You must call Equidebt

[jhynes]

Hi

 

I have a payment agreement with Heatons and they are continually pestering me to increase the payments. My current situation remains the same in that I am claiming Incapacity benefit and there is no way that they can squeeze anymore out of me, infact if I went to court I am sure they would reduce this. Anyway, I have just received a letter from Heatons stating "you must contact Equidebt on freephone 0800 3893710 by 5November 2006 to review your payments. Please allow time to discuss your account in full and be prepared with your Income and Expenditure details. Is there a template that I could use to get these off my back all the time? I am fully prepared to enter dialog with them but in writing only.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[ED1237]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-bailiffs-advice/20758-creditors-dcas-letter-templates.html For Budget spreadsheet. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/37006-harassment-telephone-response-letter.html for letter to stop calls. You will need to modify the letter to suit your situation. Fill out the budget spreadsheet and send them a copy. Creditors normally expect a review every six months. This is to ensure your situation hasn't changed and therefore there is more money available.

[jhynes]

Thanks for that teddea it was just their tone "you must" that got up my back.

 

Thanks again

[james141]

These companies really annoy me, they make you feel like you are a criminal and they have all the power.

 

When the reality is without a CCJ they can do virtually nothing at all! and they cant get a CCJ while you are making payments and they are accepting them.

 

If it was me I would tell them where to go!! failing that tell them your situation has changed and you can only pay half of what you were :D

[Movingon]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-bailiffs-advice/20758-creditors-dcas-letter-templates.html For Budget spreadsheet. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bank-templates-library/37006-harassment-telephone-response-letter.html for letter to stop calls. You will need to modify the letter to suit your situation. Fill out the budget spreadsheet and send them a copy. Creditors normally expect a review every six months. This is to ensure your situation hasn't changed and therefore there is more money available.

 

Some of this advice is incorrect. Creditors might "expect" a review of your income and expenditure as often or as infrequent as they like - but they are not entitled to any knowledge of your financial situation at all.

 

Simply write them the letters, and you don't need to send any spreadsheets at all in my view.

[veryannoyed]

I think these letters are very funny... I usually send a copy of their letter back with the relevant "you must" bits highlighted and a covering letter saying "YOU MUST explain what piece of legislation gives you the power to compell me to do anything... until that time all further correspondence will be treated as junk mail and shredded"

 

... Funny how I never hear anymore from them... maybe it is just me?

 

[Guest Battleaxe]

Please contact The Bailiff Watchdog [edit please do not post links to commercial sites] Before anyone asks I do not have vested interest in this company, just that I have found them to be fantastic and work very quickly to call off the Debt Collection Agencies as well as bailiffs.

 

My ploy with these letters is to send them back torn up in the same envelope sent to me. They have to pay double postage. Small satisfaction, but what the heck.

 

Seriously contact bailiff watchdog and you will sleep well tonight.

[alen27]

Hi

 

I have a payment agreement with Heatons and they are continually pestering me to increase the payments. My current situation remains the same in that I am claiming Incapacity benefit and there is no way that they can squeeze anymore out of me, infact if I went to court I am sure they would reduce this. Anyway, I have just received a letter from Heatons stating "you must contact Equidebt on freephone 0800 3893710 by 5November 2006 to review your payments. Please allow time to discuss your account in full and be prepared with your Income and Expenditure details. Is there a template that I could use to get these off my back all the time? I am fully prepared to enter dialog with them but in writing only.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

I am also have a debt with equidebt that was passed to heatons llp I made an arrangement to make £30 each months they keep reviewing my account every 3 months I get a letter asking me to contact them to review my account which I do now am paying them £33 and will not make any further increasement as long as you keep making your agreed payment and stick with it you should be fine and also this is normal many DCA always review the account after a few months to see if you can make an increasement contact them and tell you unable to make further increasement . I normaly phone them and sort this out with them I no many people will prefer to write instead of phoning

[Richard Spud]

Regards to All

[Notanexpert]

If it is of any help to anyone;

 

I got so fed up of the constant harrassment by phone and letter from these jokers asking me to pay loads weekly, in the end I went to my local citzens advice bureau.

 

They were wonderful, they wrote to the company involved, sent them a copy of my financial breakdown for a month and made a token offer of £1 per month as my circumstances were much changed. I made it plain that I do intend to pay my debt owed but my financial circumstances changed drastically.

 

They accepted and agreed to funnel all correspondence through the CAB. However I am back to getting letters and phonecalls and I need to refer them back to CAB.

 

They have now tried changing from Equidebt to CAS and are trying to get control of my bank account by asking me for a direct debit. Pointing out all sorts of benefits for a D/D. However the first line of their letter reads, "We note you are making regular payments."

 

So if I'm making regular payments, why do they want a direct debit? In my opinion it is to increase the amount paid to them by applying a varialbe D/D. Not so easy to control as a standing order, they even go as far as to say if you've got a standing order to cancel it. Cancel it and you lose control of the amount going out of your bank account to them, and could take ages to rectify if that happens. Keep your standing order if you have it.

 

Be aware of this.

 

I also called them and told them I was dealing with Equidebt and not Credit Ancillary Services and any letters in future would be ignored as I had not been notified of any change etc. They were at pains to point out that they are the same firm. I told them I don't care what they say, as I want to protect my identity and they could have fished my financial details out of a bin for all I knew, and that I would shred any more correspondence from them and would not comply with anything they wanted under the CAS umbrella unless I was notified of my account being bought over. ( sorry for the amount of ands ).

 

I got the message through and they said all correspondence in future would be from equidebt. However I will then refer that back to CAB as I don't want the harrassment any more and CAB are good at telling them in plain english to stop threatening the account holder, even though I've written myself saying the same thing, they don't take any notice until a public body steps in.

 

It might be of help to you, maybe not, but I thought I'd convey how things have worked out for me with this company.

 

N.A.E