BPO collections - Unknown debt?

ormester · 4 August 2012 at 11:47AM

Suprise suprise just had a letter for my wife from this company stating its final reminder for a t mobile bill that was thought to be paid off in 2006 suddenley get a letter saying she owed 64 pound .She rang them up and they were nasty saying she owed the money but as its so long ago theres no record of the bill when she asked them for proof he was very vague just sayng she owed the money .She did some digging to find out about it rang them back she was called a liar which will be complained about .

sofababe · 4 August 2012 at 3:06PM

I have never heard of a Council using a DCA for unpaid CT. The procedure is 1. Letters from the Council, 2. Council apply to the local Court for a Liability Order, 3. Council send you LO and ask for payment, 4. If you still haven't paid the Council will use their appointed bailiff to collect the money on their behalf. The whole process usually takes a matter of a few months, not 8 years.

My advice to all would be contact the Council involved to find out if the debt is real, and get copies of the relevant bills and (very important!!) the LO from the court.

samwillie09 · 12 November 2012 at 12:27PM

My husband and I ended up dealing with scott and co due to council tax debt which we ended up with when my husband was made redundant.

In 5 month from may to now we have paid of £1125 of the debt that was sent to Scott and Co and we only had 600 left to pay. We could not sign up to a payment plan with them as my husband works agency and isn't sure whether he will be in a job from one week till the next (he has had 7 jobs in 5 months) and we explained this to them when we first contacted them regarding the debt, they said they where quite happy for us to call up and pay it when we could but they couldnt stop further action so we were aware of this, until last Friday when we called Scott and Co to pay another payment to them and the woman was cheeky, abrubt and quite rude, she said at the end of the call after myself explaing why we couldn't set up a payment plan due to my husband being told he only had a week left in that employment she said "well thats up to you" and hung up the phone. We advised that woman during the call that we would be calling back the next Friday to make another payment but she still wasn't any help or very nice as she was only interested in this payment plan. Then on Friday morning we got an arrestment of earnings schedule through the post and it had just over £140 worth of charges added on, it was too late to call them on Friday when I got this letter so I had to wait until this morning, I called them and was on the phone to them for an hour, an 0845 number! I said that we were quite happy to pay off the £600 today that we owed but we were not willing to pay these new charges as they were unfair as we have always been intouch with them and kept them up to date when my husband was out of work and we couldn't pay, and when we could pay what date we could make the payment, I explaned to them we couldn't afford these charges on to of the money we owed as my husband was paid off on Friday, I have just got out of hospital after loosing my baby to an ectopic pregnancy which resulted in me having surgery which ment that Ive been out of work for a month and a half so I have no wage as I dont get sick pay or even statutory sick pay and that the only income is my husbands second job where he hardly gets any hours and his monthly wage is no more than £300 per month.

They said they could not take the charges off, I asked who could and he couldn't give me an answer, I also asked if I could have a copy of the recordings of every call I have made as well as the notes on my account of every call, he also said that he couldn't do that.
I explained that we may not have been able to pay every month but the payments we did make have covered more than a monthly payment.

Our first payment to them in the middle of May was £350
Then in June £700
Then in August £100
Then again at the Start of this month the 2nd Nov

My question is - How can we get them to remove these new charges?? No one hand delivered that letter so they can't surely charge us for that and how can they send out that letter in the first place when just 4 working days before hand we made a payment to them of £100! Please can someone help

Thanks

MollyMutkin · 7 May 2013 at 2:10PM

I've just received one of these bpo Collections letters.

The name it's addressed to (Mr Shane ********) I've never heard of, just a small coincidence the surname is the same as my maiden name (Ive been married nearly 15 years). We've lived at our adddress 2.5 years now and no previous owner with the same addressed surname.

The debt is for £81.78 to JD Williams, think its an online fashion site? I'm going to ignore the letter for now.

Westy58 · 9 May 2013 at 2:14PM

Strangely enough I too have today received one of these letters for somebody I have never heard of.

Even stranger, the named person has the same maiden name as my wife !!!! What are the chances !!

Letter states the debt is over £1000 but if I pay now they will accept £250.

WATCH OUT THERES A CON ABOUT.

MollyMutkin · 9 May 2013 at 2:30PM

Westy58 wrote: »

Strangely enough I too have today received one of these letters for somebody I have never heard of.

Even stranger, the named person has the same maiden name as my wife !!!! What are the chances !!

Letter states the debt is over £1000 but if I pay now they will accept £250.

WATCH OUT THERES A CON ABOUT.

ooerr, that is a coincidence! Are you going to ignore it, like me? By my reconing, based on the previous posts, we should receive a further letter in about a week?

igaffney88 · 27 May 2013 at 6:23PM

Hi,

Has anyone heard anymore from this company? More letters etc?
My girlfriend has received a letter to my address (we live separately) saying she owes GCC £201 presumably for council tax. She doesn't live at this address so therefore should not be paying council tax, and myself and my flatmate already have council tax exemption as we are students. Has anybody any thoughts? My initial one is that this is some sort of scam? I have no idea how they have matched her name to my address??

Thanks

Lily2508 · 22 July 2013 at 6:30PM

fermi wrote: »

First make them prove what it is.

Once you do, you can they work out if it is time barred etc. Depending on what exactly it is and what jurisdiction and enforcement would need to be taken under.

Could you link me to the 'Prove it' template please
Thank you

ESDesignisms · 18 September 2013 at 7:44PM

I too got a letter claiming I had an outstanding debt of a few hundred pounds payable to BT from over two years ago. I contacted BT who said I owed no money. In fact when my account was closed, they had credited me money and they would have had no reason to pass the matter to a debt collection agency. They also said I could use the email as proof that no debt was due.

When I contacted BPO with this information they refused to look at the email and continued to insist I owed almost £300. Are this company just total con merchants?

I'm not fancying a doorstep visit which is what they're saying they will do next. Who do I contact now to stop them harassing me for a non existent debt? How did they get my name in the first place? They did mention in the phone conversation where they refused to accept BT's own assertion that no debt was due that it must be owing because the debt had been sold to them. I ended the call at that point by saying any further communication must be in writing and I was ending the phone call.

I pity the number of people who must be paying them. What is the best procedure now to help stop them from fraudulently getting money out of other people?