Threat of legal action

[sgt_pancake]

Hi, I wonder if somebody can help me with this. I took out a payday loan early last year, rolled it over once,n repaid it completely and thought nothing more of it. Back in October I started to get a barrage of calls, texts and letters from MMF claiming that I still owed money and the debt had been passed on to them. I got a lot of reassurance from this site and the sort of text/voicemail I was receiving was in line with what others on this forum have been getting so I was content to ignore them completely.

 

Today however I received the following email and a quick search of the forum hasn't revealed anything similar. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I should do now? Should I keep ignoring them or start fighting back?

 

Thanks

 

Dear ***,

 

Reference: ***

Debt Balance: £424.50

Debt: Mr Lender Debt Assigned to Motormile Finance Uk Ltd

 

I am the Solicitor at MMF and have had your file passed to me, in relation to the outstanding balance on your account. I note that despite several attempts by my colleagues, this debt still remains unpaid.

 

Please be advised I have received instructions from the Directors of this company to pursue this matter through the courts to recover the outstanding balance. However, as a matter of courtesy, in order to save time and legal costs, I am writing to you to request that you make contact within the next 5 working days.

 

Could you therefore please make contact, without fail to come to an amicable arrangement, failing which I may have no alternative but to follow the legal route to recover the outstanding sums due. Please note that I am in a position to offer to you a significant reduction in the amount owed.

 

We therefore look forward to hearing from you shortly.

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Neal Chatrath

 

Solicitor

Motormile Finance UK Ltd (MMF)

 

Main: 0113 887 9888

Free Phone: 0800 996 1103

Web:

E-mail:

[Bazooka Boo]

Have you checked your credit file?

If not do so, and see if there is anything on there relating to this.

 

IMO I would continue to ignore, if you owe nothing then they will have a very hard job

getting you in court and ordering you to pay.

[renegadeimp]

Did you send them a prove it letter? Chatrath is a solicitor, but he's just a muppet for hire, like the rest of them.

[sgt_pancake]

Bazooka - there's nothing on my credit file.

 

Renegadeimp - no, I've made no contact with them whatsoever.

[renegadeimp]

So he;s threatening everything before he even knows that he;s found the right person, or even confirmed the email is valid? I feel a SRA complaint coming on.

Edited January 16, 2014 by renegadeimp

[sgt_pancake]

Yep, looks like it. Is it naive of me to want to carry on ignoring these muppets?

[renegadeimp]

Personally i would ignore, and if he tried anything then you can report him. Especially as, like i said, he has no clue if that email is even in use.

[Tomo1987]

Surely I'm not the only one entirely unconvinced by the format and content of these emails and letters from MMF's so-called solicitors? They sound like something a bright 12 year-old could write. If you have any actual, personal experience with solicitors over any other matter you know they are far more professional than this and the structure and processes used are full and very articulate. You'd usually get a wad of information from them regarding the matter they are pursuing as that's what they'd present to a court as evidence, these look like chain e-mails and that's exactly how they make their phone calls too, I wouldn't ignore it, I'd do what I did and write them a reply telling them to only contact you in writing, please state in full and with evidence the debt they claim you owe and inform them all their previous actions break OFT guidelines.

 

Why is it also that these claims of legal action appear to be in patches? You can go back through other forums and find months of MMF threads where nothing like this is ever threatened and then you can find five or six different people who have experienced it over the same time period. It's like MMF and such companies use different attack formats and just rotate them to see if one of their so-called 'debtors' will just make a payment to them. Same as they do rotating the Mike and Shane recorded voice messages, which, by the way, I've had confirmed to me by a police officer, is breaking the law. It's threatening an improper action with malice and false intent.

 

Like I say sgt_pancake, I'd reply and in writing asking for what I did (see my thread below your's) and nothing more and see what happens. I'm willing to bet big the trail soon goes cold dead.

[Tomo1987]

A few things that really stand out to me as highly suspicious:

 

- No break-down of costs within the debt, any finance solicitor would provide this before putting their name to such a contact

 

- No solicitor addresses or signs off as 'The Solicitor'. That's a typical scare tactic used by pond-life DCAs. It sounds like something off a movie poster.

 

- If a solicitor was taking you to court on behalf of a client for an unpaid debt they wouldn't be offering you a significantly-reduced deal after claiming to want to save on legal costs.

[renegadeimp]

Sadly chatrath IS a fully qualified solicitor. However, like bryan carter, he doesnt care about the rules, just about making money.

[Bazooka Boo]

Then I would start to make some pretty strong complaints about this fool to all the agencies

employed to police this corrupt industry.

 

SRA, OFT, TS, FCA...

[Tomo1987]

Sadly chatrath IS a fully qualified solicitor. However, like bryan carter, he doesnt care about the rules, just about making money.

 

He may well be but if he doesn't follow the law he isn't going to get very far with it when he tries to take people to court is he? Fly by night merchants, even those qualified in their trade, tend to get found out very quickly. Does anybody actually know anyone who has been successfully taken to court by MMF?

[renegadeimp]

Youd be very surprised tomo. MMF are ruthless in what they do and dont care about the law. if the debtor doesnt contest a court claim, then they go right for the jugular.

[Tomo1987]

Youd be very surprised tomo. MMF are ruthless in what they do and dont care about the law. if the debtor doesnt contest a court claim, then they go right for the jugular.

 

Well hopefully as a company they are taken to rights by the OFT and Financial Ombudsman because it strikes me in some of their cases they haven't just not followed OFT guidelines, they've actually broken the law. I'm half-tempted now to speak to the Police again and actually report them directly, a crime number at the least could be very satisfying.

 

I've disputed my case for an unknown debt that hasn't been confirmed to me other than in a barrage of threatening texts and phone calls from a time when I suffered identity theft, they've started the early stages of threatening legal action (I had a one-line email which didn't even include my name!). I would hope that in any eventual court case any judge would be able to see their shocking and unlawful actions should anybody be unawares as to not dispute their claim.