This is my thread in chat from yesterday, and now I could do with some serious advice, please. There has been some wonderful support and suggestions, and its got me thinking.
Basically, three years ago when I was pregnant, I was pressure sold in to a credit agreement. It was one of these free photo shoots where you pay for the photos. A friend of mine had gone, and recommended me, he had a wonderful time, and because I that, I thought it would be great. I checked out prices with him first, and worked out I could afford to get one really nice picture with my 18th birthday money.
Went up, the hairdresser and make up artist were lovely, photoshoot was nice. Then went to a cafe for lunch whilst they processed the photos, and then came back to look at them.
And that's where it got nasty.
The woman was sat in front of the door, and wouldn't let me leave. They said things to me like, "Well if something happened and you died, these would be lovely memeories for your child", and "If you lost your baby, what a beautiful way to remember pregnancy". When I said I wanted to go out and call my mother before I agreed to anything, she got quite agressive.
In the end, I was so frightened, I signed the bloody form to get the hell out of there.
As soon as I got home I burst into tears, cancelled the direct debit, etc.
On the back of the form, in the small print she wouldn't let me read, is included that they don't have a cooling off period. So once you sign, you're stuck.
The total is just over £1500 for a CD of photos.
A solicitor has now been in touch with my dad (they're not to contact me because of my mental health issue, at one point they were calling me ten times a week) via letter, and he called him on Thursday. This solicitor said initally they wanted full payment by the end of this month. He has now said they are willing to accept £700 by the end of next month - because my dad is being made redundant, and he's said it can come from that. As for my own finances, I live on benefits, so there is no way I could make this money magically appear.
I offered them a while back an offer of paying £20 a month (i think, the paperwork is at my parents) and they refused, saying I needed to pay it in the amounts I signed to.
The solicitor also said that I wouldn't be eligable to any legal aid, and that because the company are legally in the right, i would certainly loose, and end up paying the full amount plus their legal fees on top.
I don't know quite what I'm looking for, but just paying it seems somewhat unfair, as they were utterly foul and appear to be getting away with it.
I was stupid to sign, I'm aware of that, so please don't remind me, i can't take any more critisim today. But i was also just so desperate to get out of that room that if they had told me I could only leave if I took all my clothes off, I would have done it.
Any suggestions or advice much appreciated.