Don't know what to do????

Skippy08

Hi, my hubby received a letter 2 weeks ago from the same company with regards to water bill for South East Water limited. Upon calling them he was asked to supply his date of birth. he did this without me managing to stop him, as I do not see why he should give this information out as he never supplied it to the water company. I asked for evidence of the debt by way of copy bill, they would not supply this nor a contact number suggested I use "118118"! I stated as they were chasing us then they would need to supply proof. Cut long story short I explained that we have moved out back in 2005 and that this bill was nothing to do with us as dated after we'd left. They kept asking us to provide evidence of payment - very frustrating!

After speaking direct with the water company they advised they would look into this and call me back. Well first thing this morning another letter turns up from roxburghe stating....
"I am surprised to note that you have failed to respond in a satisfactory manner to our previous letter. Your failure ti take action indicates to me that you do not intend to settle your liability and therefore i shall pass this matter to our analysts, who will review the case" goes on to say more but you get the idea. Well we called water company again to find out they have resolved this and we're owed £80 credit which they have informed us they will send out a cheque, so great for us as not something we wer expecting.

We called Roxburghe this morning and because I told my husband NOT to confirm his Date of Birth they actually terminated the call and refused to listen to us. if you ask me this company does not at in favour of their clients and I do feel very sorry for people that may come across them who just pay up! needless to say I will be sending them a letter as well as South East Water to complain about the manner in which they deal with things. No doubt we will receive a further letter from them next week and i just hope they do not turn up on the doorstep as they are threatening to do so at the end of their letter.

moneymakestheworldgoround

I have a similar problem with AOL.

I stopped using the service in July 08 and rang to cancel. I was told to write in. I did ,but next months DD was taken. In fact I didnt realise this until they had taken 3 payments. I rang again, I was told this was an error and I would be refunded. I have to admit I believed them and only noticed in April that they had still been claiming the DD each month ! SO I cancelled my payment method and wrote to explain why and that the account should have been cancelled in July last year. I now have a DCA letter for April,May and June pyts.

Several things annoy me - I should have checked my credit card statements and I feel stupid !

My CC company said AOL is the worst company to do cancellations corectly. After an investigation, they have said I need to claim back the payments from AOL directly, and they cannot help.

AOL never sent an email, letter or phone call to ask for payment of April, MAy and June payments. They have literally just sent the account to a DCA who added on charges for a debt I didnt realise existed

So thanks for the letter posted on here, I will use this.

AOL complaints dept address is :

• Address to Complaints Management Team
• Graeme Nixon, Vice President of Member Services Office
• Date(s) of incident(s)
• Name of Member Services representative you originally spoke to, if known
• The nature of your complaint
• Your full name and address
• Your AOL screen name
• Telephone number

Where to send it:
c/o Member Services
PO Box 387
Southampton
SO30 9AL



Hope we all get a result !

EmptyPockets

Hi Guys,
I'm glad to see this thread has been of use to others, too... Well I sent the letters I was advised to send, and I have finally received a reply today. It says the following:

Dear Mrs ***

Re: AOL Broadband
Roxburghe Reference: ***
Client Reference: ***

Thank you for your recent communication.

However as we are no longer acting in this matter, your correspondence has been forwarded on to our clients with our request that they now attend to your communication and respond to you dierect.

As there is nothing further we can do to assist you we intend to now re-file our papers.

Yours sincerely,

James Cook

Administration Department
Roxburghe UK Ltd

... So, does this mean that they have 'washed their hands with me' and my 'lifestyle'?!

And, it seems their nasty, scary 'Head of Fraud and Investigations' now wants nothing to do with me and has passed me onto the more civilised Admin Dept hmmmmmmm

ice_fairy

Hi guys. Just found your thread whilst typing one of my own. I also have received a letter from a debt collection agency for £80.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1815931 (explained in more detail )
Could anyone give me some advice? it would really be apreciated.
thanks

lmclean100

EmptyPockets wrote: »

The most recent letter is as follows:

Roxburghe Debt Collectors
Re: AOL BROADBAND
Account Number: ...
Total Amount Due: £36.42

Your file is being reviewed to decide the best course of action to take, which may be either court action or a personal visit by one of my field officers.

In addition, I am obliged to inform you that you are now on a 72 hour notice, and therefore you will only have yourself to blame if you fail to deal with this matter prior to the expiry of this time.

The way you have treated this account is totally unacceptable and non-compliance after legal proceedings have commenced may require you to attend court to answer questions about your lifestyle.

Without any doubt whatsoever we can prove to the court that we have made every effort to resolve this unpaid debt and I strongly suggest you contact me without further delay.

Please note that in the absence of payment or any valid dispute we will pursue this matter - with or without your cooperation.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Butcher
Head of Fraud & Investigations.
Roxburghe (UK) Limited

... Can anyone see why this is so upsetting? I'm in tears reading this again, I don't know what to do.

Hi

I used to be with AOL until about 4 years ago, and I had the same problem as you are having now. I received the same letter too!! It was very scary.

Once I got over the initial shock and fear in the pit of my stomach, then I got mad, so I wrote back to them and told them that I would like them to proceed with court action and looked forward to meeting Peter Butcher in court, I also stated that I didn't appreciate the rude and agressive letter, pointed out to them that they knew nothing about me and my situation and they may have been writing to a vulernable person, how would they know.

I asked which court they intended to apply to and if they would give me an indication of possible court dates so that I could arrange time off work.

I received a letter by return from dear Peter, saying that they only took legal action as a final resort, and was I disputing the debt. I wrote back and and asked what debt? Peter (we were on first name terms by now ), wrote back stating it was a debt owed to AOL. I said that I still wanted him to proceed with legal action - this seemed to worry him. In my next letter, I asked him if he wanted me to send copies of the proof I had which included taped phone calls, emails and letters that the account had been cancelled and which confirmed that I did not owe AOL a penny, but I was now taking legal advise about taking them to court for harrassment and libel.

Funnily enough never heard from them again. This entire process took about two months.

Just remember they are bully boys, if you stand firm, like all bullies they back down.

Lesley

EmptyPockets

lmclean100 wrote: »

Funnily enough never heard from them again. This entire process took about two months.

Lesley

LOL! Thanks for posting this, made me smile :beer:

peterpan1709

I have been with AOL for over 8 years, and in June they informed me that my monthly rate would be increasing by almost 40%, from £12.99 to £17.99 after 21st July. As I am 10 months into a renewed 12 month contract with them, I phoned them to see if the price increase applied to me. The advisor (Tom) went to check with his supervisor, then came back and said it did, but that I could cancel the contract if I wanted to as they were increasing the price. I agreed that I wanted to cancel and move to another provider, so he sent me a MAC code and I am now with PlusNet at £11.99 a month. I phoned AOL back to ensure they cancelled my account and took no further payments, but the advisor (Jennifer) said I was still in contract for another 2 months and would owe them £25.98 for cancelling the contract! I told her exactly what the previous advisor had told me, but she said there was no way he would have advised it as it was not correct, and that the call was not recorded and there was no mention of it in his call log. Technically I have breached my written contract and I have no proof of what was verbally said to me. Where do I stand now? I am most annoyed by this!

EmptyPockets

I have just received the following letter from ANOTHER DCA regarding this matter... S.R.J Debt Recoveries

Client: AOL
Re: Internet and/or Telephone Services

Dear Mrs *****

Our client, AOL, has attempted to contact you on numerous occasions to arrange payment terms on the above outstanding debt.

As you have failed to respond to correspodence, we have found it necessary to make tracing enquiries for confirmation of your current place of residence.

It has been confirmed that you are in fact resident at the above address, and therefore we have concluded that you are choosing to ignore the repeated requests for payment. In the circumstances we are instructed that court proceedings should be issued without further delay.

In order to prevent litigation, your next action should be to contact me urgently.

I am confident that together we will be able to work out a payment plan taking into account your current financial position.

Yours sincerely,

SRJ Debt Recoveries Ltd

Should I send them the same letters I was advised to send to the first DCA? Should I actually respond to this at all..?

ice_fairy

Hi Emptypockets. You have received the same letter that I received over a month ago. This was followed by many arguments. Being harrassed by 4/5 phone calls a day and 2 more letters threatening court action. We are stuck inbetween Aol admitting that we don't owe them a penny and SRJ taking court action. They are not the slightest bit interested that we have given them a cancellation ref. All they want is money. I have sent a letter to the OFT about a week and a half ago but not sure if they will respond.we are not even sure what to do apart from let them take us to court so that we can prove that nothing is owed. I really hope you can sort this out because I know how stressful it can be.

EmptyPockets

Thanks, Ice Fairy

Someone said to us once that AOL were a real pain in the @ss to get rid of, and now after all of this, I definitely agree with them

How should I respond to this letter? Is there a template letter I can send them? I'm thinking I should send them the letter denying any knowledge of the debt and asking them to provide proof that I owe this money..???

I'm kicking myself that I didn't save the cancellation confirmation emails ELSEWHERE. I have used a relative's PC to access my AOL email account through the proper email software, and guess what, the emails are not there