Please help Uk debt living abroad

[UKLondonex]

Hello, I hope someone will be able to help with my situation.

 

I have always had a good credit history , a business and had a very good relationship with several banks until a few months ago. I have been living in another non EU country and my income stopped meaning I couldnt pay the Uk debts back. I know that they have passed the files to collection and I believe they are at early stages of tracking me. The banks have connections in the country I am in.

 

Please could someone who has experience advise me what the best course of action is.I always have and believe in negotiating things but right now I am unable to pay anything back until I make some money. I have also heard some of the collectors selling on debts to foreign companies.

 

 

 

I have always paid loans back but this situation is very difficult indeed. Please can somebody kindly advise me.

Thanks

ST

[BanditQueen]

Dear ST

 

Which country are you in and do they have a debt management system or debt helplines there? You may have the same rights as you have here. You can only pay secured or priority debts first and must make a list of your such creditors. Do income and expenditure and find out what the law is in the country that you are? You must also work out what bills you need to pay and prepare a standard letter to send to your creditors explaining you do not have any income and so on. It will most likely be some time before they trace you, but it is best to have some information to hand to send them and stand to on your rights. Do not give them personal information and do not give them any documents. Do not panic. They cannot force you to pay what you do not have and I assume you do not have any property here that they can seize. You are more likely to protect your own future credit if you can come to an honest arrangement with them that they will accept. If you can afford no money then you can do an income budget form and have it sent to them with an offer of £1.00 a month or week. If you cannot pay this then you have to say so and refuse to be bullied by them or their third parties. Make a note of what you know you owe and the last statements from them. Then if they add interest or charges ask for these to be removed due to your circumstances. If there are any debt agencies you can contact, ask them to get in rough with your creditors or help prepare above. Do not deal with them except in writing and direct. DCA do not have any legal powers and are not bailiffs and in any event these have limited powers. Try to deal with the original creditor and force them to prove you owe the debt. If you cannot afford then you do not have to pay. But you must make sure that you are clear in the law and your rights in the country you are in. Good luck

[alisindebt]

Living in a other country, with a few exceptions means they cannot touch you. For example, I moved to Taiwan and there is no legal recourse here to recover UK debts. Which country are you in, so we can check it out for you?

[unclebulgaria67]

If you have no assets in the UK, you are always best to advise creditors of your situation. Send them a letter with proof you are now resident abroad. This would make it difficult for them to take any UK court enforcement action, as you are not resident in the UK. e.g a county court claim can only be made against UK residents. If you don't advise them that you are abroad, then you risk getting a UK court judgement by default, as they will send a court claim form to your last known UK address.

 

It is very difficult for any enforcement action to be taken outside the EU in relation to UK debts. The debt may be sold onto a debt collection agency where you are resident, but they can't do very much, apart from hassle you. It is only if a debt was for tens of thousands and you had assets where you are now living, that they would look at making you bankrupt in the UK and then look to enforce where you are living.

[alisindebt]

You have to be careful; I told Egg I was abroad and they sneakily went to the County Court (Northampton Bulk centre). They won by default. However, I found out and the CCJ was set aside. Egg kindly sold the debt to CapQuest, and I had great pleasure in stringing them along for several months, until I eventually told them off the prior OC dispute, so that they couldn't collect. Their collections lady AnneMcShane even accused me in writing of being in the UK, and pretending to be abroad! The account was closed as CapQuest had been sold a dud account. Is funny how Eggcup on their own DCAs

[unclebulgaria67]

You have to be careful; I told Egg I was abroad and they sneakily went to the County Court (Northampton Bulk centre). They won by default. However, I found out and the CCJ was set aside. Egg kindly sold the debt to CapQuest, and I had great pleasure in stringing them along for several months, until I eventually told them off the prior OC dispute, so that they couldn't collect. Their collections lady AnneMcShane even accused me in writing of being in the UK, and pretending to be abroad! The account was closed as CapQuest had been sold a dud account. Is funny how Eggcup on their own DCAs

 

What should happen, after you have sent a creditor proof that you are abroad, is that they should note your credit records, as gone away. Then the creditor or debt company who has the debt, should then not issue a court claim. If they issue a court court claim and get a CCJ by default, when they should have noted you were abroad, then getting the set aside is more straightforward.

[alisindebt]

What they should, and what they actually do are two different things. I have documented here in my own threads how I won against several banks and DCAs, c and every single one behaved disgracefully and unlawfully. You have to expect dirty tricks from them. I won against "a Question, Egg, Lowels, Abbey National and Coopbank. This includes writing of credit card and loan debt and reclaiming ALL of my PPI claims! Take a look on my threads.

[unclebulgaria67]

True, but it is all about keeping things documented. I dealt with a relatives debts (my UK address used as a corres address) who had moved abroad and trying to get any DCA to note this was vitually impossible. One DCA who are subject to many complaints on CAG, ignored many letters and just continued to pass around the debt. In the end they had to write the debts off and pay compensation.

 

What I found is that when a DCA buys a debt, as soon as they find out the debtor is abroad, they do the dirty and pass on the debt to another DCA to waste money chasing or even sell the debt. Of course they never tell other DCA's that they have been told the debtor is abroad, as that would reduce the value of the debt.

 

As for DCA's getting CCJ's by default in full knowledge the debtor is not a UK resident, I think this may be more of an error, rather than deliberate. I am sure that if they did not think this would end up gaining them payment, that they would not want to incur the costs.

[alisindebt]

It was Egg who did the CCJ, not a DCA. They knew I was abroad, as they cancelled my Egg card, saying I was not entitled to it as I was outside the UK. So they deliberately went to the County Court when they knew I could not defend. Again, to reiterate my earlier comments, banks and DCAs will do anything dirty to try and get their hands on your money. I have a superlative track record in writing off all debts and getting refunds on ALL my PPI payments and I strongly recommend that you read my threads to the techniques that I deployed to do this.

[alisindebt]

To give you a taste of below–the–belt tactics of some of these low life's, here is an example of one of my threads on here dating back to 2009. Please note it is not what "they should do". It's what they ACTUALLY do:

Re: A friend in need vs Capquest

Well, I never took CapQuest too seriously when they contacted me. They are notorious liars and cheats. They purchased an old Egg loan, which had previously been set aside by the county court.

 

Actually, a previously disputed account cannot be sold to a DCA, but Egg pulled a fast one on CapQuest and duped them into buying the account. Nice one, Egg, you C**pped on CrapQuest.

 

I played along with CapQuest, a lady by the name of Anne McShane was assigned to "help" me, as she put it.

 

For over 12 months she kept sending ridiculous emails, asking for payments. I played along with her, even doing a CCA on them. They fought tooth and nail not to send it, citing the DPA, etc. Eventually, they sent it.

 

However, the CCA was non-compliant and I sent a dispute letter to them, which halts all collections activity, interest and reporting to third parties.

 

My "helper", Anne McShane, still keptsending emails asking for payments. on one day she sent several emails. One simply said "please respond", and she sent it less than 20 minutes after sending the previous one. (Harassment springs to mind).

 

I took great pleasure in finally sending them a copy of the county court set-aside letter that I had received back in 2005, explaining to those morons that it was illegal for them to even have purchased the debt, let alone for Anne McShane to have emailed me so many times trying to make a collection.

 

Having realised that they had been rumbled, CapQuest closed the account and said that they had made a mistake.

 

I called my "helper" Anne to ask for a refund of payments made to them and was greated with a torrent of abuse. I explained to her that it was a collection call-I made several such calls-and explained to her that if she preferred, I could call her out of office hours on her mobile or home numbers, or alternatively arrange for a "doorstep" collector to call.

 

I can't understand why she became so angry?

 

It now transpires that her direct telephone line is no longer in use.

 

However, she did upset a lot of people and her details were publicized widely on the internet. It appears that she got multiple calls and emails from all sorts of people: debt collectors, insurance quotes, car hire quotes, double glazing quotes, etc.

 

Perhaps this is a classic case of someone who is happy giving out s**t but not taking it?

[UKLondonex]

I Just wanted to say a big thank you to all the posters who took the time to offer their experience and advice, thank you Banditqueen, UncleBulgaria & Alisindebt. In answer to your question I am in the US which is probably not the greatest place to be with the Uk banks having operations or subsidiaries here. I am concerned what they will do to my credit here and also to anything that I have here.For twenty years I was a good credit risk for them all and having paid probably hundreds of thousands of pounds back to them over the time they have done pretty well out of me. Of course I utilised them also but I know who I would rather be.

I didnt know about the CCJ being set aside if youre a foreign resident. Thanks . The thing is, since this thing started the last thing I thought I should do is alert them of my location so the debt could be sold to another agency. I guess I may have been wrong.

I have always paid back loans and credit cards and the circumstances went out of control. Im know the US banks have sophisticated systems to track everything. Do you think if US bank A knew I had an account at Bank B that they would be able to obtain any details. I suspect the answer is yes.

 

While the amount I am talking about is fairly significant, I do not know where they draw the line when they determine the cost of pursuing someone in another continent or Bankrupting me at home which would cause me problems no doubt.

What I am most worried about is what it will do to my efforts of a new business here.

 

I feel slightly better knowing there are people to talk to who have been there. Thank you all. Hope to hear from you again.

[alisindebt]

See this thread post 4, which explains that their is no reciprocal arrangement between the USA and UK :

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?291506-HELP!-Living-in-US-being-chased-by-UK-debt-collectors.

[cerberusalert]

See; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?282263-UK-Debt-Living-in-US