Hi

I would like some advice please, I received a debt letter about six months ago chasing a debt of £1970.00 from 'Pheonix SARL'. As I have never heard of this company or had any dealings with them before I ignored the letters and made no contact with them. I did obtain my credit report from Experian to see if there was any mention of this company on my report in case of fraud. As there was no mention of them I continued to ignore their letters. In June of this year I received a court judgement on behalf of 'Pheonix Recoveries SARL' with a solicitors name 'Bryan Carter'. I notified the court that I had never heard of this company and would like more information. The solicitors wrote back to me stating that 'Phoenix Recoveries' were chasing up a debt I owed on behalf of Marshall Ward.

I did deal with Marshall Ward over 10 years ago. I was made redundant from my job and sent a letter to Marshall Ward informing them that I had been made redundant and would like to make a claim on the insurance I had taken out for redundancy and sickness cover. I have never heard anything further from them and assumed that the debt had been cleared by the insurance. I have checked my credit report again more recently and there is no outstanding debt for Marshall Ward listed on there.

I have recently received a letter from the solicitors which says that as I haven't responsded within 28 days they are going back to court to recover the debt. What do I need to do about this? Is there a 'Statute' for this?

Please advise as I am very stressed about this.

After six years with no contact, debts may become statute barred. However if a matter goes to court, and you know it is going to court but don't attend, you are very likely to lose the case. Call in to your local Citizens Advice Bureau and ask for advice about attending court and contesting the matter. If they are serious about taking the matter to court, in due course you should get details of the date and time for the court hearing and it should be at a court that is local to you. If you don't get these details, you should pester the solicitor for them.

Hi

The first time I received a court order about this in June this year it was for Northampton Court which is a decent distance from me (I live in Chesterfield) so I'm assuming that it will come from them again. I still haven't admitted to this debt at this point because I don't really know for sure that it is what I suspect. The CAB isn't a good idea because there's never anyone there and I work full-time in the day and part-time in the evenings so its very difficult for me to get there. Can I write to the solicitor about the non-contact for six years ect?

Hi,

Look at some of the other postings on here about Debt Recovery Agent and you find the templates for a letter you can send.

Don't do anything until you have sent this letter.

Hi

I took a copy of the template letter yesterday, I was going to send it to the solicitors and copy the court with it - would that be correct?

What happened at Nothampton Court in June?

Yes, you should write to the solicitors and keep copies of the correspondence.

I wrote to the court and informed them that I had never heard of 'Pheonix Recoveries SARL' and wasn't aware of ever having dealt with them before. The court wrote to 'Bryan Carter' the solicitors acting on behalf of above and copied me in on the letter in which they were informed to provide me with more information. 'Bryan Carter' then sent me a letter to say that it was for 'Marshall Ward'. I'm confused, but I think that 'Phoenix Recoveries' may have purchased the debt from Marshall Ward.

I have more recently received a letter from 'Bryan Carter' in which they have sent a 'discontinuance' notice to the court on my behalf. Not sure what this means but I have sent them the template letter off this site yesterday and copied the court with the same information.

If they are discontinuing the court action and not providing you with details of of the debt (other than the name Marshall Ward), it sounds like they are not going to take things further. It sounds like you are on top of things. Just keep replying appropriately to anything that comes through the post.