When you miss payments your creditors will send you letters that threaten further action such as court action or sheriff officers.
These letters will usually refer to the ‘possible’ action they could take rather than what they are actually going to do. If you read these letters carefully, you’ll usually find they refer to actions they ‘could’ or ‘may’ take.
Opening your letters
You should always open and read the letters you get from creditors. Some of them you won’t need to act on but others are important – so you need to know what you’re getting.
The ones you don’t need to act on will be regular statements or reminders. Others, such as default notices or letters from collection agencies, are more important. In some cases, your creditors might take court action and send important paperwork to you through the post. It’s important you open these letters as you need to respond to them within a set timescale.
Guidance
While some letters are designed to put pressure on you, some are more serious. But, whatever the letter, creditors must follow Office of Fair Trading (OFT) guidelines on fair debt collection when they write to you.
If you recieve letters that don't follow these guidelines you can make a complaint to the creditor.
Help and advice
If you’re worried about the letters you’re getting from your creditors, we can help. We’ll give you free and impartial debt advice so that you can get your situation back on track. You can use our online Debt Remedy tool or call our free Helpline on 0800 138 1111.
