We have so much debt, it seems only hope is selling house!

[wilchil64]

Thanks BD, I haven't written to them yet (Friday night is letter night!) so will get a letter along those lines sent off tomorrow and see what happens next.

 

I'm sure I'll have something else upstairs that arrived this week to scan in tomorrow and post here for advice. Also was delighted to receive a letter from Santander loans, on yellow paper (imagine!) just saying to ring them urgently on an 0845 number. They are joking? Tbh, yellow paper doesn't intimidate me that much these days

[minmoo]

I actually quite like the way you have a night set aside lol. Friday nights used to be fish and chip nights when i was a kid. Funny how things change when we get older

Good luck by the way, have read through this thread and you seem to have come a long way. My journey begins soon!

[wilchil64]

Good luck Minmoo. The guys and gals here have been very helpful, I feel we are actually getting somewhere.

 

We've set aside an evening to take care of the correspondence as it was taking over my life, I seemed to write and receive letters every day. Now we sit down together one evening a week and file everthing away that arrived during the week and reply to them, the amount of letters we get has reduced drastically! We had at least one letter but more often 4 or 5 letters a day (from a total of 7 creditors) to now having about 4 a week! Much easier to deal with.

 

I'd prefer fish and chips though! Still ......

[wilchil64]

Hi,

 

Could someone just give me some tips on dealing with this one - quoted my own message below (I posted above, post no. 369, but think it got overlooked). I've attached the letter again.

 

Thanks.

 

Hi all,

 

Re. Sainsburys:

 

We have received this week a letter from Albion Collections Ltd. about the Sainsburys loan, scanned copy attached.

 

As mentioned above, last correspondence )written by humans) from Sainsburys said they would accept lower paymetn if we sent I&E's then we would be issued with an Notice of Default and they would pass to their solicitors Blair Oliver & Scott. We sent abbreviated I&Es, then we received a DN from them. We sent another monthly lower payment cheque. Then they wrote to say they are looking into the issues we have raised! Now we have this letter from Albion.

 

Not sure now what we should do. Should we write to both Albion and Sainsburys? Do we need to check they are doing what they said or whether they have now changed their minds about acceping lower payment?

 

Thanks for your help in advance and have a good weekend.

sains-albion rcvd 111110.PDF

[Undercover-Elsa]

Hi Wilchil,

Looks as if they've just substituted Abion for BOS.

Either way it should mean that the interest is no longer being added. Some banks won't cease interest and accept reduced payments until its gone through the default process etc.

Just stick to your guns now and tell Albion that you have already instituted a monthly payment of £x with Sainsburies which is the maximum you can afford after consultation with CCCS, and you presume you will now continue paying this via Albion. Stress that you understand from previous correspondence with Sainsburies that interest would now be stopped.

See how they are with you. If they play fair then you have a result (and DCA's are far more likely to accept a reasonable F&F a bit further down the line). If they step out of line we'll rap their grimy knuckles..

 

Elsa x

[wilchil64]

Thanks Elsa, I was hoping they would stop interest now. We'll see what happens.

 

I think someone on here tried to send me a PM but my inbox was full. Very sorry, I've emptied it now and hopefully any messages will get through to me.

[Bigdebtor]

W

 

first things first - let Albion or whoever agree to your current payment as ongoing with interest frozen.

 

ONLY THEN - complain to Sainsbury that they c ashed cheques XXX, XXX etc. sent with your letters of XX, XX etc. which expressly stated they shpould only cash them IF they accept your proposals of £zz pe rmonth AND interst waived. You therefore expect them to REFUND the interst charged since your first letter (amounting to £xxx.xx) with immediate effect.

 

As Elsa says you'll probably get a better F&F sooner with a DCA than with Sainsbury directly.

 

iBD

[wilchil64]

Thanks BD. So I should just write to Albion and tell them that we have already instituted a monthly payment of £x with Sainsburies which is the maximum we can afford after consultation with CCCS, and that we presume we should now continue paying this via Albion, stressing that we understand from previous correspondence with Sainsburies that interest would now be stopped?

[Bigdebtor]

Got it in one! You might also say that if Sainsbury didn't want to agree to frozen interest then they should arrange to get the cheques cashed by JS "in error" refunded - you'll never get that - so you might just get any interest imposed since your first cheque waived!

 

BD

[wilchil64]

Worth a try, thanks BD!

[wilchil64]

Hi again,

We are fed up of M&S and their constant phone calls and the amount of charges they are applying to our account for the sake of under £500! They want a monthly payment of £12 or thereabouts and get £8 and kick up such a fuss!

 

Therefore we want to get rid of this particularly stressful creditor by making a F&F offer. As the card is in my husband's name, will it be ok for me to send a letter as follows:

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

Without Prejudice

 

Account No: xxxx

 

We write with reference to the money which you are claiming on the above account.

We can confirm that we are unable to offer to pay the money which we owe in full. . However, we can raise

£xx.xx and we want to offer this as an ex-gratia payment in full and final settlement of the account. This offer

is made on the clear understanding that, if accepted, neither you nor any associate company will take any

other action to enforce or pursue this debt in any way whatsoever and that we will be released from any

liability.

We also request that, if accepted, you will make an entry on a credit reference agency file relating to the above

account as having been paid and the account closed.

Payment can be made within 2 weeks of receiving your written agreement of this offer and method of

payment.

We look forward to receiving your reply.

Yours faithfully

 

This is a letter from the National Debtline website. I am planning to offer approx. 25% (or is that ridiculous?) in the hope that they will come back saying they'll accept more than that but still less than the full amount.

 

They haven't sent a DN yet or passed this to a debt collection agency but we have been making lower payments since end of June. They keep saying they can't accept our lower payment or freeze interest/charges unless we send I&Es. We have sent our own abbreviated ones (very basic info) but they say that's not sufficient. Should we now fill in their full I&E form and send them 3 bank statements as they request? This just seems very intrusive!

 

Do we have a chance of them accepting a F&F? Does anyone have experience with M&S and F&Fs?

 

Thanks very much.

[victoria_siempre]

Hi wilchil

 

It jeopardizes the principle of fair and equal treatment to all alleged creditors and may come back to bit you.

 

see what others think.

 

lov e

 

vic

[wilchil64]

Yes, I know what you mean. None of them seem to care about it being fair for the others,i.e. demanding higher payment even though we have pointed out we can't, but I bet they would kick up a fuss if they thought it wasn't fair to them.

[Undercover-Elsa]

I agree, M&S are particularly awkward and persistant. The minute they think you have any spare cash they'll want BOTH the lump payment and a follow on monthly payment.

You would have far better chance of sorting this once its defaulted and gone to a DCA, to be honest Wilchil.

Just remind us...what year was this card taken out? If it was me I'd be sending them a CCA Request.

Elsa x

[Undercover-Elsa]

In fact you'd be better spending that money on a Truecall call blocker to get rid of all the unwanted callers..I just bought one as I've somehow got on an International telephone autodial/ silent call list.

[wilchil64]

Thanks Elsa. We have our phone on silent all the time with the answerphone on and just don't pick up these days.

 

I just want rid of this one as they are charging us so much in interest and charges and are constantly writing to us refusing our offer and asking for more details - are they entitled to these, really? Would a court turn round and say we weren't helpful because we wouldn't provide them, if it went to court?

 

We don't know when the card was taken out, because at some point, when debt didn't seem that huge a problem, I shredded loads of documents that were over so and so many years old because the filing cabinet was full! Stupid I know, but I didn't think I'd need them. I have statements as far back as March 2007 and there is no statement number on them to give an idea of how many there were before that.

 

So CCA request then?

 

Thanks.

[Bigdebtor]

Wilchill

 

I think Elsa is right - M&S might want the F&F funds offered PLUS £8 or £12 a month to pay off the balance -s o too early to do an F&F - although I don't think Victoria's point is that important (no offence and not being cheeky Vic - just it's impossible to treat them ALL the same as they all act so differently).

 

I would do a SAR first - so you get all old statements and hopefully also a copy of your CCA. You can also see what unfair charges might have been charged and demand a refund of these. From reading other threads the £1 CCA letter just gets you a reconstituted/forged load of Cr*p nowadays (post Carey) - so better to use a CPUTR 2008 letter as put together by PriorityOne and others on either the CCA or S77/78 thread- but not sure how early this can be used - look at the threads on this if you need to know more about this. I'll send you links if needed.

 

Elsa is also probably right about waiting until M&S get a DCA in and then agreeing the reduced £8 per month or a 25% F&F with them.

 

Have you had any response from Stuart Rose's office - have you written or e-mailed him? if not cetrainly worth a try!

 

Good luck!

 

BD

[wilchil64]

Thanks BD. Yes we have sent letters to Stuart Rose, but all we get back are standard letters saying they're looking into our complaint and then a couple of weeks later we get a letter from the usual collection office saying they can't accept our lower payment and terms etc. without I&Es and without us telephoning them!

 

Idiots!

[Bigdebtor]

I would send Rose a letter in a envelope marked PERSONAL ADDRESSEE ONLY - inside another envelope - and perhaps The Great Man might even get to read it this time?

 

Tell him you're amazed that he has not responded to any of the previous letters addresssed to him personally dated on XX, XX etc. - and can he do you the common courtesy of a personal reply?

 

Let's see if that works?

 

BD

 

BD

[victoria_siempre]

Hi BD

 

No offence taken; I should say that it would be impossible for you to offend me. 'We're all in this together'.

 

Wilchill's thread is very educational and she's now one scary lady.

 

Lots of love

 

vic

[wilchil64]

[wilchil64]

I'm just after a bit of advice. We've had 2 letters from Santander (loan) in the last month, both are on plain yellow paper, no letter head, foot etc. They just have name and address of hubbie (account holder), then say urgent msg from Santander re. your personal loan account

On receipt of this msg pls telephone ****

Opening hours

Mon to Thurs bla bla

Fri bla bla

Sat bla bla

Minicom users please dial via text relay on xxx

 

However in tiny tiny writing in right hand bottom corner they have a ref. no. similar to other letters from Santander (altho the yellow letters have in the ref. TELLET followed by day and 6 digit ref, their normal letters have in the ref. ABBEYLET followed by day and 6 digit ref.).

 

Nothing else. No account number. I would love to send them a scathing reply pointing out their incompetence, or even suggesting the letters aren't from them as no letter head etc. Any point? Any ideas? Anyone else had yellow letters from them?

 

Otherwise no letters to reply to, just the usual "we are dealing with your complaint and will reply soon" letters, the weather's been so bad, we've had no mail since Tuesday!

 

Thanks.

Have a great weekend.

[Undercover-Elsa]

Ahhhh the infamous pseudo telegram

Just standard trickster tactics to intrigue / worry / confuse you into picking up that telephone and talking to the banker.

 

NO DEAL!!!

 

NOElsa x

[wilchil64]

 

Thanks.

[Bigdebtor]

Ignore them both