Daughter's long term relationship ended acrimoniously in January 2009. Ex-partner left her with several debts - mostly in her name as his credit rating was shot. As far as we knew, all were either resolved later in 2009 or have since "died a death".
Then, out of the blue, about a year ago, daughter received a letter from Cabot Financial chasing £2,400 saying she has ignored previous correspondence etc. and to contact to make payment arrangement. No detail of who the alleged creditor was supposed to be it just referred to Cabot Financial. She ignored the letter to see if they chased with any more detail, but nothing further was received....
.... until this weekend, when she received a further letter from Cabot Financial saying that as no repayment schedule had been agreed and they knew of no good reason the debt had not been repaid, the collection of the outstanding £2400 was now being handed to MacKenzie Hall. This time the letter from Cabot referred to their "sub-client: Littlewoods/Barclaycard".
There was enclosed a standard "polite" letter from MacKenzie Hall asking her to contact them and basically saying that if she does not contact them within 10 days they will basically send more letters and/or phone calls. (Thankfully they do not have a phone number to call, only her address).
Daughter cannot recall a debt with Littlewoods (or Barclaycard), but cannot entirely rule it out as he left her with a few "surprises" and considering the trauma that surrounded their relationship ending cannot be absolutely certain either way. (Did Barclaycard buy out Littlewoods credit at some stage?)
In any event, if the debt is genuine, there is no way that any repayments would have been made since at least late 2008 probably earlier, as her ex basically "did a runner" from everything and any debts were left for us to sort out.
How worried should she be about Mackenzie Hall's involvement? I seem to recall reading that MH are well known for chasing statute barred debt? If this was enforceable, surely Cabot would still pursue repayment?
As I see it there are 3 possible options:
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Then, out of the blue, about a year ago, daughter received a letter from Cabot Financial chasing £2,400 saying she has ignored previous correspondence etc. and to contact to make payment arrangement. No detail of who the alleged creditor was supposed to be it just referred to Cabot Financial. She ignored the letter to see if they chased with any more detail, but nothing further was received....
.... until this weekend, when she received a further letter from Cabot Financial saying that as no repayment schedule had been agreed and they knew of no good reason the debt had not been repaid, the collection of the outstanding £2400 was now being handed to MacKenzie Hall. This time the letter from Cabot referred to their "sub-client: Littlewoods/Barclaycard".
There was enclosed a standard "polite" letter from MacKenzie Hall asking her to contact them and basically saying that if she does not contact them within 10 days they will basically send more letters and/or phone calls. (Thankfully they do not have a phone number to call, only her address).
Daughter cannot recall a debt with Littlewoods (or Barclaycard), but cannot entirely rule it out as he left her with a few "surprises" and considering the trauma that surrounded their relationship ending cannot be absolutely certain either way. (Did Barclaycard buy out Littlewoods credit at some stage?)
In any event, if the debt is genuine, there is no way that any repayments would have been made since at least late 2008 probably earlier, as her ex basically "did a runner" from everything and any debts were left for us to sort out.
How worried should she be about Mackenzie Hall's involvement? I seem to recall reading that MH are well known for chasing statute barred debt? If this was enforceable, surely Cabot would still pursue repayment?
As I see it there are 3 possible options:
- Continue to ignore as last year and see what transpires next, as any debt is most likely already statute barred or very close to.
- Send "prove it" template letter as daughter cannot recall anything to do with "Littlewoods".
- Send statute barred letter - probably inadvisable at this stage I would think.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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