Dealing With Debt Collection Letters

When you’re in debt it is quite common to dread the phone ringing or a knock at the door but it comes to something when you dread the postman bringing letters that you don’t want to open. I’m not talking about the usual bills and bank statement type of letters.

I still remember picking up the letters from the door mat and flicking through them all. I had become an expert at spotting the regular bills and bak statements but what I noticed is that there were ‘regular’ looking envelopes in the mix. Obviously not knowing what these envelopes contained I opened them to find out (as you would eh).

You may already have some idea what these letters are…..

They are debt collection letters of various forms – some are downright stupid while others can seem quite threatening and no one likes to read a threatening letter, especially when the ‘threat’ is quite empty .

You see, these letters are from debt collection companies who have either bought the original debt or are trying to collect the debt on behalf of the lender. The problem is, companies who purchase debts do not want to tell you that they have purchased the debt and will try and tell you that they are collecting on behalf of the lender.

You may have, like me, received letters from a company you have never heard of trying to collect a debt from as long as TEN years ago. These types of companies are downright crooks, the pirates of the debt collection world and yes, I really do detest these companies.

They purchase your debt from the original lender, or maybe from another company who purchased your debt originally, and will try any tactic, will tell you anything they can think of, in a lame attempt to get some money out of you. I still get letters for a debt originally owed to Barclays Bank for around £600 – that debt has been owed for at least 15 years. Barclays will not even have a record of that debt on their system but over the past 15 years the debt was passed to a debt collection company who was collecting the money on behalf of Barclys – it was then sold to another company and it has been sold on to at least two more debt collection companies who are still trying to collect the money.

What THIS company hopes is that I am as thick as mud and do not know my legal rights and will pay up. Of course there is no way on this Earth that I am paying a debt that is 15 years old as the debt is now ’statute barred’ which means the debt is no longer enforcable.

However, these debt collection companies still send letters stating that the amount outstanding MUST be paid and if it is not paid within x number of days then they wil commence with legal action to recover the debt which will incurr more costs. They then state that “all of this can be avoided by calling their customer support team today” – yeah right

This same compan also sent letters to me in the past stating that they were no longer able to accept any form of repayment plan and the whole amout had to be paid in full within 48 hours. They also stated that they could not discuss any form of negotiation of the outstanding amount.

BUT then in the same letter, in the past paragraph, they stated that if I called them right now they could offer me a 30% reduction of the amoutn outstanding if Icalled them and paid via a debit or credit card – how stupid do they think people are?

If you are receiving letters from companies who you have never hear of before claiming that they are collecting a debt on behalf of another company please check out the Statute Barred section below.

Be very careful when responding to any letter which is trying to recover a debt that you ‘may’ owe. Do not call them right away as what you say on the phone may do you more harm than you think. Remember, you are probably dealing with company that is going to try evey trick in the book, even underhanded tactics, in an attempt to get you to pay money that you may not even have to repay.

Statute Barred

“A debt is considered Statute Barred if a creditor has not contacted a debtor for a period of 6 years and no action has been taken on the account.

Although the debt is still legally acknowledged as being owed, the creditor is not able to take any legal action against the debtor in order to recover the debt. It is considered unfair if a creditor or debt collector misleads the debtor into believing the debt is still legally recoverable. It is also considered an unfair practice if the creditor or debt collector press for payment after the debtor has stated they will not be paying the money owed. This could amount to harassment contrary to Section 40(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970.”

If you still getting debt collection letters it may be a sign that your credit rating has been damaged which could be stopping you from from getting accepted for credit. If you think your credit rating may be damaged by outstanding debts then visit our UK Credit Repair page for help.

Don’t forget to check out our Payday Loans section

Payday Credit Loan Benefits

Payday credit loans do have many benefits over loans that are offered by hig street banks.

Although the interest rate for a payday credit type loan will be much higher than a loan from your high street bank, payday loans are easier to obtain, especially if your credit score isn’t as high as it could be. And it is this reason why payday credit lines have a higher interest rate.

This doesn’t make them a bad form of borrowing – a payday loan, because they can be paid out so fast, may actually save someone from not being able to pay their rent or other important financial payment.

We all find ourselves in times of need at some point in our lives and we do what we have to do – if that means borrowing a sum of money via a payday credit loan then so be it.

A payday credit loan may just be a knight in shining armour for some people which is why they shouldn’t be classed as ‘evil’ forms of credit.

We also have another article about payday credit loans which you can view at

http://ukcreditsecrets.co.uk/blog/payday-credit-loans/

Don’t forget to check out our Payday Loans section

Bad Credit Help Without More Loans and Debt

Bad Credit Help

Do you have Bad Credit ? Is your credit as bad as you think it is?

More often than not, when you think you have bad credit, it’s not actually as bad as what you think. Many peoples first instinct is that their credit is so bad that they’ll either never get credit again or that there is nothing they can do about having bad credit.

But that’s not always the case.

There are many things you can do about bad credit and I don’t mean applying for high interest loans to pay off your bad credit thinking that is the only option. If you have bad credit now, by borrowing money to pay it off, that bad credit will cost you so much more due to the high interest rate of the loan you’re applying for and then you’ll be stuck with that loan for years.

So if you have £5,000 of bad credit now and you take out a high interest bad credit loan to pay it off, if that loan costs you £8,000 to pay back, then all you’re doing is increasing the amount that your bad credit is going to cost you in the long term.

Borrowing money when you have bad credit is never a good idea and you should avoid doing this. Instead, your first step should actually be to look at what this bad debt is. Now this is an easy step as you can find this out by getting your credit files.

When you have your credit files you can see just how bad your ‘bad credit’ is. It may be that you’re just a few payment behind on a loan. If that’s the case then getting rid of your bad credit is easy. All you need to do is catch up on those missed payments. Contact the company to whom you owe the money to and explain your situation to them.

When you have caught up with the payments you will find that your so called ‘bad credit‘ won’t be anywhere near as bad. Keeping up with your repayments will help to put that bad credit behind you until you reach the point where lenders will no longer consider you as having bad credit.

When you’re at that stage, borrowing money becomes much cheaper thanks to the lower interest rates. You see, having bad credit is never as bad as what you think. There are so many ways to improve your credit rating without having to borrow money. Remember, borrowing money when you have bad credit will cost you so much more in the long run.

Take the cheaper and easier alternative and actually improve your bad credit BEFORE you borrow any more money.

Credit Repair Report Secrets

This is short post to highlight an important video that you need to watch that will openly show you how you are lied to when you apply for credit. Your credit file is used against you without your knowledge – in fact, you are told a big fat lie but in this video you will get to see this lie revealed.

Knowing this will help you to repair your credit report in a way you never thought possible and yes, it is very easy too

Here’s a link to the video; Credit Repair Video

Or watch it right here in this blog post by clicking the play button on the video screen below

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwCmKE-_a8k]

Enjoy,

Michael Sherriff

P.S Don’t forget to check out our Payday Loans section