How To Tell If You Are Victim Of Creditor Harrassment

I don’t know the laws relating to this, but I can give you an insight into what I consider to be creditor harrassment – phone calls everyday!

I have for the past two months, January & February 2010 received a phone call from Mercers/Calders on behalf of Barclaycard regarding one or both of my credit cards with them. They have been ringing my home phone and my mobile phone, leaving messages and they have even resorted to sending me text messages.

I have been getting regular text messages from Barclaycard stating that if I do not call them back, they may be forced to take legal action to recover the debt.

Now I know what you’re thinking, that sounds quite bad or scary, huh? Well guess what, they have been sending me these text messages for two months, surely if they were going to take legal action they would have done so by now? It’s quite funny to think that Barclaycards debt recovery process is a complete sham, the boy who cried wolf you could say ;-)

So yes, I think I am most definitely the victim of creditor harrassment, I’m not too worried about it. When I do eventually speak to them, I will state my position that I do feel like I’ve been harrassed by them and am in fact seeking legal action, which I will most likely do just to clarify my position and create a case against them.

Full & Final Settlement Offer From Barclays

I had a phone call today from Barclays, well in fact it was actually NCO, their in-house debt collection agency ringing on behalf of Barclays.

The guy I spoke to was pretty smarmy and wanted to pretend like he was doing me a favour when he offered to discount my £1700 debt with Barclays by roughly 25%.

I rejected the offer, pointing out to him that I already settled another debt with Barclays back in October 2009 for 25% of the debt owed – that’s right, a £2,200 debt was settled for £550, they wrote off £1,650 – so you can see why I wasn’t terribly impressed with his offer of a 25% discount.

He did grumble about how if I couldn’t settle then they would need to come to an agreement with me about a monthly payment. I told him that I was already paying as much as I could afford – a whopping £1 a month – he told me that was not enough.

I told him that was all I could afford, he then got a bit angry and said I didn’t have any option then but to consider settling. I explained that this was not viable considering they have set the precedent by settling a similar debt for 25% rather than 75%, so they would have to consider that their ceiling in any negotiations with me over this debt.

He then pointed out that if I couldn’t settle or pay more then they would have to take legal action. Roll on another CCJ, whoop-di-do!

Phone Call From Calders Financial

I’ve just had an interesting phone call from Calders Financial, who are dealing with my Barclaycard accounts on behalf of Barclaycard. The nice Liverpudlian chap that I spoke to was a little offish with me, and almost accused me of lying about my situation regarding what my income and outgoings were.

I confirmed to him that I wasn’t earning much money and that with my outgoings, I was only left with a small amount of money left over to pay my creditors. He scoffed at this somewhat and suggested that he would have to recommend to Barclaycard that they sell the debt on.

This is all idle threats as far as I can see as they have been saying similar thigns for months. He also brought up the threat of having a door step collector sent round to assess my ability to pay. I say bring it on, they can’t do a thing, they have no rights at the property I live in as it’s not my property.

I explained to him that before they do consider selling the debt on, perhaps they should reconsider my offer of full and final settlement which I made towards the end of September. I believe I then re-offered this at the end of October, somewhere in the region of 15% of the balance.

He scoffed at that amount and said the least they would accept would be 70%. I informed him that I thought he was talking complete B.S. as I have already settled one Barclaycard account through Calders Financial for around 30% of the balance outstanding, and that was October, so this is now two months further on and the value of their “so called” asset has reduced as it is further into arrears.

He seemed to get a bit annoyed at this revelation and stated that he would tell me how it works, and that the least they would be able to offer me on a full and final settlement would be 60%. I informed him that I don’t think he has any credibility considering my experience of negotiating with creditors such as Calders Financial and that if it was alright with him I would just continue to play my waiting game.

I wished the guy a happy new year and hung up…no doubt he’s a bit cheesed off that his colleagues are making him look stupid, but that’s not my problem really is it?

Mercers Keep Ringing Me On Behalf Of Barclaycard

These last few days, since about the 27th December, I’ve had various phone calls from Mercers trying to discuss my debts with them. I can’t believe that despite the fact that I’ve already settled one of my Barclaycard accounts for 32% of the outstanding balance, Mercers still seem to think that my situation will improve miraculously and I’ll be able to pay them back the full amount on these two other debts.

Last time I spoke with them, before christmas, I spoke to a nice chap who seemed to be just wanting to go through the motions. He asked me if I could pay more on my debts, I told him the £1 a month I was already paying on each debt really was a much as I could afford. I then explained all of my outgoings so he could understand why I couldn’t afford to make a bigger payment.

He then checked that they had all of my contact details correct. I assured him that my contacts hadn’t changed and that if they were to change, I would inform them of any changes.

After this he enquired as to whether I could get onto a debt management plan, I informed him that I had already spoken to various debt management companies and not been able to setup anything.

The last thing he then said was that as I wasn’t able to pay more, he would give me a couple of weeks to discuss my situation again with a debt management company. I informed him that I would.

He then ended the conversation with what was the most weak threat I have ever heard. He said that if I couldn’t get a debt management plan in place, they would have to send out a door-step collector. I asked why they needed to do this. His reply was just to discuss the situation with me face to face.

I then informed him that I didn’t see what the point of sending someone out to see me would be as I had already given them all the facts, so by sending someone out to see me wouldn’t materially change the facts, it would just be a waste of time and money for them. I don’t mind, the more money they waste not getting anywhere with my debts the sooner they will come to their senses and be prepared to settle the balance. I predict that February they will have gotten to that stage, roll on Feb!

Should I Let My Debts Get Me Depressed?

I have just had a recent comment from someone saying that they are depressed, I can only assume this to mean that they are depressed about their financial circumstances. Well, as someone that has been through some difficult times with my own finances, I can whole heartedly say, do not despair! Any money worries you have are only ever temporary!

Mine were. I had some very difficult times after my mortgage business failed, I didn’t have an income and I felt completely helpless about the situation…that is until I took control.

That is the key thing to do. Take action, no matter what action it is, just do something positive about your situation as that will get you on a roll, and before you know it you are solving the problems, even if only bit by bit, by taking small steps you will slowly get yourself out of whatever hole you are in.

I don’t neccessarily advocate working bit by bit to pay off all of your debts, as that can seem like a very daunting task. No, the first thing anyone who has serious debts must do is to communicate the situation with their creditors, let them know that you can no longer afford the repayments and that you wish to make reduced payments.

Your creditors will whine and moan about the fact and they will no doubt hassle you to pay more, but at the end of the day they have to give you time to get yourself back on your feet financially speaking. Use this six month period to cut your personal costs, get your finances under control and then only if you can properly afford to go back to paying full repayments do you go back to that.

If after six months you cannot afford to go back to full payments, simply ask for your payment holiday to be extended whilst you seek an alternative to repaying the debts back, either an IVA, full and final settlement or if things are very tricky, you may have to consider bankruptcy – but only as a last resort!

Remember though, although it may be shamefull being severely in debt and you may be worried about what other people think, do not get down about your situation, it can only improve – it can’t get any worse can it?

Text Message From Barclaycard

I had a text message earlier today from Barclaycard, the message read that I needed to get my account uptodate otherwise they will be taking legal action.

I’ve already made it quite clear to them that I can’t do anything to pay the money back, so they will just have to take legal action. I seem to remember that I’ve had similar threats from them before and they’ve not been carried out, so why worry about this one, right?

Lloyds TSB Finally Accept My Financial Situation And Agree To Freeze Interest And Charges

I received a letter from Lloyds TSB today acknowledging my difficult financial situation – I’m not earning enough money to pay my debts at the minimum payment level – and accepting that it might be useful if they could freeze interest and charges.

It’s only been 18 months of me not paying the full amount. I did have a six month spell where I paid just 1% of the balance each month, but even this is a full 1.5% less than the minimum payment should have been, and even then they didn’t freeze interest and charges, they simply charged a reduced figure for interest.

So all this time, they have been pilling on the interest and charges until now, when they have finally taken their heads out of the sand and realised that I can’t afford my debts.

The letter states that they will pass the debt over to their Consumer Debt Recovery service, who will deal with it from now on. I’m guessing that within three months or so the consumer debt recovery dept will accept a full and final settlement on the debt, so I will keep this updated with what level of discount I get on the FFS.

Third Party Debt Order Being Used By Lenders

I read an interesting piece in The Times on Wednesday 2 December about a rise in creditors seizing debts from third parties. In this article it states that creditors are taking a more aggressive approach to recovering debts from their borrowers.

According to the article, there has been a 24% rise in the number of applications by creditors for third party debt orders.

So how does a “third party debt order” work? Simply put, if a creditor has a judgement for payment awarded in their favour, the creditor can seek a third party debt order if the debtor fails to pay the amounts as per the judgement order.

This debt order could then mean that anyone that owes you (the debtor) money, could have to pay the money directly to the creditor that has obtained the third party debt order, with the remaining balance being paid back to you as the debtor. This would mean you would have no way of wriggling out of paying a debt once the creditor had obtained a county court judgement against you.

This must be a frightening prospect for anyone that thought they could get away with ignoring a CCJ and hoping that eventually the creditor would give up, if I knew that as a creditor I could obtain a third party debt order, I would most certainly use it to ensure I got my money back.

How Will Falling Property Market Affect Those In Serious Debts?

I own a property in Bristol and have just looked on Hometrack to see if similar properties in the area are selling and if so, what sort of prices they are selling for. The results of my search were not great. A couple of properties just up the road from mine have sold in the last few months for £10k less than I bought my house for in October 2006. So what does this mean for me? Well it means on paper I’ve lost money.

But how does this affect people with serious debts? Well, if there are others in a similar situation, whereby the small amount of equity they had in their property has been eroded by falling house prices, they should take some pleasure from knowing that their creditors won’t be able to take any money from their house as there is no money in it!

However, this is not entirely the case. I have heard from some debt collectors that they will look to get a charging order from the courts, such that when you come to sell your property, there will be a charge for the amount of debt you owed to your creditor against your property. This would mean that if you owed £10k on  loan that you defaulted on, and they got a charging order on your property, you would have to redeem this charge with the proceeds of your sale before any leftover equity was passed back to you upon completion.

This could be bad news, so it would be best to consider getting your debts settled rather than allowing this to happen. If you need help settling your debts seek professional advice from these guys.

Update on Lloyds TSB letter

I have received a response from the Law Society stating that the solicitors firm in question are now trading under a different name, SCM Solicitors and can be found here on Law Society Website.