Lowell Group after me for debt from back in 2007 !!

[unclebulgaria67]

Mady

 

Don't rush at this and make a mistake. As has been pointed out, if Lowells/Red accept £500 as a F&F settlement for a £1500 debt, they will only note your credit record as the debt being partially settled. This will mean that when you apply for any future finance or certain products, it will still affect you, almost as much as if you hadn't paid anything at all.

 

What I would suggest that you do first is to establish whether the debt amount being chased is accurate. Do you have a fully itemised statement from t-mobile showing the final amount owing to them ? Was the amount they were asking for correct ? If you are not sure, have you challenged it ? If not challenged yet, I would suggest that you challenge t-mobile first, using their complaints process and inform Lowells/Red of this. Lowells/Red should put a stop to all collection activity, while you have an ongoing dispute with the original creditor t-mobile.

 

This is a link to t-mobiles complaints process. Send them a letter by recorded delivery, advising them that you are submitting a complaint to dispute the amount showing as outstanding on the account and are requesting full information as to how any outstanding sums on the account have been arrived at. Ask them to notify Lowell, that that account is now in dispute and that they should suspend collection activity.

 

complaints process link

 

Once you have validated what the outstanding debt amount is, which might be a lot less than £1500, you can then decide what you want to do about settling it. My experience with a relatives debts, is that some debt companies appear to make up the debt amounts by adding various extra amounts, on the basis that the debtor will settled for a 50% discount. It could well be that they have noted the debt as £1500, when you owe £750 or less. I certainly would not suggest that you look to pay anything until you have concluded a dispute with t-mobile.

 

For future reference this is the F&F help guidelines from the insolvencyhelpline. http://www.insolvencyhelpline.co.uk/debt_factsheets/full_and_final_settlement_offers.php

[unclebulgaria67]

I am thinking of sending the letter on 1st page with WITHOUT PREJUDICE on the top of the letter offering the 500 quid to go away

 

Yes go for it, if that is what you want to do. If Lowell don't own the debt and are just chasing it on behalf of t-mobile they will have to ask them.

 

Would be suprised if they agreed to note the debt as satsified in full.

 

I am finding it unbelievable that anyone would take out a contract phone for a 17 year old cousin and to let them run up a bill. You must be a Premier League footballer.

[unclebulgaria67]

would Lowell know if i am working or not? Jimbo45 how about the F & F letter i got in this thread in the 1st page do u think is good enough? or should i start buy letter NOT acknowleging the debts and then when i get reply i make them and offer??

 

Lowell would only need to know about your financial circumstances, if they took this to court and the court wanted the information. You have not obligation to provide Lowell with any information about your finances.

 

You have decided on an F&F which is fine, but I thought you wanted to obtain full information from t-mobile using an SAR before you did this.

 

So what do you want to do.

 

1) Just make Lowell a F&F offer OR

2) Find out the true debt level and information from t-mobile and use this to inform you of the amount of F&F to offer Lowell.

 

If 1), then use the Insolvencyhelpline letter which is similar to yours. http://www.insolvencyhelpline.co.uk/debt_factsheets/full_and_final_settlement_offers.php . In the letter you should add that a contract phone was taken by a cousin on holiday without your knowledge and they were responsible for the phones usage. However, to resolve the matter, you are able to offer £xxx.

 

2) Suggest that you submit the SAR request to t-mobile and then send Lowell a letter advising that you have written to request further information from t-mobile regarding the account (enclose a copy of letter sent to t-mobile) and that you will respond to Lowell on receipt of the information. Explain in both letters of the circumstances of a cousin taking the phone on holiday without your knowledge and that they were responsible for the usage. In order to ascertain the usage you have made an SAR to obtain full disclosure of the conduct of the account.

 

PS. As a by the way. Why don't you take this matter up with your cousins parents/guardians.

[unclebulgaria67]

Babybear

 

I think Mady might want to know the arguments about not adding without prejudice to the letter.

 

My understanding is that if this later went to court, you could then use the letter to show that you had made an offer. This would carry some favour with the judge, as long as the reason for not making full payment was accurate at the time of making the offer.

 

However, if the reason for making a reduced offer as an F&F is that you don't see why you should pay the full amount and not for reasons of finance, then you might want to add without prejudice. If Lowell rejected the F&F and this later ended up in court, you would not want a letter that was not totally accurate to be looked at by the court.

 

That is my basic understanding. There are probably threads that cover this topic.

[unclebulgaria67]

What is your dispute with T-Mobile about or is that you could not afford to pay the bill they sent you ?

 

If you think you have valid reasons to enter into a dispute with T-Mobile, make a complaint using their official process. complaints process link here

 

If you can't afford to pay the bill, then come to arrangement to pay monthly at an amount you can afford. Or if you are not bothered about default on credit record, just ignore them and hope that they don't take this to court. Chances are that there are so many debts out there, that if you don't keep kicking up a fuss, the debt will continued to be chased with letters/phone calls, but with no other action. It is just a case of whether you can be bothered with the hassle. The debt should come off the credit record 6 years from the date you stopped paying, as long as you don't admit to the debt in writing and they don't get a CCJ.

[unclebulgaria67]

Try changing the image resolution. Is the problem that the resolution is set too high and it makes it small because it can't show it at the resolution choosen ? Just a theory as I am not a real techie.

[unclebulgaria67]

No the attachments don't work.

[unclebulgaria67]

 

An answer to that question would help. ( What is your dispute with T-Mobile about or is that you could not afford to pay the bill they sent you ? )

 

I agree Mady needs to see whether there is reason to enter into a dispute with T-Mobile.

 

I think they are hoping someone spots something with the attachments they are trying to add, which might help with this. Clutching at straws ?

[unclebulgaria67]

You can try with an F&F, provided you are happy that the T-Mobile bills are correct and there is no reason to dispute the account. Just because they can't find the contract, does not mean that they would not succeed if they took it to court.

 

If Lowells have bought the debt and it is up to them what F&F is acceptable, then make an offer of say 25% of the amount due and be prepared to up this a bit if required.

 

Just send any F&F headed with 'without prejudice' and make it clear that you require the debt to be noted as satisfied in 'full'. Lowell will tell you that they will only note the debt as partially settled if they agreed to a reduced F&F. You will have to push this with them. Telll them that the F&F money is borrowed from a friend/relative and than any offer from yourself, would be at a low repayment level, due to your financial circumstances. Acceptance of the reduced F&F amount as full settlement would therefore be important in taking the matter forward.

[unclebulgaria67]

Hi Mikey,

 

I am actually a bit confused if the 6 years kicks from the date of the default (13/12/2007) or last payment i made to T-mobile 19/05/2007?! which one of the two dates?

 

I have sent few letters out to lowell offering them F&F and i believe i didn't acknowledge the debt.

Kindly let me know guy so I can prepare myself

 

It will be statute barred from the point where you did not pay the amount due. If you made a payment on 19/5/007, I am guessing this was payment for the April statement. You then defaulted on the May statement and therefore I would think the account would be statute barred sometime in June 2013.

 

So it is up to you what you do. The default date is wrong on your credit record, if it is showing as 13/12/07. Once you start sending letters to Lowells or other DCA's, it does mean that they will spend more time researching your account and in my opinion there is more chance they would take enforcement action.

 

Are you happy that there is a debt and with the amount ? If not then you should think about making a complaint to T-Mobile and to help with this perhaps send them an SAR.

[unclebulgaria67]

I would go by the last date of payment 15/3/07, as you already appear to be in arrears by then, hence them selling the debt so quickly to Lowell. So SB date would be 16/3/13. Strange that the account was not suspended until after they had sold the account on to Lowells. Think the suspension date is probably wrong.

 

So if you are going to sit this out until the debt is SB, then respond with the SB letter in regard to any debt collection letters received from April 2013 onwards

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/content.php?408-Letter-sent-when-debt-is-statute-barred

[unclebulgaria67]

Yes I found that strange too, would they remove it from my credit records after I send them the SB letter? or do i have to send a different letter to Experian asking them to remove the default?

 

Once the debt is clearly statute barred, then raise a complaint about the default date being wrong. You could do this via Experian or with the DCA compliance department that is dealing with the debt. If you contact Experian, they will raise a query with the debt owner, so you could do it that way.

[unclebulgaria67]

I wasn't in Arrears when I made the payment on 15/03/2007 its the few days between the payment and when they sold the debt. ( my grandad passed away I had to make phone calls on my way to Trinidad and from there) I used my phone a lot in that small period!

 

I think some of your dates may be wrong. I doubt that Lowell bought this debt in March 07, so near to your last payment to T-Mobile, when there was not a period of arrears. Also it is really odd for T-Mobile to terminate the account within 2 weeks of your last payment.

 

Suggest that you have a look through the paperwork again.

[unclebulgaria67]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40030[/ATTACH]

 

I could just about read the image. It appears that there was an account problem between December 06 and March 07. For whatever reason T-Mobile had not closed down your phone properly and you were still able to use it up to the date it was terminated. In March 07 you paid the relevant amount that was due, but then incurred more call charges after this date during your trip to Trinidad.

 

You need to check for sure when your last date of payment was. Did you make any payment to Lowells during 2007, which you have forgotten about ?

[unclebulgaria67]

I think you should be taking up a complaint with T-Mobile. According to your linked document they were sending you a final bill. Ask for a copy of this. The default will be the 30 days or whatever time period, in which you failed to make payment. The default should be end of January 07 at the latest. T-Mobile will be able to confirm.

[unclebulgaria67]

Forget the events in 2006 as I had 2 lines and I canceled one of them end of 2006, the 2007 are for my 2nd line which I had at that time! last payment was March 2007 and I never paid Lowell so I take it as the default date should be from the date I missed the payment due which is April 2007... am i correct? but Lowell didn't default me until December 2007! more than 6 months from the date!

 

Yes, the default date will be the date you failed to make the due payment.