Unfounded claim for payment by Orange

peter312

Hopefully I have put this in the right forum - apologies if it's in the wrong place.

I am hoping that someone can give me some guidance regarding how to deal with Orange. My partner had an Orange contract phone which she cancelled at the end of the contract, over three years ago. We have all of the old statements to show that the balance was repaid.

A few months later, a debt collection company called DLC wrote to my partner, saying she owed £233 on a completely different Orange account. We phoned and wrote to Orange and DLC asking for some evidence as to what this related to, as we could prove the Orange account my partner did have was repaid in full at the appropriate time. My partner is not aware of any other Orange accounts. Neither Orange or DLC could provide any information or proof as to this alleged debt and we heard nothing further.

Jump forward three years and we have now heard from a different collection company (Close) demanding repayment of the same debt. We have again asked for evidence of what this relates to but again, nothing.

DLC appear to have registered a default against my partner, even though they nor Orange can demonstrate what this relates to.

If my partner does owe this money, we would obviously repay it immediately, but she is adamant that she only had one Orange account and we can demonstrate that was paid.

How do we go about getting this default removed? Is there an ombudsman we should approach?

Many thanks for any help and guidance.

Regards

Peter

grumbler

Are you sure it was DLC who reported the default, not Orange?

http://www.bdl.org.uk/images/12_scot_creditreference.pdf

Complaints about credit
reference agencies
You have the right to complain to the Financial
Ombudsman Service about how a credit
reference agency has dealt with your credit file.
You will have to follow the agency’s complaints
procedure first. You can only complain about
events that happened from April 2007 onwards.
The address for the Financial Ombudsman
Service is in the ‘Useful addresses’ section.
You can also complain the Information
Commission under the Data Protection Act
1998. They can look at issues such as why a
lender or credit reference agency has not
corrected information on your file, or where a
credit reference agency has refused to add a
notice of correction.
The address for the Information Commission is
in the ‘Useful addresses’ section.

peter312

I'm sorry, I've just rechecked and it is Arrow Global who have registered the default. We've never heard a thing from them though.

I'm even more confused now!

grumbler

Some reading on Orange / Arrow Global