Article Madness

Considering that credit card debts are causing such great problems for people in the UK, it's hardly suprising that a lot of people are looking for all sorts of methods to solve these debt problems.

The most often encountered ways are the old favourites of debt consolidation loans and debt management programs, with possibly insolvency in extreme cases. Recently, however, there's a new buzz in town when it comes to solving credit card debt problems: the illegal agreement loophole.

The basic idea is to take advantage of a loophole in the law that means that unless a credit agreement abides by a group of exacting regulations, then it is invalidated and therefore cannot be implemented in the courts. The effective outcome is that any money owed on such agreements cannot be collected, and so doesn't have to be repaid. There are lots of web sites claiming that they are able to quickly and easily arrange for your debts to be wiped out like this, but is this practical?

Firstly, only agreements signed before April 2007 have any hope of being declared unenforceable under this loophole. If this condition is met, there are quite a few reasons why the agreement may be invalidated, including not being signed by both you and the issuer, the Annual Percentage Rate not being distinctly stated, or copies of the original papers not being available on asking for them.

Specialist attorneys will check over your documents on your behalf to ascertain whether or not they are all valid. But here lies the catch: you usually need to pay a fee before an expert will even consider your case, whether or not you have any chance at all of clearing your debts. If you have two or three agreements to check, this can work out to be a costly and perhaps futile exercise.

You should also consider that some less dependable suppliers of these services overstate the likelihood of succeeding, which many unprejudiced observers say are not as good as they are being described.

So what's the conclusion? Certainly ask your credit card providers for copies of your documents and look at them yourself, but before doing anything else have a word with a debt advice charity. If you suspect you might have a chance of success, then look for an advisor willing to work on a no win no fee basis, rather than paying out at the outset in the mere hope of leaving your debt problems behind.

Visit Debt Advice UK to find out more on how to legally clear credit cards.