Please Help me with the Amex Muppets

[console_2002]

I like many others hit financial difficulty and was unable to keep up with my amex payments, at first I ignored the letters from amex and various collectors then after about 9 months of paying nothing I was in a position to borrow some money from family and in July 2010 I made there collector at the time an offer of full and final settlements for around 40pence in the £

 

I heard nothing back other than template collection letters from other agents, then in January this year I received a letter from Vilcollections stating that as i have made no attempt to correspond or make any payments they would unless I paid in full or a substantial amount within 7 be recommending my bankruptcy.

 

I responded to Vilcollections with the following letter.

 

Dear Personal Bankruptcy Unit

RE: American Express Services Europe

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

On the 15th May 2010 I received a letter from Brachers LLP informing me they are acting on behalf of American Express Europe Limited, I complied with the letters request for a personal financial statement and at the time made an offer for full and final settlement of the account on the provision that American Express supplied me with a statement of the account along with a copy of the original signed agreement, Brachers LLP has failed to respond to my letter dated 17 July 2010.

I have received no notification of the debt being passed on and I have not received any communication of my offer for full and final being refused or any supporting documents asked for from Brachers or American express.

The OFT Debt Collection Guidance 2003 makes it quite clear in section 2.6 f that pressurising debtors to pay in full, in unreasonably large instalments, or to increase payments when they are unable to do so is unfair practice, however your letter clearly states that unless I make a substantial payment within seven days to your company you will be advising the Client to send a statutory demand and continue to bankruptcy.

Section h also states ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment is also an unfair practice, As this alleged debt stands I am dealing with Brachers LLP who have I have made a substantial offer to but who have failed to respond to my requests to settle the account.

I would ask that you refer the case back to where you purchased it as you have incomplete records and should not be pursuing this debt when Brachers and American express have failed to provide details I have asked for despite being made a substantial offer. This is clearly covered in section I, failing to investigate and/or provide details as appropriate, when a debt is queried or disputed, possibly resulting in debtors being wrongly pursued.

Yours sincerely

I received a response from both Vil and amex stating they would investigate the case.

I today received a letter from Amex stating that the investigation is complete and they have no records of me making any offers of payments to the account and that i should pay vilcollections in full.

They also included the following which is part of the information I requested back in July 10 from the agent collecting. This is not a poor quality scan on my part this is exactly what I was sent, on two single sided pieces of A4 the poor quality is there scanning.

 

My question now is how do I follow this up, they say they have no records of my offer, I am no longer in a position to settle this or make any payments, however I can not go bankrupt as it will prevent me from working in the industry I am trained and seek work in.

I am now prepared to fight this as much as I can as Amex simply do not play ball, I have the copy of the letter I made as an offer and i have copies of the letters they have sent from there collection agents.

I was thinking my next step would be to wait to hear from vilcollections and then hit them with faults in the credit agreement to stop them pushing for a bankruptcy, my credit rating is already shot so I have no issues about defaults. (£12K on card)

I have never disputed the debt I only offered a full and final on the condition they proved it.

Please advise on what my next move should be / points or defects I should quote from the agreement I was sent. The first point i noted was it does not contain my address and it has no authorisation signature by them.

all comments on this would be welcomed.

Regards

Console