Help!!!!!!

AndreGonzalez

Hi there ladies and gents,

I am hoping that I can get some advice on the following situation:

I am a customer with 3mobile and have een for about 4-5yrs now. Always paid my bills ontime etc.

I recently had a letter from a debt collection agency with ny name and address on it. Apparantely they have taken over an account from 3mobile in my name and address from Sept. 2003 and say I owe them £200 or so. Like I said, the account appears in my name and address but with a different account number and mobile phone number to the one I currently have. I have only ever had one account with 3mobile as far as I remember.

I wrote to both 3 and the debt collection agency stating that I did not acknowledge this debt and that they need to provide me with evidence proving that the account did actually belong to me, in the form of a copy of the original signed agreement or alike.

I have had no correspondence from 3 in the last 5yrs regarding this and I think to myself...why would they allow me to open an account with the same name and address if I still owed them money from another one?

I have today received a letter from both 3 and the DCA (debt collection agency) after 13 days of waiting. 3 state that they cannot discuss the matter further as they have sold the account to the DCA. The DCA say that they cannot provide me with the above as I would need to make contact with the original retailer and not £ in order to do this. They have also stated that even though I may not have signed a contract, I have agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions of the contract by:

a) confirming my consent to the sales person "3G Mobile"
b) by inserting the sim card into the hand set
c) by using the handset to make and recieve calls

How would these reasons actually prove that I (personally) did have an account with 3???

The DCA are now going to contract 3 mobile to request copies of statements to show how the balance was accrued and will forward this to me upon receipt of it. This process can take several weeks.

Where do I stand? How can they produce statements from 5 years ago?
Someone please advise what I should do?

Regards,
Andre

milliemonster

It sounds to me like the DCA is trying it on, they firstly cannot prove that you agreed to any terms and conditions without showing you a copy of a contract that you signed, you need to tell them this and write to them again asking for them to provide proof that you owe this debt, if they cannot provide you with this proof then they cannot pursue you for the debt

GeorgeUK

This debt is about ot be statute barred which is why it was sold to a DCA. It may not even be your debt.

If no payment has been made towards the debt for 6 years (5 in Scotland) and no acknowledgement of the debt in writing, then the debt is statute barred and unenforcable.

You are quite right to wait for proof that the debt is yours. I would just wait and see what they bring up. Not sure that 3mobile will still have the airtime agreement on file which is probably why they didn't try to seek payment.

AndreGonzalez

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies so far. Much appreciated.

Just a quick update...3Mobile tell me they cannot speak to me at all regarding this matter as the account has now been sold to the DCA. However, the guy I did speak to at 3 said that they only keep statements for a year but then tried to back track on what he said and says that he can't provide information like that.

This debt is from 5yrs ago. I am aware that after 6yrs they can't touch me.

I was told by 3 that the original contract was bought at a branch of Phones4U. I spoke to their customer elations dept. and they confirmed an account in my name with the same number but said that they only keep signed contract agreements on file for 3yrs.