debt chasing by Lowell Portfolio / Mackenzie Hall help needed!

tomgdhp

Hey there,

I am hoping for some advice! I have just received a letter from Lowell Portfolio / Mackenzie Hall debt collectors saying i owe £30 from a mobile phone contract from over 3 years ago with 3G.

I've done some research on these guys and they seem pretty shady specialising in collecting very old / unrecoverable debts. I have a good credit rating and have never defaulted on anything. This 'debt' is incorrect as i do not owe anything to 3G (everything was paid via direct debit) but judging by some of the posts i've already seen this doesn't seem to make much difference to them.

I called them and they basically couldn't tell me anything besides they believe i owe this money. I simply said whilst i used to have a contract with 3G i don't recognise the debt and would like more info so they can remove it from their systems. I've got to remortage my flat in the coming months and could really do without some sharky company putting any incorrect black marks on my file.

I've found a couple of templates for letters i could use but wandered if there is a correct course of action i should take to resolve this? I don't intend on calling them again. Also as this is 3 years old i don't have the protection of it being > 6 yrs when it would be staturarily written off (so i gather anyway).

Help please!!

Sammy_Girl

Hi Tom,

I had the exact scenario a few weeks ago. Basically Lowell sent me one letter saying I owed £16.38 from 2004/2005 with 3G. I tried calling them but no answer on the phone so I left it. I too called 3G who were no use whatsoever. Then when I checked my Equifax report, Lowell had slapped on a default!! What was also very fishy was that I had a copy of the report from June 2008 which showed the 3G account as having no missed payments, settled and an outstanding balance of £0.00. What was even fishier is that the same month Lowell slapped on a default under their name, the 3G account had been removed!!!

So I sent an extremely strongly worded letter to Lowell with a copy of that report, threatening to report to them to the Office of Fair Trading and Information Commission if they did not remove the default. Got a letter back off them 2 weeks later saying that their client was taking a "commercial review" and will take no further action, and they have now removed the default.

I have since received another letter from Buchanan, Clark & Wells that was sent to my parents house (where I haven't lived for 6 or 7 years) chasing the same bloody alleged debt!! Last week I fired another letter off to them, citing the same reasons as the previous letter, and added in reporting to the police for "harrassment" and "obtaining money by deception". Their letter was dated 5 days after the Lowell one confirming the removal of any action. Haven't heard anything yet, and if I don't I will be taking the matter further.

This infuriates me sooooo much. If I owed the £16 I would pay up, but I know that the mobile contract was ended within the t&cs of the contract and that there was no outstanding amount due.

Sorry for the lengthy post but I'm getting worked up again lol. Bloody sharks!!