TopMogDog

Hey All,

I bet you all need this thread like a hole in the head, another UK and USA debt question. But here goes....

Over 16 months a go I packed up and moved to the USA, paying off what I thought was all of my debts. Turns out I missed one, a big one! I had a Morgan Stanley card while I was in the UK that was supposed to have been paid off, around 2000GBP was left on it. So I get to the USA and notice a heathly USD amount in my bank account, thinking the exchange rate was great, left it at that.

Living the good life in the USA, I was unaware of this accumulating debt, until today when I get a letter in the post from "Thames Credit Limited" saying I owe 3700GBP! Big ouch. Now, sob story, I have always paid my debts, but the company I run Is hitting hard times with the poor USD to GBP rates and I am not paying myself at the moment just to keep things ticking over.

I have no idea how they found me, pain in the arse they could not find me until they added a nice big sum of money to bill aswell. I want to pay this off, but I physically cannot do it at this moment, hopefully in six months my life will be back on track and I can make payments, but at the moment I can't make a thing and they are demanding the full ammount. Should I call them and tell them my situation? I looked them up on the internet and of course most threads were about how unreasonable they are, no one is going to be happy getting a letter form these guys anyway. I can prove with more than enough evidence to them that i am making nothing at the moment, however, no idea how they will treat me as they probably get this line all the time. I guess I am looking for members who are in similar situations. What they have done and how reasonable these debt collection agency's can be when dealing with someone who has moved from the UK to the USA.

I know I should probably have went off to a lawyer for advice, but lawyers cost money and BritishExpats.com might be my best bet at the moment. Go easy on the replies, feeling pretty fragile at the moment

Bob

They probably don't have much legal recourse on actually collecting the debt from you unless they've sold it to a US collections...who knows...best thing would be to ring them up and not put it off, because chances are they might be quite reasonable about it because it's better to get a small sum of money and know the rest will be coming than not get anything at all....

Haggerwood

If you don't plan on moving back to the UK in the next 7 years then don't even worry about it if you can't afford it because it won't show up on your credit report here and it will eventually drop off the UK records as well.

Jerseygirl

Call them explain the situation...see if you can come to some arrangements about repayment...ask if they can reduce the interest that's accrued.

Don't ignore it there have been stories on here before about people leaving debt behind in the UK. Sometimes collection agencies have been knocking of the door of elderly parents in the UK...others have had the debt passed over to US collectors.

Even if you're not planning on returning to the UK in the next 6 yrs...you never know...it's not worth taking the risk IMHO.

Haggerwood

Ohhhh yeah I forgot about that. Shit you better call them cause she's right.

Elvira

Go to the Dealing With Debt board at the Motley Fool - you'll not only find lots of useful links, but a bunch of people who've been there, done that etc and give excellent advice.

www.fool.co.uk

(The Discussion Board click-on thingy is hidden in tiny letters in the top right-hand corner...)

HTH!

TopMogDog

Hey Guys & Gals

Thanks for the info, big mix of "no they won't do anything" to "yes they will do something". Its not worth the risk, hell, its money I owe, my fault for not tripple checking things. I guess I will call them tomorrow and see what they can do for me.

Thanks again!

Jerseygirl

I think you'll find we all agreed on you trying to sort it out....just in case.

Haggerwood

Yeah unless of course you don't have any elderly relatives that is

loopylorns

This is not strictly correct,

a judgement stays on for 6 years however the person to whom the money is owed can keep the debt on file if they choose to untill such a time it is settled, of course most dont but you can never really bank on the debt being removed, just the judgement.

krizzy

I had the same kind of problem...I was paying people off left right and centre...asking for letters to say I had paid....got one from everyone...

Then my dad picks up my mail fron our old house and finds out because I had 2 loans with one company they had sent to say both were cleared when one was not....

I sent them an address in the USA to tell them to send me a bill...nothing came....did it again...nothing came...nothing turned up at my old address...so I left it...well forgot about it to be honest....

That was over 7 years ago...no-one has heard anything since...not even the new owners of our old house...

TopMogDog

Hmmm, you know, it sounds like the time when my In-Laws had to sign the sponsorship thing for me moving to the USA. We talked to lawyers, immigration experts, etc about what they would get hit for and how the government would collect if things went bad. No one could give us any answers at all, it was all a grey area. Sounds like its the same with the UK and USA debt thing, its a grey area. In fact, it was the same thing with my student loans from the UK, I called the loans company and asked about how I keep paying them, at that time no one had an answer. Even to this day I have not had an answer from them. Wonder if they have sorted that out yet?

Elvira

What do you expect them to sort out? Why should the way you pay them be any different just because you moved abroad?

TopMogDog

Okay, the student loan thing is starting to irritate me with the huge amount of negative comments and high and mighty stance everyone takes when some says they cannot pay them back.

I was born in 1980, so I went to University in 1998. If I were born a year earlier the gornvernment would have given me a grant, instead, I was faced with a loan, so I had to take it, no option. Anyone who started there college or university education back in 1998 will know the amount if negetive comments were floating around about the SLC and this was for good reason. We were fed that this was "the best loan we will ever have" and that "fewer than 10% will ever pay back the full amount".

Now, for a start, the SLC could never tell me what i paid off, the amount was collected by the HMRC and then fed over to the SLC. Crazy thing is I would constantly get letters from the SLC saying I should be paying them back, but I was, at a huge amount, however due to the fact the problem was the communication between the HMRC and the SLC there were no records. The SLC are supposed to receive your payments "annually", who knows who's bank account your monthly payments are sitting in and they update your amounts based on that yearly amount they receive from the HMRC. Yes, great, what happens if they do not receive the correct information from the HMRC. They just keep throwing on interest on the original amount, crazy!

My point to all of this, sorry I am going off, yes, if you take out a loan to buy a car, tv, whatever, you should pay it back. However, the Student Loans Company messed me around, and plenty of others. They take your payments based on your amount before tax, I had a company car (I had to have one, I could not afford to buy my own) and had a huge amount of tax because of this. I called the Student Loans Company to ask what i could do, nothing, payment is taken from the HMRC and there is nothing they can do. Please, tell me of another loan company who do not offer any payment options! Well, apart from defering your loan, I don't want to defer my loan for 12 months and have a bunch of interest, I want to make smaller payments!

So when i call them, and ask how I pay them back and am met with "you must pay us the full amount" amazingly I am not too keen on killing myself to give them the money. Even worse, I would have to pay them back more money than I owe due to the fact they have not had all my payments from the HMRC!!! I have no idea if they are more organised now, but when I left the UK over 16 months a go I got no help on them for international payments. I expect them to sort it out, I expect them to have a system on how I can pay them, I do not expect to be told I need to pay the full amount before I leave.

And please, for the love of god, no one type "well, you didn't have to take the loan", I will go postal on that one

Okay, calm, deep blue sea, clam, deep blue sea......

gruffbrown

well, you didn't h