all i can say is that you were given VERY bad advice from your friends. you say "no fault of my own" but as soon as you realised or were made aware there was a mistake you burried your head in the sand, which has now resulted in probably being unable to apply for credit in the future, having a ccj - the original mistake was theirs but unfortunately all the subsequesnt faults have been yours. If they had made a mistake and underpaid you, you would have expected the payment to be made back to you. They have made (very) reasonable approaches to you, so they had no choice but to take you to court. There is no way of getting out of this. You will have to pay