Buchanan clark & wells??

I'd like to have some fun trolling these numpties. Any advice/ideas as to how to go about doing so would be appreciated; otherwise I will just go with the advice given on here so far (ignore them till they send specific allegations in writing, then reply with a prove-it) and post the results here for anyone who might be interested. The story so far:

I received a text a while ago: "Could nist858 please contact BCW Group on 0844 571 4287 urgently quoting reference ********. We tried contacting you at 09:45 on 08/09/14." I googled BCW Group and realised that they were debt collectors - the advice given on various forums/threads to various others who'd received similar texts was that the texts were sent as part of a fishing expedition and were best ignored as calling the number given (or any other contact numbers for BCW) would confirm that the number they had was active and being used by whomever they'd named; this confirmation would probably result in a barrage of harassing phone calls, your details being sold on to other shady companies (for a higher price than they'd otherwise command due to them having been 'confirmed') and other such undesirable outcomes.

So I thought "Sod paying 5.5p/min (of which BCW Group would get a cut) to find out what they want - if it's that urgent, they can call me!" The text was thus duly ignored. After I later received a call from an 0161 number (details of this incident below), I went through my texts and found that the time given by BCW for when they tried to contact me matched with the time given in a 'You have missed a call from ... ' text. The number that the missed call was from was an 0141 number, given below.

I received a phone call a couple of days ago from an 0161 number, which I answered to a man with a Scottish accent. Now, had this call come from a private number, my defences would have been suitably raised; however, as the call was from an 'unsuspicious' number (especially as I live in Manchester) my guard was somewhat down and I thus unwisely confirmed that they were indeed speaking to nist858 when he asked if this was the case. :doh: Had the call come from a withheld number, I would have replied to his opening of "Am I speaking to nist858?" with "Who is this?" The benefits of hindsight, eh? The conversation was as follows:

Him: Hello, am I speaking to nist858?
Me: Yes, you are.
Him: I'm calling about Npower. Could you confirm your address please?
Me: Sorry, I didn't catch who you said you were?
Him: I'm calling about Npower.
Me: I asked you who you are, not what you're calling about. Though I would also like to know what you're calling about, but I'd like you to be a bit more specific than 'Npower'.
Him: I'll need you to confirm your address to tell you that.
Me: Well, YOU called ME, so if anything I should be the one asking you to confirm my details.
Him: I won't be able to proceed with this conversation untill you've confirmed your address.
Me: I won't be confirming anything until you tell me who you are and why you're calling me.
Him: Then I guess we'll have to leave things there ... or ... ?
Me: Sounds like a plan! *Hangs up*

Now, I'm currently an Npower customer, and have been since I moved into my current address nearly 2 years ago; this is the first place I've lived where I've been responsible for paying the bills. I'll admit that I am in debt to Npower, but the situation is not one where I could see them selling that debt to a DCA. The debt that I owe Npower is the result of my first bill being several times higher than I had expected and budgeted for - no errors or estimated readings, I just hadn't realised how thirsty some of my appliances are. I called Npower and explained that I couldn't afford to pay that bill in full right then; they agreed to a repayment plan whereby I'd pay them via monthly DD and they'd tack a bit extra onto my average usage to put towards paying off my debt. Since then I've been slowly but surely repaying that debt. I agreed to a renewed contract a few months ago and am 'stuck' with them till early 2016, so it can't be because I'm coming to the end of a contract with them and they're worried about me running away to another supplier with the remaining debt left unpaid. As I'm still currently their customer, if they were unhappy about the timescale over which my debt is being repaid they could call or write to me and say so and we could negotiate slightly higher DD payments, but I haven't heard anything from them indicating that they're unhappy about the current timescale of my debt repayment.

I called Npower yesterday (I needed to update some of my contact details with them anyway) and they confirmed that they have not passed my account on to debt collectors and there do not appear to be any issues with my current repayment plan. So what BCW wanted with me remains a mystery that I would like to solve, if only for curiosity's sake. Depending on what they say, I might report them (or whoever they say passed them my details) for breaching the Data Protection Act (Npower says they didn't pass my details to BCW and I don't have any debts which aren't currently being repaid as per original agreements - so the question is where DID BCW get my info from?) and, if they contact me by phone again after I request that everything be done in writing, for harassment. I have a couple of standard geographical numbers for BCW which I could try - if and when I decide to try calling them, I'll post the results here and on saynoto0870.com (they don't have any info on BCW yet) for the benefit of anyone else who wants to call them without lining their pockets.

I bet if I call BCW to ask them what's going on then they will say "We can't tell you that until you've confirmed your personal details for security." What I could do is say "Well, I've moved around a lot recently (this is true - I lived at 6 different addresses in the year before I moved to my current address) so I'll need to know what exactly your call is regarding to be able to discern which of those addresses you'd have on your system." They'll probably reply by asking me to give them ALL my previous addresses, to which I'll say "You asked me to CONFIRM my details, not PROVIDE them." If they still refuse to tell me what's going on, I'll give them a 'throwaway address' - I'll use one of the places where I lived for a short time with many others. If they've got an address for me on their systems already, it won't be that one because I didn't give it out to any companies because I lived there for such a short time that it wasn't worth the hassle. So, if they don't have an address for me already and they're asking me to provide it under the guise of 'confirming my identity', then I'll get to find out what's going on while they'll get an address that I was associated with for all of 2 months about 2 years ago in return. If they already have my address and are genuinely asking me to confirm my address for security then they'll reply with "No, that's not the address on our systems." And I'll at least know that they already actually have an address for me from someone/somewhere and aren't just 'fishing' for one. Depending on how the conversation goes, I'll probably then revert to 'send it in writing' and hang up. The only thing I can think of that might scupper this plan is if they tell me "It's regarding Npower, with the date of the case being raised being XX/XX/XX." Then I'll have to think of some reason why I wouldn't be able to tell them what my address was on a given date. Or they might say "We need your current address." Then we'll end up going round in circles like when I received their phone call yesterday.

If I can think of a way to steer the conversation such that I can get as much information as possible out of them whilst they get as little as possible out of me, then it might be worth giving them a call just for the jokes. After all, I've already 'bitten' their bait by confirming my name when I unwittingly answered their phone call. A few quid compensation for breaching the Data Protection Act wouldn't go amiss either if I can get it (doubtful, but it'd be fun to try). I'll update you all on how things go anyway.

The geographical numbers that I have and may or may not try out soon are 0161 314 0034 and 0141 562 2804. If I call these numbers, I will of course tack 141 at the beginning.

Received a text message this morning from "BCW Group" ... asking 'Emma Cantle' to contact them urgently on 08451110344, using the 'unique reference no.' that they provided.
My phone is a Virgin Mobile PAYG ... I've only had this particular phone & number for approx. 1 month, so goodness knows how they've got hold of my number. Furthermore, I haven't a clue who 'Emma Cantle' is ... the name isn't even remotely like mine, or any of my friends or family.
Naturally I won't be contacting them.

Long time no post on here. I had dealings with BCW (Got first letter last thursday) over a feircly disputed EE/T mobile account (Won't go into details) but bascially emailed BCW right away and more or less told them they didn't know all the details of the dispute and to get lost basically. Email today from them saying they not taking the account with them any further and it's being returned to EE. God I love toying with the DCA'S