sking206561

When my husband moved to the USA he left his mobile contract on auto draft from the bank. The account was later closed but the mobile had a few payments unpaid. How hard is it to clear up a unpaid bill like this in the UK? We plan to move back to the UK in 5+years, and wouldnt mind making payment on the bill, but does it charge off like in the USA or would it continue to gain fees?

tonrob

The outstanding balance was likely sold on to a debt collection agency, with the fact also being reported to a credit reference agency as a 'delinquent balance' in your husband's name at his last-known UK address. The agency may or may not have subsequently added fees. If you contact the phone company they can advise you whether this happened, and put you in touch with the correct collection agency.

The one thing I'm a bit hazy on is how (or whether) this action is then recorded on your UK credit report. Maybe someone else can chip in on that, or just try to Google it.

Mr Weeze

Are you able to pay your mobile bill online via a website, using a credit card? If you are it shouldn't matter that it is an American credit card, but they may well charge you a credit card fee (5 GBP or 2.5%, something like that) and you will get stung on the foreign transaction. However, that is better than the other option. Orange passed a 90 GBP debt of my brothers to a collection agency. I was involved around the edges in helping sort that out, while in the UK, and that was not pretty.

As far as I know, it will hit a credit record in the UK. I think (though this could already be out of date or change in the remaining years) that this kind of thing would stay on your record for 5-7 years in the UK. I had to create a disassociation from my brother at the time, because it was impacting on my credit score (this was in the early 2000s, before the agencies were banned from linking family like that to your credit record).