anyone actually written off their credit card debt in full

[The Lawyer]

Yes, I have. Its due to the credit agreement being irredeemably unenforceable - it only really works with agreements taken out before April 2007, as the law changed under the Consumer Credit Act 2006. The old law (that is, the law pre-april 2007) applies to credit agreements taken out before Apruil 2007 - basically, if the credit agreement is flawed, the law says it is not properly executed and this means it cannot be enforced - the process involves litigation that takes several months to obtain a "declaration of unenforceability" from the Court - best part is the Court has no choice where the breaches are of "prescribed" terms.

 

The banks are being very underhanded with a negative pr campaign about claims management companies - fair enough, there are some dodgy ones out there (look out for creditcardkiller.com - and stay well away from their service its a rip off), but there are plenty of regulated genuine ones out there. In my case there was a fee for an audit of the credit agreement and then the claim is on a no win no fee basis, so the bank pays your legal fees as part of the claim.

 

I have around 80k of unsecured debt that I am in the process of challenging. Interestingly though, I stopped paying them months ago and they have never brought any court action against me - I imagine this is because I have written and verbally told them that the debt is in dispute and the OFT guidance on unfair business practices states clearly that it is an unfair practice to ignore a borrower who says the debt is in dispute - guess what, if the debt is in dispute the lender cant enforce it - its the law. Fantastic!