They can add charges but your son can dispute these if they are clearly unreasonable. It is best to put any disputes in writing as debt collectors have a habit of only keeping records of what they want.

Payments should be in accordance to whatever was agreed between your son and the collectors. If it was agreed to pay an amount every 4 weeks, then there is no reason for the debt collectors to raise this issue of whether the payment day is Friday, Monday or any other day, as long as the payments come at 4 week intervals. If it was agreed to pay every 4th Friday, then, by paying a day late, the agreement has been broken.

The escallation to the default notice just means that your son will get a red letter requesting payment of "arrears" otherwise a default will be added to his credit file.

Hi

My son David has a repayment agreement with Nationwide Debt Recovery Ltd due to a catalogue account. However, payments are made every 4 weeks on a Friday. David is currently on Jobseekers Allowance which due to his signing on day is paid into his bank account on the Saturday, the day after his payment for NDR is required. When setting up the NDR payment he was told he could not have the Saturday, I have also made contact on his behalf and they again have told me that they cannot change the payment day to the Saturday. Each time he pays a day late he is charged for late payment and a statement of "we will escalate your account to receive the Statutory Default Notice" is made if payment is not received on time. When I enquired, their only answer was for David to borrow the payment from someone then pay them back when he receives his JCP payment.

David is hopefully due to commence employment, if only for 6 weeks temporary basis, next month. Please can you advise me if what NDR is doing legal and if there is anything we can do.

regards

Marion Thompson