credit card write off

[mnayyar]

Hi

 

I am new to this site and am considering trying to write off my credit card debt. I have managed to obtain the template letter to send to the company but wanted a little bit of adviceregarding what happens after this. I have done something similar with bank charges and found a lot more advice on how to handle responses. I have several questions including:

 

Once I have sent the letter, what should I do if the they have no CCA? Should I stop paying, but if so will they take me to court?

 

If I stop paying and they don;t take me to court, how will this appear on my experion credit report- will it appear assettled or defaulted?

 

If they do threaten to take me to court, what should I do then? I could not find any further letters and whilst I do want to do and avoid paying high fees to solicitirs, I am slightly concerned that with very limited legal knowledge, I am taking on more than I can handle.

 

Any advice from an expert or anyone who has done this before would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[evancosmo]

hi there. No expert but facing similar probs & been doing a bit of background reading on the forums.

 

I think there's several things that you should be considering at this stage:

 

1. How old is the agreement? The older the agreement the less likely they are to have the CCA. This is important because you need to be able to make a judgement call on the likelihood of them having a CCA to inform your next steps. Also for an agreement started prior to April 07 to be enforceable it has to be signed; later ones dont.

 

2. The s.78(1) CCA request is the one most commonly used to establish whether creditors are holding CCAs. Loads of people in the forums are being fobbed old with a load of old cobblers that don't cover the prescribed terms & creditors then insisting they have met their s.78 obligations.

 

Consider a subject access request instead or even the interesting Civil Procedures Regulations (CPR) 31.16 approach (can't remember where that thread is but search on "CPR 31.16". Whatever approach you decide once the account is in dispute you should consider making sure that you let the 3 CRA know too (see below), defaults cant be entered on disputed accounts.

 

3. Finding the debt to be unenforceable won't necessarily make it go away. They can't take you to court, demand repayment (although some chancers do still try) or default you but will they mark it as settled straight off? Hard to say, I imagine you'd have to do a s.10 data protection approach on them after it's established its unenforceable.

 

4. Don't forget that Experian are only one of the 3 main CRA - the others are Equifax & Callcredit. Each is a complete law unto themselves (or so it seems) and may hold / process data completely differently for the same account. if you're checking your files, check at all 3. (there is a site that can do this for you saving sub fees in the process, link here)

 

Hope this helps, the forums are great & people usually will respond if you keep posting up your progress

 

Good luck on whatever you decide

 

EC