Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

[The Pipster]

Hello All

This is my first post and am asking for some help.

I was in a real financial pickle two years ago in October 2010. To the tune of 55k. I supidly turned to DFH (fee charging) debt management solutions company who arranged a DMP for me with my credit card comapnies.

Earlier this year I found out that they had not negtotited with one company (HSBC) and their APY stood at 25.7%. This along with DFH's handling fee of 17.4% .... well you do the sums, I took this debt back on myself.

Six weeks ago I took back my reamining debts as I was unimpressed with the late payment they had made on my behalf to one company in partivular and also I was in a position to furnish the repayments without a DMP. I wrote to my three remaining Creditors to inform tham that DFH were no longer acting on my behalf and address all correspondance to myself.

Everyone has been OK apart from C1. They sent me a budget planner through and a request for information so they could sort out a new DMP. As i understood from DFH my plan with them ran January to January I did not act on this and indeed set up a repayment which was above that agreed between C1 and DFH until I started getting statements from them indicating the repayments needed.

I received a letter yesterday stating I was to stop making payments to C1 (cancel standing order) and a compnay called Cougar Finance would be in touch.

I've read some stuff on this forum about them and they seem scary. I do not have the 9k that would be needed to clear my debt. Where should i begin with C1 and CF??

I am new to this so any pointers please. Thank you in advance to you for taking the time to read my plight. As I type this I am dreading Cougar being in touch!!

[vint1954]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Hi Pipster and welcome.

[vint1954]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Hi Pipster and welcome to AAD!

It may sound like a lot to you but may here owe much more than £55k, twice as much! And they've been successfully pursuing the UE route.

Could you please list your debts in this format so we can see your overall situation (one post per debt):

• Type of account (credit card/loan)
  
  
• Date commenced (ideally before Apr 2007)
  
  
• Approx balance
  
  
• Date last paid (approximate date you last made a FULL payment)
  
  
• Are you on arrangement or not paying
  
  
• Status (default/in arrears/up-to-date)
  
  
• Account owner (who is writing to you, a DCA or the lender)

For more information about unenforceability (UE) see this ---> UPDATED - A Full Guide to Unenforceability - allaboutFORUMS

If you are on a DMP you would have defaults on your credit file so you have nothing to lose pursuing UE - why pay when you don't have to?

Well done FP. I was just off looking for this.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

anything to report....?

[BBoo]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Re the DMP, if C1 / CF get nasty, post up and we'll try to sort them for you, even if it's only temporarily while you get everything sorted out on the UE side.

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Thank you everybody I'm going to update as to what has gone on. I contacted C! and paid the money for a copy of the credit agreement via post. They did indeed sent a copy of the last page of the agreement with my then signature on it and a number of A4 printouts of the agreement - I assume this may be reconstituted but who am I to know. My folks offered me 8k to borrow interest free to pay the loan off as full and final payment. I phoned up cougar to tell them that this is what I could afford if they wiped the debt out. They agreed but I insisted that this was put via email or fax that this would be the end of it. They promised to get this to me in 2 hours. 24 hours passed and decided to have a pop. I read them your letter about enforceability (got to admit I had to have two pints before doing this) and followed it up with special delivery letters to C1 and CFS. To press I have heard nothing - it's been 5 months. I took the brave step of looking at my credit file today.

I have a fair credit rating - C1 are still sat there with all the defaults showing at 8. I have apparently have the following

Credit History Summary Number of credit accounts (including those settled)58



Amount of available credit (excluding mortgages) £31,440



% of your total credit being used (excluding mortgages) 41%



Amount of outstanding debt (excluding mortgages) £22,866



Number of accounts overdue 0



Number of missed or late repayments in the last year 2




Any advice on what to do with C1 or do I just wait 5 and a half years??

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Hi Pipster,
If they've gone quiet then if it was me I'd do nothing. Don't poke a sleeping tiger

Have you sent CCA Requests to all your other creditors too? Are you paying them anything? (We could really do with you to complete your diary as described above so we can help you.)
Last thing I'd be concerned with at the moment is my credit rating. In that respect all you can do is sit it out till the defaults drop off.

Elsa x

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Hi Elsa - thanks for your help

I was lucky and got a payout from work which helped me mop up a lot of my debts.

I currently owe c1 - £8,328 which has gone quiet and I am more than happy to take on board the sleeping tiger idea. My parents have ring fenced the money for me in case I need it. First Direct CC have made my CCA card debt into a loan - it now stands at 6,500 and costs me £380 pcm which is dooable but not ideal. I can pull in my horns for the next year or so to pay that off and plus they are charging me 6.6% interest which is better than 27.6% on their CC. In total that is all my outstanding debt which is far better than I was 2 years ago when it was in excess of 56k. I'd like now to start saving and put a roof over my families head - a roof that belongs to us.

I know that I've not been an avid contributor - I'd like to be able to offer support to others. I'm not out of the woods yet but have grown older, wiser and more cynical. For one I would want to help people staying out of DMP's and doing things themselves. I want to help them do that. I helped a friend do that with Barclaycard. Yes I fraudulently made the calls on his behalf (whilst he was in the room) but I managed to renegotiate his payments and as a result he is now digging himself out of a hole.

I have smelt the coffee in the last five months and have woken up. I have a long way to go yet and still want to get a mortgage.

I don't ever want to go back to where I was - using payday loans to feed my family and pay for diesel to get me to work.

I have 12k left to go or not as you may be able to advise. I want to improve my credit score and help others now I can see the light.

[Enforcer]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Cougar can be quite pushy, even phoning your place of work, after no result it is normally passed to credit solutions. Have you sent a SAR request to Capital one?
Depending on the date, you will probably find it UE due to the terms, not prescribed terms, but future prospective regulated agreement.
Pay the tenner, get the documents then let us know.

[MrsD]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

If they are sleeping, I would do as Elsa suggests and let them sleep while keeping an eye on it.

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

It's been quiet for five months now. C1 did mention something in a letter about paying them £10 - not sure what an SAR is. When my folks offered to help me out I contacted C1 and they quite categorically stated that I must deal with Cougar. I sent them a letter from here informing them of harrasement and the fact I would only deal with them via letter. I got a repsonse from their customer services department saying that they would not hassle me and only ocrrespondance would be by letter. I can scan and send what i've got to somebody if you want.

My question is now that on my credit file the outstanding balance is still showing as owing to capital one. Do I need to do an ammenedment or something to let people know that it's with Cougar? Will it just frop off after six years sinve the account went into default or will it continue to run on to infinity??

I have two people saying sit and wait - or should i get the SAR thingy???

Help

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Oh forgot to mention it was passed on to crediit solutions I think they are all the same group, it is them I have had the correspondance from not Cougar - sorry guys

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Type of account c1 credit card
Date commenced 10/09/2003
Approx balance £8,398

Date last paid Last full payment made 30 months ago, missed payment due to going into a DMP 29 months ago account went into default 28 months ago after DMP company took things over.

Are you on arrangement or not paying Started repaying on arrangement through DMP up until Ocotber of last year as in September I told them my DMP comapny would no longer be dealing with them and I would deal with them directly - Capital one in October passed to Cougar and in November Cougar passed it onto FS and it is them who I have sent firm letter too

Status Default (8 on the credit record - Experian)
Account owner DCA had been in touch. C1 have said it's no longer their problem but they continue to show on my credit file as me not paying.

[The Pipster]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Sorry to post again - I now have only this debt to deal with

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: Capital 1 and Cougar Finance

Hi Pipster,
It is all a little confusing TBH without breaking the debts down individually in the format mentioned in post #3 above. Please can do that for us so things don't get missed?

With regard to Cap 1...Cougar Finance will just be acting on Cap 1's behalf presumably, hence no change on your credit file.

A SAR is a Subject Access Request for all the data they hold on you, costing £10.
However, as you've already done a CCA Request (£1) and received a response of:

the last page of the agreement with my then signature on it and a number of A4 printouts of the agreement - I assume this may be reconstituted but who am I to know

then I wouldn't think a SAR is necessary at this point.
Can you please scan this agreement and send it, unedited, to agreements@all-about-debt.co.uk for Never-in-Doubt (our site admin and CCA Guru) to check for you.
It's perfectly secure, only he sees it. Put your user name in the Subject Header and include a link to your thread. We need to find out whether it's likely to be enforceable or not.

Again, if they're not contacting you, do nothing until they do and then let us know what they say.

Elsa x