What do I do? Old debt coming back to haunt me!

[Creole]

I received a letter from a company last week, which says my old Barclaycard account has been sold to them.
In 2002, I came into difficulties paying my Barclaycard account and basically stopped paying as I could not afford it. After a while I stopped hearing from them and thought the balance has been written off. In between this time I also moved address, so thought that was the end of it.

Anyway, last week I received a letter from a company, which says my Barclaycard account had been sold to them in 2005, 2 years ago.

I also received another letter from their debt collection office offering me a discount amount (about half the balance) to pay off. Now, I don?t have that sort of money, so there is no way I will be able to pay.

What do I do? I mean I thought this debt has been written off, since its nearly 5 years ago, I probably have a CCJ because of it.

Any ideas please?

Go and see the Citizens Advice Bureau. They will be able to give you your options and may help you negotiate with the company.

I worked for a company who did this - sold off a lot of historic debt for a pittance just to get rid of it & claw something back. I didn't work very closely with the companies who bought the debt but have heard that they can be rather heavy-handed. If they've offered you a 50% reduction can you see if they'd be willing to let you pay off that amount monthly? I know the reduction is usually only if you can pay in a lump sum nut it might be worth a try.

Re going to cab - all they're likely to be able to do for you is try to negotiate a weekly/monthly payment anyway as unfortunately the debt is still there & it's perfectly legal for the bank to sell it on like thid

Hope you get it sorted out.

Dang - what horrendous spelling. Must remember to preview.

Offer them what you can afford and stick to it. If it was six years the Limitations Act would apply but it isn't.

Make them an offer. what is the offer they have given you? If you can't afford it genuiniely and have no assets you cuold sell/finance they'll not get owt back and may well settle for a much lower amount rather than nothing.

Havig been in this position many years ago a rather large debt (mortgage repo) was settled for an absolute pittance considering the original amount. We got a 3rd party to renegotiate on our behalf which might help. The 3rd party basically listed all our assets (which did incldue a house with some deposit available - but our salaries were low enough so that remortgaging wasn;t an option) and a car, but we argued that with a small child the car was a necessity.

As they are so near the 6 years they will probably take a muchg lower offer than they've given you.

HTH