MBNA/Allied International Credit

[The Blue Hand]

Hello,

 

I have just now got off the phone to AIG who claim to be acting on behalf of MBNA, chasing a debt that I have owed them and been making reduced payment against for some time. I am looking for some advice about the best way to proceed, but I'll provide some background first.

 

I ran up some pretty serious debts until 2007, when it all finally went horribly wrong and I couldn't use any credit cards or loans to bounce money around and had to deal with it all. I realise now that all of that was a mistake and I should have dealt with it earlier. I have never tried to claim that I don't owe the money I owe and from the point that I made the decision to deal with my creditors, I have always offered to make repayments, which has generally been well received.

 

Currently, I owe £62k in unsecured debt, I have a mortgage with a balance of £162k and a secured loan with a balance of approx £30k. I do earn well and can manage to service all of this, just with lowered payments. Until very recently, I had run up arrears on my mortgage, but Cheltenham & Gloucester were very helpful and set-up a payment plan which I kept to. In January 2011 have merged the arrears back into the mortgage (I forget the exact terminology) so that I no longer have any arrears on my mortgage.

 

As I say, I have negotiated with all my debtors to come up with a payment plan based on an I&E that I originally created in 2007 and have kept up to date ever since. I have used this site and others over time as resources and a very big thank you to all who have posted here in the past, as people like me who are just looking for help always find them useful, even if we don't always post.

 

Anyway, back to this particular case; MBNA were one of my creditors who were always very helpful (contrary to what I have read elsewhere here) and agreed to a monthly payment of £120 - with no interest applied - which, up until 6 months ago, I made regularly on time. In the past 6 months, my employer has been having difficulties and so pay has sometimes been 2 or 3 days late and in October 2010, I only received half wages, which I am still owed.

 

I spoke with MBNA regularly throughout this to keep them informed and in December 2010 I agreed to up my payment to £180 a month for 6 months to clear 3 months that they claimed I was behind (I actually thought it was 2 months, but wasn't prepared to argue). I paid the first £180 on 16th December and then second £180 on 3rd February (my January wages being 2 days late).

 

Yesterday, 7th February, I received a call on my busines mobile (which MBNA knew of) from one "Chris Davidson" at Allied International Credit ("AIG"), but said I was too busy to speak and asked him to call back today.

 

He has explained to me that MBNA have "asked them" to look into dealing with the debt immediately. I said that this was a big suprise to me as I had just made a payment to MBNA, but he was not very interested in that. I confirmed my employer, salary, mortgage, secured loan, etc (which maybe I shouldn't have done, but it's not like MBNA didn't know them anyway) and he then said that I must call him back by midday on Thursday 10th February. I refused to give any more phone numbers for me, although he pushed on that point.

 

One point which really stood out to me was that he claimed the debt owed is £10,478.26, but I have on my records that it was £9,867.69 as of the beginning of November, so another £360 has been paid since that point.

 

I asked what he expected to happen on Thursday as clearly I am unable to repay that amount of money, but he refused to be drawn saying that it was clearly one of income or assets and then refused to explain what he meant by that, only that he would make "recommendations" to MBNA after Thursday. I asked if there was scope for an ongoing payment plan, but he said that "the computer" (yep, he did say that) indicated that this was unlikely.

 

I explained that I didn't know who AIG were, nor had I received any correspondance from MBNA or AIG. It seems that the "yellow slips" were sent out on the 2nd, although I haven't received mine.

 

I very much welcome some advice. I have just read the excellent thread on Tesco/AIG on this forum (sorry I cannot seem to link to it, but the reference is "showthread.php?287398-Allied-International-Tescoloan/", so from this and reading elsewhere, the following course of action seems most appropriate:

 

1 - Do not speak with AIG on the phone again; request that all be put in writing.

2 - Send a CCA request to both AIG and MBNA.

3 - Wait for their response.

 

Do that sound about right? Anything I haven't explained, please let me know!

 

I'm quite ****ed off with MBNA, since I spoke to them last week! However, should I stick with paying MBNA £180 in the meantime if nothing happens, or just £120, or £1 or nothing?

 

Thanks very much.

Stewart

[Bazooka Boo]

Dilemmas dilemmas dilemmas, excuse me if I have failed to read all of your thread thoroughly, but I get the general gist!

 

Well proof if it were ever needed that even when you play at their rules and converse over the phone they still get too big for their boots and greed gets the better of them!

 

As you have now done it their way, do it the consumer action group way, and when they ring in future laugh at them and hang up, OR tell them everything in writing, then laugh, then hang up!

 

Haven't got much time to check whether AIC and MBNA are one and the same BUT, if you were currently paying one (MBNA?) and suddenly AIC have crawled out from under their stone, I WOULD NOT pay AIC ANYTHING until you have it IN WRITING.

 

For their greed send AIC a simple letter stating that you have had a call from a company claiming to be MBNA and acting on behalf of AIC, you are not aware of this company, and as such you will reduce your payments down to the token amount of £1 a month, until AIC or MBNA can provide solid legal evidence as to who is in charge of this account.

Enc,£1.

 

See what comes back, print off the CCA request ready to fire back at them, and they will wish they had let sleeping dogs lie!

 

This is what happens when they get greedy, and I hope for your sake, that their is something inherently wrong with their paperwork!

[FORMISTER]

Also I would go for a SAR request to MBNA and see what you can claim back from them regarding missold PPI, credit charges etc(if you don't still have the paperwork). This will help reduce your balance.

[The Blue Hand]

Hello,

 

Thanks for the advice. I have decided to go down the route of disputing AIG's legal right to deal with my account - since they have provided no proof other than a little yellow slip, which in my mind constitutes no proof whatsoever. In the meantime, I will maintain my £120 monthly payments to MBNA, as that is what I *can* afford and if this does end up legal I can point at the payments to confirm that I, at least, was acting in good faith.

 

I have also set-up a correspondance address for them to use because I don't want the writing to home. Do you think that will be OK?

 

Can you have a glance over the following and see if it fits the bill?

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

 

I am in receipt of a yellow slip from your company purporting to act on behalf of MBNA Europe Bank Ltd in relation to my account with them.

 

I have no knowledge of you. I have received no communication from MBNA Europe Bank Ltd about your company or their intention to pass my details to you.

 

I require that either MBNA or your company provide me with legal proof, in writing, that you are authorised to act for MBNA in this matter, prior to further communication in any form. Until this proof has been provided, I will not deal with your company.

 

Please answer this request, in writing, to my correspondence address below:

 

xxxxxxx

 

Yours Faithfully,

 

Assuming that I get the proof I need, I'll then hit AIG with a SAR and see where that leads.

 

Thanks for the advice and I appreciate everyone's assistance!

Stewart

[harrassed senior]

Just a point, a SAR usually goes to the original creditor, MBNA.

[The Blue Hand]

Thanks for the comments. I know the SAR should go to MBNA, but I'm going to pretend I don't and send it to AIG and see if they know.

 

Anyway, that's for the future. Posting the letter above today and we'll see what response that gets. I received one telephone call (from a mobile number, so watch out for that one) asking me to call regarding a "personal business matter" - which I've ignored. I also received a text message as follows:

 

...your account is being actioned today. I can only stop this if you call AIC immediately on my direct line...

Presumably since the only option I was given when I did speak to them was to pay in full, the "action" they intend to take is...what? ....Accept the payment plan which I made with them and have been sticking to? *sigh*

 

Stewart

[Bazooka Boo]

Give their mobile number out to other companies, double glazing salesmen, pizza delivery skip hire etc