Debtguy's UE diary

[debtguy]

Hi everyone

I posted this in May in AAD+ and now have got some replies (and time to post them). All accounts still current and being paid because I have a pension in the UK (but that's all!), and I am waiting for the outcome of Horton v Henry, which has now been postponed until Jan 2016, before deciding whether to take the pension as a lump sum and default on everything, or just to default.

I also have a NatWest £10000 overdraft that I'd like to clear before I default on anything, to stop them clawing money back from it as is apparently their wont. And also as they are more likely to be able to trace me as I have done transfers to and from my foreign account, and because I use the account all the time so it is obvious to them where I live!

Anyway, here's my story as posted on AAD+...

I have had around £60000 of unsecured credit card debt for around 20 years now, and while most of it is usually on low or zero interest because I have (had!) a decent credit rating and manage(d) to 'tart' it constantly, I just can't seem to get the total down - it has eaten all my savings, the equity from my house, the money from the sale of two fairly valuable classic cars, etc., etc., etc., and I am still sitting looking at £60K of debt, still mostly on low/zero interest, but my credit rating has now gone down a fair bit so I am anticipating that when these deals run out the sh*t will hit the fan, big time.

I am juggling all these cards and a 60K debt, but I have no income except what I can sell on eBay. That may sound bad, but I have lots of antiques and junk to sell, and I can mostly keep up with the payments (it's about £1200 a month), but I have nothing else to live on.

Now the clincher, mentioned above - I don't live in the UK any more. We sold the house because we had no equity left, but we had a small (and luckily almost worthless!) cottage abroad that we had bought in better times, to do up, and so last year, when things became totally unsustainable, we pulled the plug on the UK and moved there (my wife took early retirement and I work from home so we were able to do this). The house isn't finished and is partly a building site (and we have no money to finish it), but at least it is in a nice place and we own it and don't pay any rent. I won't say where it is, as I am worried about DCAs reading what I write...

So - now I am in the mad situation of living abroad but running a NatWest account simply to service a large amount of unsecured debt. And each month the NatWest account goes a bit more overdrawn, because I can't keep up with all the payments (that's now up to £10K, on top of the £60K or so of card debt). So I am drowning slowly in debt, and I am working 18 hours a day to pay leeches in the UK who probably couldn't 'get' me anyway.

So... I am thinking of going down the unenforceability route, as most of the agreements are 15-20 years old. Let's see what happens...

Wish me luck...

Debtguy, drowning in debt...

[debtguy]

LLOYDS (formerly Lloyds TSB) card

Going slowly through my CCA requests, and this is the first one. Nothing much to report yet, but this is to kick it off. I sent a CCA request in May and got a reply in June (it's taken me a while to get around to posting). The reply looks distinctly kooky in places to me, but I will wait to hear what Niddy says. Biggest puzzling thing is that the supposed Reconstituted version of my original agreement that they have sent doesn't have a date on it, so I can't fill in 'date commenced' below.

I don't know if a date is a Prescribed Term, but if it isn't it damn well should be!

LLOYDS credit card (used to be TSB but not now).

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: NOT KNOWN (see above)
APPROX BALANCE: £8500
DATE LAST PAID: Still paying but will default end Nov 2015
DMP OR NOT PAY: N/A
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: LLOYDS


20th May 2015 1st CCA Request sent
2nd June 2015 Received 'Signed statement of account'. Emailed Niddy to check - waiting to hear if enforceable or not
2nd June 2015 heard from Niddy that it was a BAD idea to have stuck duct tape all over everything to conceal sensitive data, so decided to start whole process over again. Hence long gap until...
6th Sept - 2nd CCA request sent (I know it's a long gap but July and August were awful because a friend died, slowly, of a brain tumour!)
16th Sept 2015 Received (again!) 'Signed statement of account', 'Reconstituted version of the current terms and conditions' and 'reconstituted version of the original agreement'. Also stern covering letter advising me that they have fulfilled their S78 obligations, will not be entering into further correspondence with me, and that failure to make payments may result in 'collection activities', and that 'any default may be reported to Credit Reference Agencies'.
8th Nov 2015 Sent Lloyds response to Niddy for checking (yes, I know it's a long gap - death of friend then in denial!)

[debtguy]

Tesco card

This one is in my wife's name and she wants me to keep her 'clean', so I might not be able to default on it. But I would SO love to, because they have messed us around to an unbelievable extent! Can post very few details of the account because they haven't sent me any yet!

TESCO credit card

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: NOT KNOWN
APPROX BALANCE: £8500
DATE LAST PAID: Not paid since August 2015. We are in arrears but they haven't defaulted us.
DMP OR NOT PAY: N/A
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: TESCO


20th May 2015 CCA Request sent
2nd June 2015 Received letter asking us to phone them to verify our identity. Ignored.
2nd June 2015 Received another letter saying 'signature' doesn't match the one on their records (I had just printed my wife's name in capitals).
10th June sent signature not required under CCA 1974 letter (edited version of template), and pointing out that the name as printed on the letter was not intended to resemble a signature.
30th July 2015 Received letter saying they had 'investigated my complaint', saying they had been 'unable to reach me by phone' and that verifying my identity was part of their internal security procedures.
10th August 2015 sent edited version of template letter saying their internal procedures were of no interest to me whatsoever but my rights under British law were, and that I now considered them in default of their obligations under CCA 1974 and would continue to do so until I received the documents I had requested.
6th Sept 2015 sent another £1 postal order and fresh CCA request, in the hope that they might treat it as a fresh case, but...
11th Sept 2015 ...sadly they didn't. Got a remarkably quick reply saying please could we (this one is in my wife's name) phone them 'so that they could verify her identity'.Between 11th Sept and 8th Nov received periodic letters saying 'they'd like to talk to us'. So many that my friend has stopped scanning and sending them but just sends me an email saying 'here they go again'...
8th Nov 2015 sent yet another edited version of template letter saying no sig makes account UE, and telling them that we have stopped paying until we receive CCA. Have actually paid nothing since August.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Tesco card

This one is in my wife's name and she wants me to keep her 'clean', so I might not be able to default on it. But I would SO love to, because they have messed us around to an unbelievable extent! Can post very few details of the account because they haven't sent me any yet!

TESCO credit card

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: NOT KNOWN
APPROX BALANCE: £8500
DATE LAST PAID: Still paying but token amounts. We are in arrears but they haven't defaulted us.
DMP OR NOT PAY: N/A
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: TESCO


20th May 2015 CCA Request sent
2nd June 2015 Received letter asking us to phone them to verify our identity. Ignored.
2nd June 2015 Received another letter saying 'signature' doesn't match the one on their records (I had just printed my wife's name in capitals).
10th June sent signature not required under CCA 1974 letter (edited version of template), and pointing out that the name as printed on the letter was not intended to resemble a signature.
30th July 2015 Received letter saying they had 'investigated my complaint', saying they had been 'unable to reach me by phone' and that verifying my identity was part of their internal security procedures.
10th August sent edited version of template letter saying their internal procedures were of no interest to me whatsoever but my rights under British law were, and that I now considered them in default of their obligations under CCA 1974 and would continue to do so until I received the documents I had requested.

wise move. They are indeed in default so if a claim is forthcoming you'd have grounds to file an embarrassed defence and an amendment would be at their cost as they're non compliant.

[PlanB]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Can you update your diary now that you have replies to all your CCA requests. Please start a new post for each one.

Let's get this show on the road



Plan B x

[debtguy]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Can you update your diary now that you have replies to all your CCA requests. Please start a new post for each one.

Let's get this show on the road



Plan B x

O.K. - here goes. One silly question - I don't know how to start a new post! All I ever do is 'reply' or 'reply with quote' - is either of those the tool I need? I guess it might be 'reply'? For the next half an hour or so I can update the ones above, that I have already started, so if anyone sees this within half an hour or so I will act on the advice! Thanks...

[cymruambyth]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Hi, you can either post just by replying in the quick reply box or you can add to your earlier posts by clicking on the reply with quote at the bottom right of each post and add developments in different dated colours.
Hope that makes sense!

[debtguy]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Hi, you can either post just by replying in the quick reply box or you can add to your earlier posts by clicking on the reply with quote at the bottom right of each post and add developments in different dated colours.
Hope that makes sense!

It does make sense - thanks very much! I have edited Lloyds above and I am currently going through Tesco's stuff. Thanks for the quick response!

[debtguy]

MBNA Card No. 2

MBNA (two of two)

Sent 3 CCA requests but have had no replies to any of them, so can only give incomplete info below because I don't know when I started it. It is definitely pre-2007 though, and almost certainly pre-2000.

MBNA credit card

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: NOT KNOWN
APPROX BALANCE: £14800
DATE LAST PAID: Still paying but cancelled D/D and it is due to go out in 2 days...
DMP OR NOT PAY: Just stopping paying
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: MBNA

20th May 2015 CCA request and £1 postal order sent. No reply received.
11th June 2015 Chaser template letter sent. No reply received
8th August 2015 Chaser template letter sent informing them that I had stopped paying and wouldn't pay again until CCA received (but I forgot to stop the D/D!!!). No reply received
8th Nov 2015 Chaser template letter sent informing them that I had stopped paying etc. (but this time I really have!)

[debtguy]

MBNA Card No. 1

MBNA (one of two)

MBNA credit card

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: 12/06/03
APPROX BALANCE: £17800
DATE LAST PAID: Still paying but have cancelled D/D so will default late Nov 2015
DMP OR NOT PAY: N/A
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: MBNA


20th May 2015 1st CCA Request sent
2nd June 2015 had received response but heard from Niddy that it was a BAD idea to have stuck duct tape all over everything to conceal sensitive data, so decided to start whole process over again. Hence long gap until...
6th Sept - 2nd CCA request sent (I know it's a long gap but July and August were awful because a friend died, slowly, of a brain tumour!)
18th Sept 2015 Received (again!) 'Copy of my executed agreement', 'The up to date terms and conditions' and 'a signed copy of the most recent statement of my account', plus brief and non-aggressive covering letter
8th Nov 2015 Sent MBNA response to Niddy for checking (yes, I know it's a long gap - death of friend then in denial! I have been away for 3 weeks and then sitting on my hands and chewing my fingernails while I hurtled towards the precipice!)

[debtguy]

Sainsburys credit card

SAINSBURYS CREDIT CARD

TYPE OF ACCOUNT : CC
DATE COMMENCED: 25/10/04
APPROX BALANCE: £9143
DATE LAST PAID: Still paying but have cancelled D/D so will default late Nov 2015
DMP OR NOT PAY: N/A
STATUS: Active
ACC OWNER: SAINSBURYS BANK (isn't that HBOS?)

20th May 2015 1st CCA Request sent
2nd June 2015 had received response but heard from Niddy that it was a BAD idea to have stuck duct tape all over everything to conceal sensitive data, so decided to start whole process over again. Hence long gap until...
6th Sept - 2nd CCA request sent (I know it's a long gap but July and August were awful because a friend died, slowly, of a brain tumour!)
24th Sept 2015 Received (again!) 'Signed statement of account', 'Reconstituted version of the current terms and conditions', 'reconstituted version of the original agreement' and 'copy of the original signed agreement', plus nasty threatening covering letter saying they have discharged their duties, won't correspond with me and 'failure to make payments could result in collection activities' (etc.)
8th Nov 2015 Sent Sainsburys response to Niddy for checking (yes, I know it's a long gap - see other comments about 'being in a bad place', sitting on my hands and chewing my fingernails while I hurtled towards the precipice!)

[debtguy]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

A bit knackered now and falling off my chair (I'm ahead of the UK in time terms so it is dead late), and will continue in the morning. Got to add Flybe (Creation), Capital One, NatWest Private, and Barclaycard, plus NatWest current account which is linked to 'Private' credit card - not sure what to do about that one. Any spending on the card is automatically cleared into the C card at the end of each month (28th), so they are linked.

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Based on our email exchange, if you decide to go with the theme of discussion then just update posts here as and when they write to you.... I have explained the risks of all situations and now you're in a clear position to take whatever action you want.

If you're unsure then send a Private Message to others that have moved abroad - see what they say? But with no UK assets, no likelihood of a UK return and owing £85,000 in unsecured debt - if it was me I'd really not be writing to anyone. As explained in email, I'm not saying I promote that or anything but if it was me, then it'd be a no brainer. Others have done the same and are a few years in now.

To combat a claim arriving which you won't receive you literally notify all creditors that you've no UK address and can only deal via email and create a new hotmail email address or something and use it just for your debts - that way if they want to write they must email. Most refuse to send sensitive docs via email so it's a catch-22 and if a claim was issued, after you tell them you've no UK address then really, how can it stand up in court as they cannot serve it to an invisible address can they.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[debtguy]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Thanks Niddy - I reckon that sums it up perfectly, and I appreciate the advice! I'll keep this thread updated for info. And I really appreciated the advice!

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Debtguy's UE diary

Thanks Niddy - I reckon that sums it up perfectly, and I appreciate the advice! I'll keep this thread updated for info. And I really appreciated the advice!

You mean help - we can only provide help based on our experiences - we don't give advice as we are not regulated / authorised to do so.