Just started settlement with UK Virgin/mbna now living in US

[Mookiee001]

Hi,

 

I previously lived in the UK but have returned back to the US as I was made redundant.

 

I owe approx. £10880 to Virgin/mbna and had a phone call with them earlier.

 

I am able to borrow the monies from family and after going thru the series of questions of my incoming and outgoing expenses

I gave an approximate figure £7000 to clear the above loan.

they were going to check w a mgr and get back to me.

 

It now seems I could have gone lower and think I am going to call,them Monday and say I only had £7000 total as I also have to use that to pay the £6800 to HSBC.

 

I need to get this cleared as I now cannot afford the min bal as I am living back in the US.

 

Do you think I can negotiate a lower amount?

 

They also said they don't so full and final settlements anymore so I guess I just hope when I accept they don't sell, the remaining debt on!

[dx100uk]

Are you ever returning or have assets in the UK??

 

If not I know what I'd do:madgrin:

[Mookiee001]

No, but I don't want to lose sleep at night wondering if and when they will ever come looking for me over here.

[Mookiee001]

Sorry,

I have some cash in my HSBC account that I plan on using for when they accept the settlement.

 

I am going to tell mbna I need to lower the offer.

 

I said my parents were loaning me the money so needed to confirm how much usd I was getting so I could calculate gap.

 

He said I'll go to the mgr with a £7000 figure.

 

I'm sure they will accept less but I haven't defaulted on my payments yet so maybe not.

 

I don't ever recall signing any agmts either as I think I applied online.

Not sure of that helps at all and I don't know about PPI.

[dx100uk]

Well as I said if you are never returning

 

That old song by the steve miller band comes too mind....

 

Why waste your money

[renegadeimp]

No, but I don't want to lose sleep at night wondering if and when they will ever come looking for me over here.

 

They wont. They'll just write it off against tax/vat as a loss and sell it to a dca.

[unclebulgaria67]

If you are leaving the country for good, then suggest that you don't leave money in a UK HSBC Bank account, when you owe them money. They will grab the money using offsetting terms on your accounts with them.

 

Suggest that you transfer the UK money to the US ASAP.

 

UK debt collectors may chase debtors in the US, but i have not seen them issue court claims in the US. You would need to check in the state where you live, how friendly the courts are in dealing with foreign debt. From what i gather, they are not that helpful.

 

Even if you paid some towards these UK debts, it won't be full & final settlement with the Banks. They will sell the remainder on.

 

Tell all UK creditors your US address, remove any UK assets and get in with your life in the US. Just tell UK creditors in writing you have had to move to the US for financial and work reasons, so will not be able to service any debts. If your situation improves you will contact them.

[Mookiee001]

If you are leaving the country for good, then suggest that you don't leave money in a UK HSBC Bank account, when you owe them money. They will grab the money using offsetting terms on your accounts with them.

 

Suggest that you transfer the UK money to the US ASAP.

 

UK debt collectors may chase debtors in the US, but i have not seen them issue court claims in the US. You would need to check in the state where you live, how friendly the courts are in dealing with foreign debt. From what i gather, they are not that helpful.

 

Even if you paid some towards these UK debts, it won't be full & final settlement with the Banks. They will sell the remainder on.

 

Tell all UK creditors your US address, remove any UK assets and get in with your life in the US. Just tell UK creditors in writing you have had to move to the US for financial and work reasons, so will not be able to service any debts. If your situation improves you will contact them.

 

Thanks for the info. I haven't notified HSBC yet as I thought the same thing about them grabbing what cash I had in my account. I figured I would deal with MBNA first. I hadn't actually charged up that much and would have been able to pay it off. The problem happened when they hiked up my interest rate even though I never made a payment late. When my husband lost his job I then couldn't payoff what I wanted and the interest charges were out of control. Should I terminate my direct debits to mbna I set up on my end w HSBC? I really don't want to not pay them and have them get some debt collector in the us to come after me. Due to my job I cannot have bad credit so I need to make sure that doesn't happen.

[unclebulgaria67]

A few points to consider

 

UK Bank account with HSBC will still show live financial record with UK credit reference agencies, probably still showing at last UK address.

 

If this is the case, if you ever stopped paying and ended up with a CCJ, it is easier to transfer a UK court judgement to the US. UK creditors might try to obtain UK court claim using your last known UK address and upon finding you in the US attempt to transfer to a US court.

 

You really want your UK creditors to know you are parmanently resident in the US and to get confirmation from them. Then they should not be able to get a CCJ against a non UK resident and will find it difficult to ever enforce the debt in a US court.

 

Don't leave money in a HSBC Bank account, if you are ever likely to default on a HSBC debt.

 

Consider making a clean break, if you will not return to the UK. Transfer your HSBC money to your US account and close the account. To help with this clean break you could write to them offering reduced full & final settlement offers on the basis of take it or no further normal repayments will be made. This is because you cannot service living costs in your new country and finances in two countries.