catlover3

That I don't know. But its interesting - thank you. I will look into it!

SanDiegogirl

Why not just pay the debit to make sure a) your credit won't be ruined in the UK and b) the debt will not keep increasing with court, bailiff and other costs.

The time and effort you are taking to investigate various ways out of not paying a perfectly legitimate cost (they had to pick up the car and transport it to another town) is out of proportion compared to the amount of the debt.

Jerseygirl

GeoffM

Why pay for something OP doesn't owe? Isn't that what the debt collectors want, to give up and pay up?

Re-reading the OP, it says:
" we found a mid-term leasing company to hire a car for 12 weeks or so. About 4 weeks into the lease, the company messaged us to say they needed the car back. Obviously, we were pretty annoyed, but moreover, we were in LA at the time (finalising our move from) and asked them if they could wait till we returned. They refused, so we contacted a neighbour, asked them to make the keys available and the company came to collect the car from our driveway while we were away. The company is based in York and we lived in Manchester. "

That to me says the leasing company broke the contract and should therefore suck up any costs they incurred because of their actions. Happy to be corrected in this interpretation.

AndyMan74

zzrmark

If the OP is likely to return to reside in the UK within the next seven years then I'd be inclined to agree, if they aren't then having a UK credit score in any condition is a fairly moot point - selling one's house in that time might be an issue for a UK resident but as a CCJ cannot be persued, because the debtor is non resident, there will be no more court costs, without the CCJ a bailiff cannot be employed and, unless I'm very much mistaken, a company cannot just keep adding costs unless they have the court's backing ie a CCJ. Which also means that list of added costs will not be legal to pursue IF there is no CCJ and/or IF the debtor does not agree to it ( a creditor can argue that the debtor has agreed if the debtor maintains contact...).

If the car firm agreed to a 12 week lease, the OP maintained payments and the vehicle was not scheduled for a maintenance service then I would be inclined to give them an ear bashing, they would be the party that broke the contract so should bear any extraneous costs incurred. It wouldn't be the first time an OP has not given us all the relevant details so it might not necessarily be the firm's fault...

catlover3

Well, I was in two minds about whether to pay or not, hence the post. Actually, my first thought was, oh its just £300, I'll pay it (and there is still a part of me that thinks that!), but as Geoff states, why should I pay something not owed?
Re the additional information: the car hire company (which is a new start-up with terrible reviews online I wish I had read) agreed to a 3 month lease and then broke that lease because they wanted to take the car off fleet (actually they said that we could drive to York and collect a replacement which obviously wasn't happening). They then debited our account the 'recovery' monies we hadn't agreed to, which my bank pursued for a refund under the direct debt guarantee.

GeoffM

If you have written proof of them breaking the contract then forward that on to the debt collectors with an explanation of why you don't owe it, CCJ or not. I had one (US) debt collector back off immediately once presented with proof, though I doubt all would be like that.

everested

I have a friend who worked for a recovery service on the phones and she tells me that after 6 yrs of no response they cannot make you pay anymore, the debt is effectively cancelled and even if they try to recover you are no longer liable for it.
I have a few small debts they were chasing but have given up now i am overseas plus over 10 yrs ago etc. I did however get a police ticket for no mot before i left - over 5 yrs ago and do not know how that will play out as it was a law issue so i may face that at some point in the future?

MidAtlantic

It seems unlikely that the contract is for that specific vehicle to the extent that absolutely no other vehicle can be substituted, but you have the contract and I don't!

gaviano

I had something similar happen after I left the UK. I received an email from an internet hosting company, who I had already written to cancelling my account, demanding money for the next year. It was somewhere between twenty and fifty quid. Apparently they'd been sending letters to my old flat, but the flat was no longer mine and I hadn't left a forwarding address. So I got a series of emails from the hosting company getting increasingly demanding money, plus a processing fee. Then, my case was passed on to a debt collecting company, and they wanted me to phone them to discuss this very urgent matter and threatening to "take matters further". I got maybe four more emails over the period of around a month or so essentially saying the same thing. I ignored the lot. They grew bored and stopped emailing me. I do wonder what things like this might have done to my credit history, but I have no plans to move back so I don't suppose it matters.

AndyMan74

Makes you think just how many companies are in the wrong yet demand payment and people pay it just to have an easy life.

catlover3

That's what they rely on, I guess.