Tesco want payment after 2 yrs of a canelled account?

alexbe1971

Hi

My wife recently received the following letter

"We are writing to you regarding an outstanding balance of £42.51 remaining on your canceled Tesco home phone account.

This has been brought to our attention as a result of a recent financial audit of all canceled accounts

Please accept our apologies for the delay in sending you this notification but hopefully you will understand why it is important to us to collect this outstanding debt from you."

I find this letter a joke as my wife canceled our account over 2 years ago & when she canceled at the time she was assured over the phone that there was no outstanding debts on this account ?

They also warn us that if we don't make a payment with in the next 4 weeks they will pass out details on to an appointed Collections Agency.

That they should threaten us at this time of year when it is already a money struggle with xmas expenses is not right or fair & how far back can they chase outstanding debts?

Please can someone give me some advice on where we stand over this & what we can do about it ?

I look forward to all your replies

Alex

billsavings

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1182189&highlight=tesco+phone

Minky2Slice

Dont want to steal your thread, but after living in our flat for 2 years, we suddenly received a BT bill for £180 or therabouts.
Took me hundreds of phonecalls and hourse spent on the phone to them to explain that:

1) We dont have a BT line and
2) we never had a BT line previously!

They eventually promised me to put a credit on my account to bring it back down to £0. I refused to pay as they are taking a wild chance!
After about 6 months, we have received a bill from them saying we are in credit of £180! they have obviously in error put 2 credits on our account, so now they owe us £180!!
Well done, but im not going to ask them to pay it out to me, will wait and see how long it takes them to realise their mistake!

mum2

Hi,
Just had the same letter - for £20.14 - from the end of 2006! Like you I was very worried about the tone of the letter and the threat about a debt collection agency. It's not really the amount but the hassle and how many more companies could do this? I canceled as I was switching to another provider and Tesco didn't collect the last payment - their fault I would imagine? Anyway, I called up customer services and said how I was really unhappy about the letter/amount of time past etc. and the guy said he would write the debt off as it was such a small amount. He said it was a process they are going through with all previous accounts and it was a standard letter that got sent out. So just give them a ring and you may be lucky too - good luck.

alexbe1971

Thanks for all comments & advice as they will be useful to dispute this with Tesco Home phone.
We have recently had two emails from them saying that we owe them this money & although they have denied this they make out in the email that they would like it to be paid in full by the new year :mad:.
At last our complaint has been passed on to the right department & today we received a call from the complaints department saying that we owe this money from 25 months ago:mad:. We were told once again that it was discovered after a recent audit. However as my wife used to work in banking she told them that she cannot see why after we cancelled the direct debit that when they tried to collect the monies owed this wasn't flagged up when the bank bounced the debit & why weren't we contacted at the time?
It is not as we high-lighted to them that we aren't going to pay,it is just the way that they've gone about recovering this money after over two years is all wrong as people like us with a family to support or worrying about their jobs at this time of year are struggling to make ends meet and they really don't want to be receiving threatening letters like this.:mad:
We have only now been told that they don't expect us to pay it off all in one go. This contradicts the original letter & 1st email that they sent us saying that they want payment with in the next 4 weeks.Just like every other company chasing people for money they have no tact & are out of touch with the consequences that these letters can have on people:mad:.People have been known to end their lives in the past about letters sent like this.
Tesco Home phone have still got an appalling customer service & this confirms this:mad:.We have been told that they will pass our details on to a debt recovery agency in the New year & we will then pay them what we can afford.However we are still not happy with the way that they have gone about this & will inform the debt recovery agency that we are in dispute with tesco home phone.I am even considering taking the matter further & making a complaint to Ofcom :mad:
You really don't need this kind of hassle at this time off year what with xmas,the credit crunch & a recession:mad:.
I don't think the this the last we have heard from them & we have told that it as being brought up in money forums on the internet.

topherxp

As long as the charges are correct, bit of a !!!!!! knowing if they are after that long, a company could bill them upto 6 years after the event if memory serves me right.

AP

Merry X'mas to you. I wish every utility company gives me 2 years' interest free credit to pay my bill after I used their service. In the meantime, I will put the money into a cash ISA to earn some tax-free interest.

However, I agree that there should be no mention of debt collection agency as this was due to the inefficiency/incompetence of their billing department, not because of you deliberately withholding payment.