ooh er...debt collection agency

torontoboy45

now, I know these people aren't bailiffs and I know they don't have any special powers.
they claim that I owe £90 (the 'debt' having been passed to them from a car ins.co.).

a quick summary.

my ins. co. 'rolled over my cover at the beginning of dec. (TBF they advised me of this a few weeks earlier). the 'rollover' failed because my debit card had expired. they wrote to inform me. I got a better deal elsewhere. matter closed, I thought. they wrote 2 weeks later to inform me that I owed them £70! I wrote back 'debt denied'.

and now I've got these debt collection clowns on my case.

can anyone tell me if this is going anywhere?

scheming_gypsy

Yes because writing back 'debt denied' doesn't work on a valid debt.

You took out car insurance that has automatic renewal and allowed it to auto renew because you didn't cancel. What you should have done is phone them and cancel, or phone them and advise and prove that you were covered by somebody else.
So the £70 is a valid debt because they were unable to take payment and cancelled the policy.. The debt is £x insurance cover and £x cancellation.

Your options are to phone the insurance and prove you were already covered and ask them to call off the dogs, or pay the money.

arcon5

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Yes because writing back 'debt denied' doesn't work on a valid debt.

You took out car insurance that has automatic renewal and allowed it to auto renew because you didn't cancel. What you should have done is phone them and cancel, or phone them and advise and prove that you were covered by somebody else.
So the £70 is a valid debt because they were unable to take payment and cancelled the policy.. The debt is £x insurance cover and £x cancellation.

Your options are to phone the insurance and [STRIKE]prove you were already covered and ask them to call off the dogs[/STRIKE], or pay the money.

not sure the fact op was insured elsewhere is relevant tbh. The fact of the matter is op didn't cancel the insurance, they did due to non-payment so ops liable for the fees incurred.

scheming_gypsy

it usually is as they will say that the policy holder was insured for x time. I had it a couple of years ago when I got as far as reading the renewal price and just stopped, so I missed the auto renewal part.
As they couldn't take the £1300 out (two cars), they tried again a few days later and then cancelled the policy and charged me £63. When i phoned up to complain they told me it was because it was auto renewal (all my own fault) but if i could prove that I had been covered for that period, they'd refund me the money. I gave them my Swiftcover policy number and a couple of days later the money was back in my account.

arcon5

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

it usually is as they will say that the policy holder was insured for x time. I had it a couple of years ago when I got as far as reading the renewal price and just stopped, so I missed the auto renewal part.
As they couldn't take the £1300 out (two cars), they tried again a few days later and then cancelled the policy and charged me £63. When i phoned up to complain they told me it was because it was auto renewal (all my own fault) but if i could prove that I had been covered for that period, they'd refund me the money. I gave them my Swiftcover policy number and a couple of days later the money was back in my account.

Seems to me that was offered at their discretion. It's absolutely a route op should take to see if they will write it off, but I can't see how this would form a defence legally.

torontoboy45

I should've pointed out that I wrote direct to the insurer one day after the renewal, cancelling.

I'm not in the habit of mailing anything 'recorded delivery' so I've got no proof of posting.

technically, the insurer provided cover from whenever they recived my notice to cancel (maybe 5 days) so I do owe them an amount.

but £70?!? excessive, no?

scheming_gypsy

arcon5 wrote: »

Seems to me that was offered at their discretion. It's absolutely a route op should take to see if they will write it off, but I can't see how this would form a defence legally.

not sure to be honest as I just phoned them and mentioned it and that i didn't renew because of x, y and z; he asked for the information as though it was standard procedure. although i phoned to complain I didn't get chance to complain as he came straight in with it.

scheming_gypsy

torontoboy45 wrote: »

technically, the insurer provided cover from whenever they recived my notice to cancel (maybe 5 days) so I do owe them an amount.

but £70?!? excessive, no?

sounds it, but if you were to take out 5 day insurance it'd cost about £100 and insurance companies can charge upto around £50 as a cancellation fee.

wealdroam

torontoboy45 wrote: »

technically, the insurer provided cover from whenever they recived my notice to cancel (maybe 5 days) so I do owe them an amount.

but £70?!? excessive, no?

You may find that if a policy is cancelled, an insurer will recalculate the premium due using their short term insurance prices, and then of course add on the cancellation fee.

arcon5

I'm thinking it was calculated as a cancellation fee of £55ish and the rest debt collection agency fees?

scheming_gypsy

The debt collecting fees are the extra £20.