Help With Unemployment Debt

Help With Unemployment Debt

Helping You Reclaim What Is Rightfully Yours When You Need It Most

Thank you for visiting the Help With Unemployment Debt website. Presumably you have arrived here because, like many other people, you've been hit by the recent economic difficulties - in their various forms - and you suspect that there are certain things that you can claim back which are rightly yours and which would come in especially useful right now.

Firstly it should be explained that we did not start off as a claims company; we are a pressure group which seeks to change the law in regard to certain aspects of debt and banking practice (see our sister site www.debtreform.org.uk). But we realised that we needed to be a bit more proactive than that. So we set out to find a claims company we could partner with which was robust, honest, transparent and above all quick in their handling of claims.

The claims industry has earned a bad reputation in recent years, mainly because of firms who have charged large fees (sometimes £295 or even £495) upfront before even looking at a case. Luckily most of them have fallen foul of the regulatory authorities and are no longer active, but there are still quite a few dubious ones out there. So we wanted to find, and to partner with, a professional claims company which was Ministry of Justice regulated, did not charge any upfront fees,, were as quick as they could possibly be in a notoriously slow system, and also allowed you to watch the progress of your case as it advanced.

Amazingly, and to our delight, we found them. And by applying from this website you will be sending your request directly to their team of specialist advisers.

Between us we offer a four-part programme which does the following:

Check the legal validity of your debt(s);

Claim back all your credit card charges over the last 6 years (plus interest);

Reclaim any missold payment protection insurance (PPI) which you may have made;

Look at possibilities for debt management.

Now let's have a look at the four ways we can help you in more detail.

Check The Legal Validity of Your Debt

This does not put any money back in your pocket; rather, it is a service which looks at whether the debt(s) you have are in keeping with the requirements of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (amended 2006). Many credit agreements do not come up to muster, which means that the lender cannot enforce collection of the debt. This is especially true if the debt has been sold to a debt collector (DCA) or debt purchasing company, as these are usually bought in job lots with little regard for the niceties of paperwork.

This is also known as an Unenforceable Credit Agreement. Many people misunderstand what a UCA is. These are not debts which can be written off (although many unscrupulous claims companies say they can be). They stay on your credit record for a period of six years, after which time they are erased by statute.

All it means is that you are effectively not legally obliged to continue paying them. If you stopped paying them every month nobody could legally compel you to start paying them again. Some people regard this as less than honest; others say that it is the fault of the greedy banks who rush to give people money without checking that their documentation is correct or even legal. Either way, it is an option you can consider and could mean quite a difference to your monthly budgeting.

To begin your claim click here.

But do bear in mind that this does not get you any money back. For that we need to consider the next two parts of the service....

Reclaim Your Credit Card Charges Over 6 Years

One of the first things the new UK Supreme Court did was to overturn the hopes of many consumer groups who were campaigning to reclaim bank charges. After a series of stays and holds, it was eventually ruled that people had no legal right to claim back the ludicrously high fees which banks charged to their customers for things like exceeding their overdraft limit by a few pounds, or charging £35 every time they wrote you a letter.

But the good news is that this ruling only applies to bank current accounts. It did not apply to credit cards. As things stand today, you can ask your bank or credit card company to pay back all the charges it has made over the past six years. Additionally you may include interest at 8%.

When you ask the banks for this money back they must give it back to you. But you do need to ask for it first.

To begin your claim click here.

Reclaim Missold Payment Protection Insurance

For many years this scam (also known as "secret profit") has been operating where people who take out a loan or credit agreement are told that they must also take out payment protection insurance (PPI) to cover the repayments should anything happen which would make the repayments of the loan difficult or impossible, like sickness or unemployment.

The problem is that in practice, many people found that claiming on such policies was well nigh impossible, for a variety of reasons, and such insurance policies fell into disrepute. Eventually there were several high profile prosecutions of insurers who were found to have unlawfully sold such policies where the claims could not possibly have been successful. You may claim to get back all the money you have paid on such policies if you are a civil servant or self employed, if you were a certain age when the policy started, or if you were not fully informed of the policy or told that it was mandatory, or if you believe that you were misinformed about it.

Moreover, if your policy is with a firm which has already been prosecuted then your claim will be a mere formality, as the firm's guilt has already been established.

Like the credit card charges, once you have established a legal claim then the company must give you your money back. But you do have to start the claim to begin with.

To begin your claim click here.

Possibilities For Debt Management

Any of these four parts you may not think is suitable for you, or any may not be applicable to you. A structured Debt Management plan (such as an IVA, or Individual Voluntary Arrangement, for example) will only be suitable for a minority of people who cannot see any other way our of debt, or if their debt looks like being a long term haul. Also there are barriers to whether someone would qualify for an IVA, even though it was perfectly appropriate to their situation.

An IVA is able to write off up to 75% of a person's total unsecured debt under certain circumstances, and the precise form of the IVA will be drafted by a qualified Insolvency Practitioner, who will also determine how much you can afford to pay, and reduce the debt within that limit. In Scotland the equivalent instrument is the Protected Trust Deed, which can, in theory, write off up to 90% of an individual's total unsecured debt. Both these are seen as very good alternatives to bankruptcy or sequestration. But they are for extreme cases where there are very few alternatives.

When it comes to tackling the debt or the potential debt posed by the reality of unemployment, each person and each household will have different needs. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, nor should there be. If you would like to take the first steps in seeing which is the right way for you then complete the following form and let an adviser call you back. They're there to help.

Here's the application form:

We are registered and regulated under the Data Protection Act. Reg. No. Z1620707

We are licenced by the Office of Fair Trading. Consumer Credit Licence No. 633327

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WE FULLY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY ABIDE BY THE OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING'S BOOKLET DEBT MANAGEMENT GUIDANCE (OFT366). COPIES MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING.

Help With Unemployment Debt is a trading name of Credit Clear UK Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company registration number 06606100. Credit Clear UK Ltd is regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of regulated claims management activities. Its registration is recorded on the website www.claimsregulation.gov.uk. Registration Authorisation number CRM 13650.