Dealing With 1st Credit Collections
Friday, June 26th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
As you are coping with 1st Credit Collections then you can be reassured by the fact that the actions they are doing are illegal or are close to being unlawful. The debt collecting firms involved are under little pressure to do anything to improve their behaviour unless they are compelled to do so by the Office of Fair Trading or similar body.
It is an option for you to question the validity of the amount owed or indeed the existence of the debt itself by making a Subject Access Request (or SAR) in response to 1st Credit Collections. The true owner of the alleged debt (the bank or the debt collecting agency) is obliged to send you a true copy of your original credit agreement with the bank if the agreement was made prior to 6 April 2007. When they do not do this they are in breach of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and the debt is in dispute. While the alleged debt is in dispute they cannot demand payment (if they do so they are in further breach of the act) and they are not allowed to sell it on (which many do nevertheless). While this situation exists it cannot be enforced, even by a court of law. There’s a series of pre-written letters available for use. You can get a lawyer to do this for you, due to the complexity of the law at certain points. There are also specialist legal and paralegal firms professing their services in this area.
Many members of the public may have noticed with surprise that the debt collecting agencies will always insist on speaking to you on the telephone. They choose to use the phone instead of communicating in writing. The reason is that they would not want to threaten you on paper simply because they would not want to lie in writing.
Several excellent consumer finance forums exist where you may read about the tactics and scams implicating 1st Credit Collections and the tricks that they use. You can see how some of the debt collection companies specialise in certain kinds of scam while others operate other angles. The outcome is always suffering for a lot of ordinary people. The DPCs are sometimes members of trade organizations which appears to legitimize their illicit activities. In truth they are no better than the con-men who send junk mail to you saying that you have won the lottery even though you have never entered one.
If you are struggling with 1st Credit Collections you’ll be aware of all the nasty tricks they use to get you to set up a standing order or direct debit in order to make money from you. You may already have had bad dealings with them on the phone. They may phone you up at strange times when they know it is inconvenient for you and do this lots of times. They may be sending you official appearing sternly drafted letters threatening to send someone round to collect the amount in full or that they will take you to court for the full amount. Other tactics might include saying that they will make a charging order on your property or make you lose your home.
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