Jack Russell debt collection agency

sarahs999

My DH adn I ran a small magazine business in our spare time; it was very successful but we sold it as we didn't have time for it in the end. There were a load of outstanding debts that we couldn't round up, so we employed Jack Russell debt agency to get them for us.

Over a year later, and we have yet to recieve any payments from them. I know they only managed to get £500 out of the £5k we were owed, but they won't even pass that on. I must have called, written, emailed, pestered, 40 or 50 times, and no response. So I've given up in the end. It makes me furious as we are now scraping to get by and even a couple of hundred would help us. So AVOID them!

hippyadam

Ouch... Some people eh?

If you didnt sell the debt to them you can always try another agency. In fact you could probably get another agency to chase your £500...

But then you may just want to forget about the whole thing... If you dont PM me i may have a suggestion for you...

brightonman123

did you have a formal contract with them? any time scale for notifying/fowarding payments?

may be worth checking (if ltd co) still trading, do a final demand by recorded del AND 1st class stamped post (in case they refuse r/del..), then whack in county court claim online.

this may affect their licence, if any.

hollydays

Was the debt collected on the no collection no fee basis?
there seem to be a number of these offices.
What are they saying when you ring them?
Have you had some other disagreement with them?
Which branch was it?

(Edit 2016)
Court judgement won against jack Russell debt collection and legal process servers limited
http://scorpioenterprises.co.uk

giggity

Is it worth making a complaint to the OFT?

sarahs999

Spinaache, that's really interesting. You're the first person I've found who's had thesame problem.

To be honest, the reason I haven't gone further is the lack of documentation. I only have one letter from them that shows we ahd any kind of formal relationship, where they are trying to get me to send them money so they can apply for a court case on a company that owed us £1,000 or so. I refused to send them any money on the not unreasonable basis that they were supposed to be collecting money for me and I hadn't seen a penny.

THe original deals that I had with my advertisers were done over the phone or by email, and often when people renewed it was just through a phonecall, so I don't necessarily have any track of it, except in my own ledger, whcih doesn't prove anything.

With jack russell I kept insisting on a written contract and as far as I can remmeber nothing came up - however they pestered me day and night to send the details of our clients so they coould start work. I knew at the time this was dodgy but I had literally run out of time to be able to chase the advertisers myself, and we had sold our business as we could no longer give the time to it to run it properly. We desperately needed someone to chase those debts for us and out of all the places we looked at Jack RUssell seemed the least crap.

To be honest I've given up, which is of course what they want. Normally I would fight tooth and nail for this, but the chances of this going to court and me winning are slim, and as they only ever manged to collect £500 (they reckon £200, which is not what they said originally) out of £5,000, I just can't be bothered. I looked at OFT but I don't really know where to start with it. I would like to give Jack RUssell a shake up, but where to start?

sarahs999

hollydays wrote: »

Was the debt collected on the no collection no fee basis?
there seem to be a number of these offices.
What are they saying when you ring them?
Have you had some other disagreement with them?
Which branch was it?

1. Yes, we pay them a percentage of any debt they collect.
2. We get a load of flannel. They have archived our case as I told them I no longer wante dthem to work for us, but of course ahve also failed to send us the outstanding monies. The cheque's in teh post, teh cheque's ready for dispatch, our finance department have had trouble sending out mail this month, bs bs bs.
3. No other disagreeement.
4. I didn't realise there was more than one branch. I just rang the main number and was assigned someone called Trish, given a mobile phone number for her.

I realise of course how dodgy it all sounds but then aren't debt collection companies all fairly dodgy by nature?

mrsyeboah

I cannot beleive that I have already sent this company a cheque for £85.00 re county court judgement luckily the cheque was made payable to HMCS (Her Majesty's Court Services) and not Jack Russell.

They are now asking for £224.25 to be made payable to them to pursue the county court judgment obtained! I quote 'this is to enable us to instruct High Court Sheriffs to either collect the debt or seize goods to the value of the debt. This is a method we have successfully employed in securing payment for other clients'.

I am so glad that I came across this thread - I have sent them an email refusing to pay and asking for a contract etc. I also want to know why we are having to pay when it is based on a 'no win no fee contract'.

I will let you know what happens - any ideas on what I should do next?

oldone_2

I am now waiting with bated breath for a first time poster to post that they have used this debt collecting agency, and they are the best thing since sliced bread.:D

Jack_Russell

JACK RUSSELL would like to respond to your comments to say that we are extremely concerned regarding an accusation that monies have not been passed on to you. We have investigated this case and found that a cheque sent to you was returned to us in the post. Also since reading these comments we have written again and our letter has been returned, we are also not getting any response to email. Please would you contact us so that this matter may be resolved immediately?

dacouch

Jack_Russell wrote: »

JACK RUSSELL would like to respond to your comments to say that we are extremely concerned regarding an accusation that monies have not been passed on to you. We have investigated this case and found that a cheque sent to you was returned to us in the post. Also since reading these comments we have written again and our letter has been returned, we are also not getting any response to email. Please would you contact us so that this matter may be resolved immediately?

What a load of carp, how can you say this when you have no idea who the customer is from their username on an internet forum.