OH. MY. GODS. Complete shock at this list of DCA's

amosworks · 10 April 2006 at 12:30AM

Hi guys 'n' gals,

Now I've never posted my story/SoA or anything before because I started destroying my debt and saving money long before I ever found Martin Lewis. I gotta say though this is totally bitter-sweet as I could have done the same a bit quicker I think, but I'm glad I found all you fantastic people in the end :T :T :T

I ended up several thousand quid in debt which, for a young guy, is quite a lot of debt. After a few years of getting credit cards, it had all gone Pete Tong. So at age 22 I had my lightbulb moment thanks to other debt elimination systems and advice (I've mentioned the audiobooks before). So after that I really got in to sorting out all my finances and became interested in money.

Because I'd buried my head in the sand for so long, the mess that I inherited when I tried to straighten things out was really, really bad. I'd had so many letters threatening different things from so many companies that it was overwhelming, and I ignored everything. I've never thrown a letter out, just added it to one of the many boxes of paperwork that never gets looked at. When I say boxes, I mean big boxes. My paperwork stack was about 3 feet high!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So after the lightbulb, I started paying off debts to whoever was pestering me without much regards as to who they are or what it was for. I know I'm very nearly debt free but since finding you guys I've really been motivated to take the bull by the horns and actually document who I've paid money to, how much and so forth. So over the past few weeks I've been going through my paperwork boxes, sorting them out in to separate folders for each company, making a spreadsheet of who/who much/when and basically trying to document everything that's happened.

The main reason is I know I've paid a lot of penalty charges to lots of DCA's and I'm convinced money I've paid to some companies hasn't actually gone to my debt. Thankfully because I'm a total horder of paperwork and bank statements (I collect but never read lol), I can work out to the penny who was paid how much and for what but it's a bit of a mission. I'm currently writing to these people asking them for information to validate that 1) money I've paid them has gone to my debt and 2) they've not unlawfully charged me anything.

I'm at the stage now where I've written to most of them and have finally gone through all the boxes to come up with a definitive spreadsheet of all the DCA's I've ever dealt with. It took some effort, and I was writing letters as and when I encountered new companies (just 5 left). Now I'm done with the pile and my spreadsheet is finished, I'm a bit shocked at the result. Here is the list:

Royal Bank of Scotland (OD+CC):
Royal Bank of Scotland
Triton Credit Services
Debt Help Services
Westcot Credit Services
Unidebt Collections
Fredrickson International
Bryan, Carter & Co
Allied International Credit
Nelson Guest & Partners
Green & Co
1st Credit

CapitalOne Card:
Capital One Bank
ScotCall
Buchanan, Clark + Wells
Payplanners
Newman & Co

BarclayCard:
Barclays Bank
Cabot Financial
Credit Solutions
Mercers Debt Collections

TXU Energi:
TXU/PowerGen
Horwich Farrelly
Shield Collection & Recovery
Robinson, Way & Co

ntl:
ntl:
Moorcroft Debt Recovery

That's TWENTY SIX companies for 5 debts!! Talk about burying my head in the sand for a bit :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: Fortunately I'm nearly done and only have a small amount left on 3. I was just so stunned that to find how many times my debt had been passed on.

I feel like I've also paid so many penalties that technically I might have already become debt free, and after I conclude gathering information from all these companies about unlawful charges (and of course reclaim the money), I might finally be debt free on paper.

Is it abnormal to deal with this many companies or is this average? I'm slightly numb still - just the size of the list!

Chortle_2 · 10 April 2006 at 12:44AM

:eek:

Good lord thats a long list!!

I guess I am fortunate in that despite their size, none of my debts have ever gone to a DCA, so although I did the whole head in the sand/ignoring letters and statements thing, I never had any really nasty letters/phonecalls!

Well done on going through it all - that sounds like it was a mammoth task!! :beer:

Good luck getting the charges back!

tesuhoha · 10 April 2006 at 12:48AM

I'm not the right person to ask as my debt is shuffled around but never ignored and i am totally ignorant of these matters. However it seems you've got a lot of money coming to you.

THE_LONE_RANGER_4 · 10 April 2006 at 8:51AM

this i found,when i first started clearing the debts you paid one company the they sold it on or did they some of the companys were infact the same company

amosworks · 10 April 2006 at 11:16AM

Yes, that's a really good point, I did Companies House checks (http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/) on them and some of them have the same registered address so I figured that they are different departments (using different names) in the same building/company/parent company.

I'm sure all this confusion/smoke and mirrors/cloak and dagger stuff is part of their game plan. Goodness knows why? Fear? Control? Profit?

moozie_2 · 10 April 2006 at 12:36PM

Amosworks I was like this :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: myself after reading the list! Well done for taking the bull by the horns and sorting it all out. You are nearly there now and I will be cheering you on all the way :beer:

You deserve to feel very proud of how you turned your fate around. Yours is a very inspiring story.

PS Hope the rooster has an ordinary little cold and nothing more sinister

:rotfl:

Lewby · 10 April 2006 at 1:42PM

I really can't believe that there are is so much 'handing off' of debts to different companies. Fortunately I have never missed a payment on my debts, even though they are so huge! so I've never come into contact with a DCA but so many people do.

There must be serious money in debt collecting for all these people to be interested. Well done Amos for doing the paper trail. It might be worth making that list a 'sticky' at the top of the page for people to refer to as a guide to who they are actually dealing with.

Lewby xx

amosworks · 10 April 2006 at 2:43PM

Thanks for your comments and thoughts folks. It really is nasty out there. I'm currently having *major* problems with Cabot Financial (the most automated and thus worst of all) but am sticking to my guns. Just about to do the whole £1 for a copy of the original credit agreement thing, that should get my letter seen by a real person or they could be in some trouble

The thing with DCA's is they're like vultures, and not only do they fight for your money, they fight for the creditors business. Sometimes a DCA can deal with more than one company (although the creditor will have a preference and usually send accounts to just the one DCA), but it's open to change as DCA's open and close and financial winds change. I don't think a sticky list would even be relevant in a year's time unfortunately, it could all have changed by then, especially in such a cut-throat business sector.

I've now smashed my 3 foot paper mountain and have individual folders for each company. I've written letters to most the DCA's asking for lots of information (just 5 left for my initial letter). 2 replied saying no charges and confirm the facts they they no longer have my debt and payment(s) I made have gone towards the debt. About fifteen companies were sent a second letter again asking for the information as they never replied to my original letter in the 2-week period I gave them.

I'm currently mainly on the third stage (Cabot Financial being the "head" of all my action) and sending the £1 postal order and asking for a copy of the original credit agreement and a state of account. In a way, Cabot are my test case as they were the first ones I contacted and thus are further along than all the others. I eagerly await the reply.

Assuming that between these remaining 24 companies they all get the £1 postal order and request at the same time, what's the betting that 20 can't positively reply with the information they legally have to supply?

Stages:
[1] Sort out paperwork stack, separate folders for each company and send the initial letter asking for information as companies were encountered in the stack.
[2] Wait 2 weeks, if no reply, send the second letter stating the same.
[3] Wait 2 weeks, if no reply send the legal letter and £1 postal order requiring them to send me information by law.
[4] If no reply, then legal action and complaints about the DCA for breaking the law. If they do reply before or during stage 3 and their facts tally, case closed. If it turns out they have charged me, I will start a County Court claim to recover the money.

By the end of it all, I should be left with a complete paper and money trail showing what I've paid to who, and proof that all the payments have gone towards my debts. Additionally if companies have charged me, I will be reclaiming the charges and putting them towards my debts. This could mean maybe I have 20 or so legal cases on the go!

So far only 2 DCA's have written back saying that they never charged me, don't deal with my account any more and any payments have been put towards my debt. Another 23 to go! :eek: It's costing me quite a bit to do this, I mean not just the PO's but lots of stamps, envelopes, paper and so forth. I think chasing these down will cost me £50 in the end (and that doesn't include any potential legal fees in reclaiming unlawful charges). But I feel confident that it will pay off. I'm very sure the amount of money I've paid in charges is more than my outstanding debt still - not even including my big claim against RBoS at the moment.

Ahh, paper, paper. My best friend and worst enemy all rolled in to one :-\

aimme13 · 10 April 2006 at 10:23PM

wow!!! keep us posted on how you get on......payplan deal with my debts but before i went with them i too had one company after another, they just seem to pass it over even when u are paying it off....strange!....good luck anyway and hope it pays off

clairey_em · 10 April 2006 at 10:30PM

blimey amosworks, that's one hell of a list!!

but you've got to be commended on your efforts to sort out your debt, keep up your good work

x x

amosworks · 10 April 2006 at 11:31PM

Thanks again folks, yes I'm sending out letter after letter at the moment. It's quite relentless!

It is strange how they pass your debt around even if you do keep up payments. One debt was passed to ScotCall and they sent me 1 letter asking for payment. I setup a S/O then a few days before it was due to go out they wrote to me and told me that they no longer deal with my debt as Capital One requested the account back :-|

The payment went to them anyway and that's the last I heard. I found out from my housemate who works at a DCA that if you pay a DCA and they aren't collecting that account, the money goes in to a suspense account and doesn't get passed back to the creditor. Whilst they can't take the money as it's not there, they aren't also obliged to follow it up and repay you - it's up to you. Meanwhile they have millions of quids worth of payments earning them interest which they keep!! :eek:

OH. MY. GODS. Complete shock at this list of DCA's

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