Can DCAs not read?

Tootsie_Roll

sportbeth wrote:

I've never had a letter saying bought/sold. Do they have to offer that information then?

The requirement in law is for you to be notified by either the seller or buyer (not both) that they have bought/sold the debt. This is only in letter form not the deed of assignment which is often requested (I have no idea why!). So if you receive letters from a dca they will either state they have bought the debt and want paying or that they are acting on behalf of XYZ Lender (on the first letter only) and want paying.

It is often posted on here that a company has bought the debt and quite a lot of 'advice' states to ask for the deed of assignment, offer them a partial settlement because they have only paid 2p in the £ etc etc etc. Generally it is unclear if they have actually bought the debt or not but it is generally assumed that they have - the reality is that in most cases they are probably just collecting on behalf of the lender so check the first letter you were sent by each dca and most likely they will be collecting on behalf of the lender.

Annie_Fanny

Tootsie_Roll wrote:

Well on the face of it it seems easy, in practise though it is not.

Have you ever worked in a post room ? They get thousands and thousands of mail items each day all of which have to be opened in a secure room with at least 2 people present. At this stage the money is seperated from the letter and applied to the account number given (again for security purposes), the letter is then passed on to the collections area and (hopefully) dealt with appropriately.

Sounds like a totally cr*p system to me that is designed to benefit only themselves. It's amazing isn't it that a letter cannot be read before cashing any cheques. I mean that really is very hard.

ZTD

Annie_Fanny wrote:

Sounds like a totally cr*p system to me that is designed to benefit only themselves. It's amazing isn't it that a letter cannot be read before cashing any cheques. I mean that really is very hard.

It operates like that because firms have decided, rightly or wrongly, that they cannot trust their employees.

Makes you wonder how they would have coped when a friend of mine wrote a cheque for "10,000 camels".

One hump or two was not specified.

Tootsie_Roll

Annie_Fanny wrote:

Sounds like a totally cr*p system to me that is designed to benefit only themselves. It's amazing isn't it that a letter cannot be read before cashing any cheques. I mean that really is very hard.

Come up with a better one then for a high volume post room dealing with large amounts of cash, cheques and postal orders and I will pass it on.

Toto

But Tootsie, the person who eventually ended up with my letter is the person who replied to it. It really doesn't matter who had what in the post room, the person responding to my letter didn't need to physically see the postal order. On my letter it clearly said I was sending a £1 postal order and what it was for, so the fact that they replied with such nonsense brings me to my original question, which was code for... why do dcas play such stupid games?

Tootsie_Roll

Toto

But that's not the same person who opened the letter and banked the postal order. By the time he got the letter the payment was already on account. So he now has a letter which requests action (deed of assignment and original agreement) which he cannot respond to, firstly because you are not entitled to the deed of assignment and secondly because he will have to pass on your request for a copy agreement from the lender.

So he hasn't responded in the way you wish but then neither have you (you may not be able to, like him!). DCA's and lenders get these sort of requests all the time and I know this is not a popular statement but these requests are just seen as delaying tactics at best or attempts to try and wriggle out of paying completely and the sad fact is that most of them are.

So please don't take it personally you are clearly trying to sort out your finances in true DFW style but your letter was one of possibly dozens he received saying the same thing.