Lowell Financial

laudo

I sent them a statute barred letter 2 weeks ago to Lowell Financial, today I got a reply to that letter from RED, with the same ref. no.

What I want to know is, is this allowed? I know that they are both "in bed" together.
Have any rules been breached there?

Also they state that account is now on hold and they will respond asap, is there a time limit? How long should I expect it to take them?


Thanks

DarkConvict

Only one debt collector is allowed to chase the debt at one time.
http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf
2.6 c. using more than one debt collection business at the same time
resulting in repetitive and/or frequent contact by different parties


Unfortunately, There is no time limit for them to respond. All they have to do is stop chasing you for the debt, but it is in their interest to respond quickly incase it is not statute barred but is very close.

laudo

So thats them broken the rules already? Its my 1st contact with RED.

Its well statute barred, back to 2000/01

DarkConvict

It depends, has the original creditor sent 2 different DCAs to collect, or have lowell passed it on without telling you.
e. not informing the debtor when their case has been passed on to a
different debt collector


Re-reading your first post, has RED demanded payment, or have they just said the account is on hold? If they have only said its on hold its likely it could just be the department that was tasked to deal with the SB inquiries that day since both DCAs are one. And they are just responding to your letter.

fermi

Red is a "trading style" of Lowell, so they probably aren't technically using two firms at the same time.

Rightly or wrongly, the OFT seems to allow skirting the rules like that.

Last time I saw one, a letter from Red said something in small print somewhere that "Red Collections is a trading style of Lowell Portfolio" anyway.

laudo

it looks like the latter. cheers

laudo

Well, after the letter from "Red" saying no more contact from them while they investigate whether it is indead time barred, and low and beyhold I get a letter from Lowell giving me the opportunity to pay in 3 installments, or a fixed monthly sum or a reduced one off full and final settlement.

Is that them beaten now?

fermi

Maybe not quite.

Follow up letter to send by RECORDED DELIVERY here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=10477981#post10477981



With the later result.

leedspete wrote: »

got a letter from red debt confirming that my debt is indeed statute barred and that they will not be attempting to recover any debt for capital one account.i would just like to thank all of the help that this website gave me and also the fantastic letters you helped me write many thanks pete

laudo

Excellent, I like it, many thanks

franwh

once you have informed them that you will not be paying because the debt is statute barred, they are then committing an offence if they still ask for payment. Inform them of this and things will stop; Debt companies hate people having knowledge

laudo

When will these companies ever learn?