From left to right; May Kristin Haugen, Scott Danielsen, Jan Husby, Erik Øyno, Håkan Bernhard and Tibor Veres.

Eric "the Red" Oyno & "The Boys." How can you not like these Vikings?

I think you are being very selfish. Eric Oyno, the Norwegian CEO of Aktive Kapital who bought up Portfolio Management Solutions [PMS] in 2005 needs a million krone Christmas bonus. If people like you don't pay up, how is he ever going to get that new yacht? He's already getting embarrased by Ted Rogers' 200 footer.

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The debt, previously assigned to Corporate Recovery, a 3rd party collection agency, was obviously purchased outright fairly recently in a large portfolio of stats barred debts. For a debt of this amount and age, they probably payed less than $5, or maybe even $1 or $2.

AK/PMS has no legal avenues against you since the debt has been stats barred for a long time. The only credit reporting recourse AK has is to put hard or soft inquiries on your file to blackmail/ manipulate into paying; something which they do with everyone.

The limitation period for court action back then was 6 years which also happens to be the same period for reporting bad debts to credit bureaus. Were the debt less than 6 years old, AK/PMS would also have listed it in the "Collection" sections of the Equifax and TransUnion reports. But since it more than 6 years from when it originally went into default with the original creditor, it is forever banned from being included in your credit reports WHETHER NOT YOU EVER PAY IT.

Negative tiems on credit reports stay there for 6 years from the "date of last activity." See my Nov. 11 post on the above link for details on why any susbsequent payments will NOT reactivate the account on the "trade" or "collection" sections of your credit reports.

If, for moral reasons, you decide to settle the debt, because it is so old and stats barred, one should not offer more than 5% to 10% - or 15% at the very, very most. AK will swear up and down they need 85% and not a penny less. And someone there may even be stupid enough to tell you you've just reacknowledged the debt by attempting negotiaton, but it's all a pile of hooey. The most they can do is continue to put hard inquiries on your file and for this you have to resort to other measures (See my previous posts about hard inquiries and AK).

It seems an offer of $100 to $200 should be plenty to settle a dinosaur account like this. Aktiv Kapital (aka collection agency Kapital) operates in 14 countries, but their recovery ratio in Canada is the lowest of all at 3%. Seeing as how they probably paid $5 or less for it, anything over $6 would represent a profit.

Any further problems? Call their ombudsman, Lorie Roberts at 1 866 764-7688 ext. 2536

Ray