DCA Letter without envelope through door

Gleek

Hi guys,

My mum is dealing with Marlin Finance as the debt collector for her Yorkshire bank. She received a letter from them this morning with a settlement offer (new year sales type apparently :rolleyes: ) that has come through the door without an envelope.

On the letter is:
Her name and address (obv )
Her account details/amount for the debt & who it's with originally
The amount she pays each month

Coupled with Marlin's telephone number I am concerned that it could have been used to mess up her account or in other bad ways.

I contacted Marlin and they "assured me it left them in an envelope" and must have come ripped out by a machine 'or something'. The letter is in good condition with about four drops of water/rain smearing the ink. It certainley hasn't been "ripped out" or anything like that.

Obviously it's hard to say what has happened 100% but I am concerned, especially as it has shaken my mother to think that however many people could have had access to her details and used them in some way.

An unrelated (sort of) issue is that many houses on our street already have ongoing issues and complaints with Royal Mail with regards to our post situation so that is playing on her mind as well. (we don't have a regular postman and only get our post when someone can cover overtime and end up sometimes getting weeks at a time in one go and lots of things tend to go missing/turn up far too late etc)

Marlin are going to look into it further and get back to us but I would like it noting with someone else for the possible Data Protection breech. Can anyone please give some advice on what to do next?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Tixy

As this is Marlin I'd be inclined to think they did send it out without an envelope.

Do you think it came via royal mail? obviously there is no stamp but is there a royal mail postmark on top of the letter? normally if there are no stamps on a letter then they ask the recipient to pay for postage - or return it to sender.

If you think it came via royal mail then speak to them and see if you can ascertain what would be usual practice for a letter with personal information not in an envelope and not stamped.

The alternative might be that marlin put it through the letterbox by a field agent. In which case they would have broken OFT debt collection guidelines - will find you a link -
http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft664.pdf (clause 2.6j specifically - and lets face it that clause will only exist if some DCAs do do this, my guess is marlin is one of them).
Mind you with Marlin its probably harder trying to find which clauses they haven't broken rather than which they have.....

Gleek

Thanks

It did definitely come through via royal mail as it came with another three pieces of post, nothing was there previously as I had just checked and sat down as the postman arrived. Looking at the condition of the letter I do also believe that it was sent out without an address too. It's folded in standard letter form too so the name and address are on the top - and the first visible bit after is all her details on the other side...!

I'll contact RM and thanks for the heads up. I have a letter in saying that I can deal with the account on her behalf and they've always seemed reasonably ok - but then I understand about the wolves in sheeps clothing with DCA's