partially settled debt. Wescot.

A question about : partially settled debt. Wescot.

just read your mse dictionary and under the partially settled definition it says the debt is not closed on your credit report and that the DCA can still harass you for payment?

in my case wescot bullied my mother (from my previous address that they knew I no longer lived at) into accepting a 50% reduced payment to clear the debt and she did without me knowing. I have since took this up with them myself as I was in the process of paying the debt myself with a F&F but was told yes, the account will be closed and marked as partially settled but you will receive no further communication from us and after 6 years the account will disappear.

I have asked for this in written confirmation of acknowledgment of the debt being paid and for what the advisor said at the time to be put into words so there is no comeback on me or my poor mother ( abhorrent behaviour is the term I would use when describing wescot credit services)

just to clear up, is he right in saying partially settled will be marked on my account under this debt but the account will be closed? and no further action can be taken?

I don't want these cowboys climbing out of the woodwork next year chasing for more money.

thanks in advance.

Best answers:

• Partially settled can mean 2 different things so it is a bit confusing.
  A creditor may mark a person's credit file to show that an account was partially satisifed to reflect that they accepted a reduced sum in final settlement of the debt.
  Creditors may do this even though they have confirmed in writing that the payment will be in full & final settlement of the debt and that neither they nor anyone else will chase further.
  Sometimes though a creditor may say they will accept a lump sum payment only as partial settlement against a balance and that the remainder of the balance will still be owed. In that case it wouldn't show on your credit file (except that the outstanding balance should be reduced by the lump sum payment).
• I' ve asked wescot to verify this, given the nature of the call after finding out my mother had paid this debt after being bullied into doing so by these doorstep thugs , the advisor (if you can even call them that) told me that the debt will be marked as partially satisfied on my credit file and that it will last for 6 years but the account will be closed, with them and that no further correspondence or chasing of the debt will happen in the future. to me that means this debt is done with although the partially settled on my credit report is still going to do a lot of damage. I also asked for an apology and as a gesture of good will if they would mark this account as satisfied instead of partially satisfied for the way they went about business and intimidating behaviour towards my mother. awaiting a response on this and my up to date credit report will be available in 14 days so will check then if the default has been changed and if my rating has improved. only have one debt left after that and its with VF and they are already dealing with that thanks to the information on here so hopefully should be debt free before the end of this year. thanks for getting back to me.
• On your credit file does this account already have a default on file?
  If so then it will actually only stay on file for 6years from that default date not from when the payment was made (and probably won't make your file look any worse than the default is already doing). It would be very unusual for the default to be removed.
  You are definitely not the first to have well meaning parents do this kind of thing, hopefully you will get a reasonable response from them.
• yes its already shown as default on file. the chances of me being able to get mortgage with that as well as the VF one are slim so I've kind of put that idea behind me for now even though I will be in a position to afford one next year , just a shame these defaults have long lasting damage on your reports even after you've learnt from your previous mistakes.