and section 78 for running credit

 

 

78.

Duty to give information to debtor under running-account credit agreement.

— (1) The creditor under a regulated agreement for running-account credit, within the prescribed period after receiving a request in writing to that effect from the debtor and payment of a fee of [F1 £1], shall give the debtor a copy of the executed agreement (if any) and of any other document referred to in it, together with a statement signed by or on behalf of the creditor showing, according to the information to which it is practicable for him to refer,—

(a)

the state of the account, and

 

(b)

the amount, if any currently payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor, and

 

©

the amounts and due dates of any payments which, if the debtor does not draw further on the account, will later become payable under the agreement by the debtor to the creditor.

 

 

(2) If the creditor possesses insufficient information to enable him to ascertain the amounts and dates mentioned in subsection (1)©, he shall be taken to comply with that paragraph if his statement under subsection (1) gives the basis on which, under the regulated agreement, they would fall to be ascertained.

 

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to—

(a)

an agreement under which no sum is, or will or may become, payable by the debtor, or

 

(b)

a request made less than one month after a previous request under that subsection relating to the same agreement was complied with.

 

 

(4) Where running-account credit is provided under a regulated agreement, the creditor shall give the debtor statements in the prescribed form, and with the prescribed contents—

(a)

showing according to the information to which it is practicable for him to refer, the state of the account at regular intervals of not more than twelve months, and

 

(b)

where the agreement provides, in relation to specified periods, for the making of payments by the debtor, or the charging against him of interest or any other sum, showing according to the information to which it is practicable for him to refer the state of the account at the end of each of those periods during which there is any movement in the account.

 

 

(5) A statement under subsection (4) shall be given within the prescribed period after the end of the period to which the statement relates.

 

(6) If the creditor under an agreement fails to comply with subsection (1)—

(a)

he is not entitled, while the default continues, to enforce the agreement

[all alone]

When I arrived home yesterday there was a letter from 1st Credit. In it was a bundle of statements with balances and the £50 credits I have been paying to both Moorcroft & 1st Credit and at the back there was a "Goldfish Your Credit Card Terms & Conditions" hand written on it was my surname the 1st credit reference number and a further number 5578438700122305. My goldfish account number started with a 5578, but it is nothing like the number they have quoted. My signature does not appear anywhere on what they have sent. Is this 1st Credit trying to pull a fast one by using this to fulfill their obligation after I sent them a CCA request or does this mean they have in fact supplied me with what I requested. Once again the figures do not stack up, there are payments I know were sent that are not included on these statements I have bank statements showing these payments. Any help you can give is gratefully appreciated

[42man]

Are you able to scan / photo the documents they have sent you and post them up on here ? (but edit your personal details / reference numbers)....was your writing on it anywhere at all ? use Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket if need be (and it's free)...

 

There is a photobucket guide in this thread here... - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/161226-credit-cards-dcas-2.html

[all alone]

I don't have access to a scanner, but no were on any of the documents they have supplied is there any of my handwriting. You can actually go online to the Goldfish website and get the exact same wording. I thought they had to supply a credit agreement signed by me, obviusly I could be mistaken.

[42man]

No signature, unenforceable (that agreement could apply to anybody).....have you applied for the set aside for the demand by the way ?

[all alone]

I am going to the court tomorrow, a bit last minute I know. I was using the fact that they had not supplied me with a copy of the credit agreement as the main reason for asking for the SD to be set aside. Will the fact that they have sent these statements etc challenge this. I'm really concerned about this. I have negative equity in my home and no savings, so I'm not sure what they would achieve by making me bankrupt. I also have other creditors who have accepted my offers of reduced payments. 1st Credit rang my home on Monday and asked me to ring them to discuss my account. I haven't done this as yet, do you think I should call them?