Debt Collection Letter received after nearly 3.5 years, what do we do?

amyspames

Hi,

Hope somebody can advise me -

My partner received a letter from a debt collection company this morning saying that we owed £150 odd to Orange, who he used to have a mobile phone contract with.

When he called them, they said that it was due to unpaid bills dated 1st Feb - 31 May 2005.

He changed phone companies between this time - we called 02, and the contract started 11 March 2005, and we can remember there being around a 2 week period when he was paying for both contracts.

As it was so long ago, we can't remember exactly when it was closed, and how, but there is no way that he would have left it until May to do so.

We have always paid our bills on time, and we are sure that the payments were , but when we rang the bank, they couldnt retrieve any payments from the archive.

We think this was because he went to a bank / post office to pay off the bills with cash, as he never used to use his card very much to pay for things.
As this was 3.5 years ago, there is no way that we would have the evidence to show that we did pay the bills.

He did move house at some point in March, but would still have received the Feb and March statements, which doesnt make sense.

What can we do?

Thanks,

Amy and Ben

boredofbeingathome

Is there any transaction slips? You could always check your credit report for free and see if anything is on that.
It is worth sending a letter to orange and ask for a breakdown of what was owed and when, but check for everything else first..Don't pay anything until you have a full breakdown of charges,statements etc.
I am sure someone else who knows more about these things will be along soon.

Actually you can send a data access request for £10 to the bank and they will have to give you all your statements for the past few years..i think, you could do this to the phone company as well. I know you can do it for credit card statements.

GeorgeUK

They need to prove the debt is owed - you don't need to prove you made payments.

Write to them requesting a copy of the airtime agreement and see if they can prove that the debt is owed. Even with the agreement they should be able to provide you with a breakdown of costs and charges.

amyspames

boredofbeingathome wrote: »

Is there any transaction slips? You could always check your credit report for free and see if anything is on that.
It is worth sending a letter to orange and ask for a breakdown of what was owed and when, but check for everything else first..Don't pay anything until you have a full breakdown of charges,statements etc.
I am sure someone else who knows more about these things will be along soon.

Actually you can send a data access request for £10 to the bank and they will have to give you all your statements for the past few years..i think, you could do this to the phone company as well. I know you can do it for credit card statements.

Thanks both for your help so far!

When he spoke to the bank, they said there was nothing paid to orange from Dec 2004 - June 2005.
The fact that his Dec and January payments havent been disputed, but werent showing on the bank account makes us think that he paid at any bank, or at the post office or something, and just had the receipt back from them, which by now is long gone!

The bank said that it was £5 per statement, which is pretty ridiculous!

We will definately ring orange and ask for a breakdown of the exact amounts owed each month, and ask how other bills had been paid maybe.
This may help us to work out how they were paid, because we really can't remember!

Was thinking maybe the citizens advice bureau could help too.