Never pay a debt to new details until you have verified who is entitled to be paid. Fake "your debt has been assigned to us" letters are a standing fraud, and money paid to the wrong party does not discharge the debt.
Claims management · Kyiv
Your creditor can change. Your contract cannot.
Fintarhet works with assigned claims: obligations that arose with one creditor and were transferred to another. If you have received a letter saying your debt now belongs to a company you have never dealt with, this page explains what that does and does not mean.
Assignment moves the right to collect. It does not rewrite the agreement — not the amount, not the interest rate, not the term, and not the defences you already had.
Step one
The original creditorYou signed an agreement with them. Its terms are set at that moment.
Step two
The claim is assignedThe right to be paid is transferred to another party, under a contract you are not a party to.
Step three
The new creditorSteps into the position of the old one — with the same rights, and no more than those.
The debtor's position is meant to be unchanged by all of this. That principle is the practical protection: whatever you could have argued against the first creditor, you can normally argue against the second.
Two lists
What stays the same — and what genuinely changes
Unchanged
The principal, the rate and the schedule agreed originally
Your rights and defences under the original contract
Any dispute you already had about the sum or the service
Time limits that were already running
The obligation itself — it does not grow because it moved
Changes
Who you pay, and to which bank account
Who you contact about the account
Who must answer your written questions
Who appears if the matter reaches a court
Who holds your personal data for this purpose
A new creditor cannot add charges the original agreement did not provide for. If the sum demanded is larger than the arithmetic of your own contract supports, ask for the calculation in writing, line by line, and do not pay until you have it.
If you receive an assignment notice
Five steps, before paying anything
Letters of this kind are also forged, with real company names and altered bank details. The verification below costs nothing and protects you against both mistakes and fraud.
1
Ask for documents, in writingConfirmation that the claim was assigned, identifying your agreement. You are entitled to know on what basis somebody is demanding money.
2
Check the company in the public registersThe legal entity and, where the activity requires it, its authorisation with the National Bank of Ukraine. A company nobody can find is not a creditor.
3
Contact the original creditorThrough the contacts you already have — not the ones in the letter — and ask whether the claim was in fact assigned and to whom.
4
Ask for the calculationPrincipal, interest, any penalties, with dates. Compare it against your own agreement before you accept any figure.
5
Pay only to a company account, and keep proofNever to a card or a private individual. Keep every receipt: proof of payment is what closes a matter years later.
Conduct
How a claim should be handled
Recovering a debt is lawful. Pressure, threats and disclosure of somebody's affairs to their relatives, neighbours or employer are not, and in Ukraine the treatment of debtors by financial companies and collection businesses is regulated and supervised.
Reasonable
Written notice identifying the agreement and the sum
Contact at reasonable hours, in a reasonable manner
A calculation provided on request
Discussion of a realistic payment arrangement
Court proceedings where nothing can be agreed
Not acceptable — complain
Threats of any kind, or pressure through third parties
Telling your employer, family or neighbours about the debt
Repeated calls at night or in unreasonable volume
Demanding sums the agreement does not support
Requests to pay a private card or wallet
Complaints go somewhere. Conduct by a financial company can be raised with the National Bank of Ukraine as regulator; threats are a matter for the police. Keep a log of dates, times, numbers and what was said — a complaint with records is treated very differently from one without.
Questions
Asked regularly
i.Do I have to agree to my debt being sold?
As a rule, assignment of a monetary claim does not require the debtor's consent, though the agreement itself may say otherwise. What does matter is that you are properly notified — until then, payment to the original creditor is normally still good.
ii.Can the new creditor increase the interest?
Not beyond what the original agreement provides. They acquired the claim as it stood. Ask for the calculation and check it against your contract.
iii.I already paid the original creditor.
Then say so in writing and attach the proof. This is precisely why payment records should be kept for years after an account closes.
iv.I dispute the debt entirely.
Say so in writing, state why, and ask for the documents on which the claim rests. A dispute does not disappear because the claim changed hands, and it is better recorded early than raised late.
v.Can I settle for less?
Sometimes a payment arrangement or a settlement is possible. Get any agreement in writing before paying, including confirmation of what happens to the remainder, and keep the document.
Contact
Write to us — and keep the copy
Written correspondence is better for both sides. Payments are accepted only to the company's own bank account, never to a card or an individual.