Link Finance hassle low morals

Fredolsen

Anyone heard of a company called Link (could be Link Finance or Financial) and had a problem with them.

My wife received a knock on the door from a neighbour earlier today saying.. sorry to trouble you but I have just had a call from some one called XXX who has asked can you ask your husband to call us as it is urgent to do with his health!

Well you can imagine my wife’s concern as I have jus recently recovered from a triple by pass and have been working away for a few days so… my wife tries to ring me but no joy as no reception on the phone so she phones this company and asks to speak to XXX and is told he has just popped out but if you give me your name and number (and address and date of birth) I will get him to call you back.

Wife though (hang on) this is not normal so she did a bit of positive heavy questioning and it turns out this is a company that uses covert and diverse methods to track people down who have debts by contacting neighbours and asking them effectively to take a message.

I googled the telephone number 02077932684 and found it belonged to the Link company so……


Be warned that the snakes and low life are still out there and NO, before anyone asks, I don’t have any bad debts just two heart attacks for working to hard.

Question I have for all the members is

1, can I sue this company for aggravation.

2, are these sort of tactics legal.

3, does anyone know if the FSO has received any complaints about this company.

Thanks

Fred

bankinsider

Debt Collection Agencies are registered and monitored by the Office of Fair Trading who publish a Code of Practice setting out what they regard as fair and unfair practice.

Agencies are allowed to contact neighbours to try and track down people who have run off without paying debts (its know inthe industry as skip/trace), but they still have to be careful over th emethods they employ. They normally cannot disclose that there is an unpaid debt (although two moonlighting or recently retired coppers turnign up and asking about your neighbours would be a bit of a give away!).

If you have details of the company I suggest you complain to your local Trading Standards (OFT).

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf

Fredolsen

Bankinsider,

Thanks for the comments, I understand that companies need to use various methods to trace people but I just thought this particular method was underhand given the grief and worry that it caused my wife.

Why cant they just call round the house or send a letter to the occupier? We get loads of letters for one or two people who lived at our house years ago and we just mark them as "not at this address" and return to sender.

Whilst I do not condone it, I can understand certain people may have a feeling of violance to such companies using these sorty of tatics.

I think if such people called at my house I would just let the dogs play with them (joke).

Thanks again.

Fred

Ms-Pacman

have a look at the consumeractiongroup.com forums. This company is well known for using disgraceful tactics. if you are sure you do not owe money you probably are right as companies like this buy olds debts and then use the name and date of birth to search for any possible matches.

Fredolsen

Hi Ms-Pacman

Thanks for that.

We got a letter from the company as a result of all this so I just put it straight in the shredder (best thing I ever purchased).

Fred