Final Demand Letter

I was wondering if anyone can tell me what is the next stage of the process is when a person receives a final demand letter. I owe nearly 2,000 and last year got sick and was in hospital for 6 months, i could not keep up with the repayments, as a result of my illness i am now on Disability Allowance, I rang MABS today but there is a waiting list of a few months, I'm sure the debt collectors will not wait. What can I do? What will they do next, does anyone know? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ring them, tell them your situation and arrange some type of payment. Any sort of payment should be more acceptable to them than a court judgement.
Have you been in any contact with them prior to these demands?
Have you been making any payments at all?
Who is the debt to and what is it for?
Have you anything that you can sell to give you a lump sum? Car for example?

I would avoid dealing with them by phone at all, simply because if you ring them they could pressurise you into agreeing to make regular payments larger than you can actually afford, plus you don’t want any phone contact from them at all. It’s best to do it by post, & is less intimidating. Also, by doing it all by post you have an exact record of everything, which you should keep.

Ideally you would be dealing with the company/financial institution to whom you owe the money, but it may be the case that the debt has been sold on to them, or it could be the case that the letters have been coming from the credit control department of whoever you owe the money to, but you didn’t give much detail in your post, so it’s hard to say.

Anyway I suggest that you send a registered letter to the collection agency & acknowledge that you owe the money to the original company/financial institution. Inform them that you are presently unable to work due to ill health & that your sole income is a social welfare disability payment & are struggling to make ends meet given your current situation.

Inform them that you have made an appointment to see a MABS Money Advisor but there is a waiting list for an appointment. Tell them that, considering the circumstances that you will make the effort to pay €5 per week until such a time that MABS can fully assess your circumstances & tell them that you would be grateful if they would suspend any interest charges or further action until such a time that MABS contact them on your behalf.

Make sure you do pay them €5 per week, & keep a copy of all correspondence sent & received. Meanwhile make sure you make an appointment with your local MABS office. You may want to ask the disability allowance section of DSFA to send to a letter to you stating that you are in receipt of payment from them, a copy of which you could send on to the debt collection company. (or if you still have the letter that DSFA sent you telling you your claim has been approved & what your weekly rate is, you could send them a copy of that with your letter) It would also help if you could get MABS to send you a brief letter stating that you have applied for an appointment to see them, which you could send to them also.

Thank you so much for the reply, it has helped A LOT. I will start paying today, and get writing the letters. Thanks again.