6 year old debt, do i need to respond?

terley

terley

terley

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Anyone here savvy with finance?

I took out a car finance roughly 6 years ago with carcraft who at the time split the finance over two companies, one being MotoNovo finance (the majority of the cost) and All in one finance (a sister company of carcraft)

So i paid my bills regularly and never had an issue until about a year in when my card was replaced due to becoming expired. The monthly bill for All in one finance for some reason stopped coming out of my account, it must have been something to do with my card...

So when contacting them to attempt to re set up the direct debit they informed me that they don't have the ability to set it up via phone and they would require me to fill in a direct debit mandate (that they would send with a pre-paid envelope to return)

So i returned the completed mandate (three times) and neither time the debt was successfully set-up.. They gave me no reason for the failure to set up the direct debit and each time they just sent out a new mandate..

So after a while i gave up, now years passed 6 to be precise and i have paid off the £8,000+ from motonovo without a single word from all in one, the debt doesn't even appear on my credit report..

Carcraft went in to administration a couple of years back and i think this may have caused an issue with the debt.

Now I've received a letter saying that:

"We refer to the above and we need to let you know that there has been a mistake in the administration of your account.

You have historically been sent a notice that terminated your account early. The effect of this notice is that you do not owe some of the original interest charged to your account. As a consequence we have recalculated your balance and reduced the amount outstanding by £316.13 representing the error."

The letter is in relation to All in one finance LTD from a company called PRA Group Ltd

The outstanding balance is £1158.02...

Are they within their right to chase up this money after so long? (i'd imagine so)

And are there any stipulations or rights that i have in regards to the debt being so messed up on their end?

Sorry for the TL;DR but you guys often help people with random financial advice.
 
You know you had a problem with the payment set up, ignored it, got a letter saying you owe money and you want to get out of it?
 
neil_g said:
You know you had a problem with the payment set up, ignored it, got a letter saying you owe money and you want to get out of it?
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A better summary :P :

A problem with a payment to a company that went in to administration, who did nothing to help me set up a payment that i was more than capable and willing to pay, who then became un-contactable for years, now finally getting in contact saying that they screwed up by closing the account and in fact i still owe them money.
 
Do you have documentation confirming the closure of the account? If so, tell them so. Perhaps they have you mixed up with someone else of the same name? If they have not, then it's their mistake and they need to eat the loss.
 
terley said:
A better summary :p :

A problem with a payment to a company that went in to administration, who did nothing to help me set up a payment that i was more than capable and willing to pay, who then became un-contactable for years, now finally getting in contact saying that they screwed up by closing the account and in fact i still owe them money.
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If they went into admin, I ponder if their own debt recovery is still viable under a new name.
If the debt was sold on it might be, but if it was bought over on the off chance, then it might not bed.

Professional advice, get some.
 
Edrof said:
If you legitimately owe the money pay it.
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He might not 'legitimately' owe the company now asking him the money anything.
He might have owed a previous company who don't exist.
They might be asking on the off chance, rather than have any actual right to the money.

This is what he needs to find out.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
He might not 'legitimately' owe the company now asking him the money anything.
He might have owed a previous company who don't exist.
They might be asking on the off chance, rather than have any actual right to the money.

This is what he needs to find out.
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This

I don't want to be paying money that i know i owe to a company i don't owe it to..

I'm happy to pay the debt off in full if needed, i haven't purposely avoided it, but life moves on and i all but forgot about it.

I think i may get some professional advice, cheers guys.
 
If the original company went into administration then this new company will have almost certainly have bought its assets - one of which is your debt.

It's worth checking out, but I would very surprised if this wasn't the case.
 
If it has been more than 6 years and they can't prove they've made any attempt to chase the outstanding amount within the past 6 years technically you could get it statute barred.

If a company has bought up old debts and now - more than 6 years later - trying to chase them up they likely won't get far legally but that would come down to a court (or whatever magistrate, etc.) decision if it came to it.

There is an onus on the original company or any subsequent administrators to chase up debts in a timely fashion.

EDIT: This is all fairly generally theoretical though - a court might decide otherwise on wealth of evidence.
 
6 yrs after you last acknowledged the debt it can be statute barred. You still owe the money but they have no legal recourse to chase you.
 
Check if it's been over 6 years, if it's 6 years then it's Statute Barred and they can't do anything other then send you letters asking you pay.

While you check it out, do not talk to them in anyway.
 
IronWarrior said:
Check if it's been over 6 years, if it's 6 years then it's Statute Barred and they can't do anything other then send you letters asking you pay.
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It won't be automatically Statute Barred - if it did come to court they would look at the arguments from both sides for instance if they didn't consider he'd made enough of an attempt to pay it in the first place or there was proof he'd acknowledged the debt in the past 6 years by sending a letter, etc. they might still rule he owed the money - there is an onus to chase up a debt in a timely fashion however which is why most would be barred after 6 years. Most likely though the company trying to collect the debt won't want to take it to court and are just chancing that he'll pay up if they put some pressure on.
 
Rroff said:
It won't be automatically Statute Barred - if it did come to court they would look at the arguments from both sides for instance if they didn't consider he'd made enough of an attempt to pay it in the first place they might still rule he owed the money. Most likely though the company trying to collect the debt won't want to take it to court and are just chancing that he'll pay up if they put some pressure on.
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It never go to court, never in a million years, not for £1k.

Once he has sent the letter explaining that it's Statute Barred, it's done. THEY have to prove that it isn't and if they can't, than they out of luck.

They just fishing to see if anyone will pay up.
 
I tend to agree - but its a misconception many make, especially if someone on the internet tells them its statute barred, that its automatic - while it might effectively be the case it isn't automatic.
 
Be careful - a girl I know had a similar issue. She thought she was doing the right thing by paying up. She ended up not able to get credit (or a mortgage) for 6 more years because they added that she had failed to pay for 7 years on to her credit record, dated the day she paid up, thus acknowledging she should have paid earlier but hadn't.
 
Dabbles said:
Be careful - a girl I know had a similar issue. She thought she was doing the right thing by paying up. She ended up not able to get credit (or a mortgage) for 6 more years because they added that she had failed to pay for 7 years on to her credit record, dated the day she paid up, thus acknowledging she should have paid earlier but hadn't.
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I have heard something very similar. I am all for paying what I owe but in this case I would get some advise before acknowledging any debt.
 
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