Letter from Rossendales Collect

stujim

I recently received a letter from Rossendales Collect asking me to contact them on a personal matter. It has my name and a previous address listed,which I haven't lived at for over 5 years. I have no idea what this is for as nothing else is stated in the letter and afaik I actually know who and what I owe money for/to. Does anyone have an idea what it could be for? It can't be for council tax as I've had no problem there,and if I've had parking fines then they've always been immediately paid. I've heard some stories about Rossendales using underhand tactics

fermi

I think Rossendales Collect is their new(ish) normal debt collection part of their business, rather than anything to do with their bailiff enforcement side.

Means it could be for just about any type of old debt.

It's clearly a "fishing" letter though, as if they were sure you owed anything, or they were sending it to the correct person, then they would have given proper details of it in the letter.

I would be inclined to not bite, and just wait and see if they send anything with proper details of what they think is owed and who to.

stujim

Cheers I had already decided to wait for them to contact me again but was unsure what these people were capable of.

CIS

Rossendales Collect have been around for a couple of years and are debt collectors rather than bailiffs. Some Council's do use them to chase monies but they could be working for numerous different companies,

stujim

Got another letter from that Rossendales. They reckon I owe £63.74 to them. Apparently i owe money to arrow global,who are allegedly debt collectors (they mention this in the letter) so why is a debt collection agency working for a debt collection agency? It says 'if we do not hear from you within 7 days from the postmark on this letter,collection procedures will continue'. That's good,today is the 28th (the 7 days is up tomorrow). I'm sure i read somewhere that Arrow Global are actually Orange Mobile. As far as i know,i don't owe Orange any money

fermi

One debt collector often contracts out letter writing/contact to another. They claim it's done for costs, but the main motivation is to confuse and obfuscate things from the debtor. If the debtor is confused or thinks they have multiple people chasing them, then they figure they are more likely to pay to make it all "go away".

Arrow global are a debt buyer. They are not Orange, but they have bought up a very large portfolio of old Orange accounts to chase.

stujim

If this IS money that i owe to Orange (which i'm sure i paid in full) then the debt would be nearly 5 and a half years old. Shall i just send them a prove it letter?

stujim

i sent Rossendales a prove it letter about 3 weeks ago and received a response from them

"We thank you for your correspondence,the contents of which have been noted to file. We can confirm this account relates to an outstanding amount owing to Orange under the reference (number ommitted by myself)"

surely this isn't enough proof for them making me cough up some money? I thought they had to send me a copy of my original contract/bill to prove that i owe the money?

I'm not sure how to proceed as i know these sorts of people can start getting nasty,threatening all sorts of legal action etc (even though it's for a relatively small amount of money)

fermi

Just send the same letter stating that you require actual proof.

State that failure to provide documentary evidence of the debt sufficient to rely on in court WILL result in them being reported to the OFT and Trading Standards.

fermi

May be helpful to also email the complaint.

See: http://www.csa-uk.com/uk-members-list/details/123/rossendales-collect-ltd

stujim

Ok,thank you for that. i'll follow your advice and post any response that i have from them. I guess they sent me this latest letter as others have probably tried the prove it letter route too.