Moorcroft Debt - Chased for £5.86 Admin Fee

skylight

Can I be???

I owed BT £23.42. I paid it last week direct to BT.

I have recieved a letter from Moorcroft today (first one) and it reads:

We acknowledge receipt of your recent payment of £23.42 against the above debt which we note was made directly to our client.

We would refer you to our recent letter which informed you that we were now responsible for the administration of your account and would therefore as you to contact us immediately with an offer of repayment.

Failure to respond to this request may leave us with no alternative but to instruct our solicitors to commence legal proceedings (blah blah, yours etc)
__________________________________________

So - can they? Do I have to pay the whopping £5.86? For an admin charge - and for what exactly - a letter I didn't recieve?

When I spoke to BT, there was no mention of the debt being passed (its a very new one anyway - very new - being weeks, from when I changed to Talk Talk).

So what should I do. I know the easy answer is to pay - it is only £5.86 after all (when compared to the other £37k!), but is MY £5.86 and they are not having this money from me unless I am legally bound to pay it.

All I can see is that they are "responsible for the administration", so they have not bought the debt, so they don't own it?

Or should I offer them 25p a month????? :rotfl:

Broken_hearted

Tell them to go jump.

THE_LONE_RANGER_4

ignore them

skylight

Okay.

Will do just that.

Cost them more to print, stuff and post the letter!

keith_lard

Tell them to get st*ffed!

You have paid the bill, they are just trying it on!

You dont owe them anything, Ignore them.

So many compaines are using these companies now! BT will contact you soon to re-claim you as a customer!

Tell them the same

---

GET LOST!!!!!!

skylight

Thought I'd get in a couple of quick thanks while the buttons back!!!

Harassed_2

Quote from the Office of Fair Trading on debt collection practices. If they write again, complain to Trading Standards about them.

It is likely to be an 'unfair or improper business practice' under Section 25(2)(d) of the Consumer Credit Act if

 Creditors or collection agencies fail to ensure that they do NOT recover collection charges in the absence of an express contractual provision entitling them to do so

 Debtors are led or allowed to believe that they are legally liable to pay such charges where this is not the case.

 Any ambiguity in the debtor-creditor agreement as to whether it covers a particular charge, or the permitted amount of the charge is not resolved in favour of the debtor

 Collection charges provided for in the credit agreement are levied at an unreasonable amount and/or are disproportionate to the main debt

Xbigman

I'd tell them to stuff it too, but is your credit rating a problem? If your credit rating was good and you were on a short term fixed mortgage, or you are tarting 0% cards to help clear your debt, it might be worth protecting your credit file and pay this pretty minor sum.
Regards


X

skylight

Xbigman - luckily I dont have a mortgage - nor am I a tart (of any sort) and my credit is so shot to pieces it will take major surgery to get it looking remotely healthy again!

So I will ignore them for the time being, and quote the above if neccessary.

Thanks guys!