Mam was an agent for a catalogue, now they are saying she is responsible for the debt

Evilm

Umm.. since you haven't actually managed contact with the person who is behind in payments at all do you actually know they are even around? There are two options I can think of: 1) they've had a family emergency and have gone away to deal with that, 2) They have passed away (yeah, morbid I know).

Can you say that you know they are still around? Does the Brother in law still have contact with them?

I agree with the above that you should do a Subject Access Request and check what they hold on her (Although its possible they will claim that they lost it when they took over from the last company). Also have you had anything in the last few years (say 6 or so) referring to you mother as an agent? Specifically with this current legal entity?

What do the commission statements say? If they think its her account only why are they giving her commission? That to me says they know she's an agent and not a normal customer.

halibut2209

Haven't read the whole thread as it is too confusing for me!

But if she is getting commission from the company, I don't think that any judge would say she wasn't an agent, especially if the goods aren't even sent to her!

turn_over_a_new_leaf

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK wrote: »

It may be an idea to send a subject access request notification to them so you have a copy of ALL the information they have on your mam.

It will cost £10 fee to do. If you have a look around the debt free board you'll find the letter template on there. Sorry its late and I can't see straight to find it but maybe some kind poster will post it for you

Also the law regarding catalogue payments changed in 2007. This means you have a credit agreement with them regardless of whether or not you signed one, so the debt is enforceable in a court. It used to be prior to this you could take the goods and not pay as the debt was not enforceable if you hadn't signed and returned the agreement they send out to you.

Your mam's 'client' may be thinking along these lines not knowing the law changed and that it falls on your mam's credit rating not hers.

Either way you do need advice on this and one place to start is

www.nationaldebtline.co.uk they will be able to advise you as to which way to proceed with this. They may also be able to get any interest stopped if your mam has to go on a payment plan with them.

I am assuming that the £1000 of goods was taken out over 52 weeks, which means the payments without interest added on top are just under £20 per week. This so called friend is either very greedy without checking a budget or a very devious person who doesn't care what the outcome on another person.

I do hope you get this sorted out and the 'Friend' is forced to pay up one way or another, be it the catalogue company or the courts.

I really appreciate your advice and thanks for your reply!

I am busy through the day today but will have a thorough look through all of this tonight :lovethoug

edit: I just need to mention that without your reply I would have no idea what a 'subject access request notification' is! Don't worry about the letter template I will do some research and I'm sure I will find one!

turn_over_a_new_leaf

Evilm wrote: »

Umm.. since you haven't actually managed contact with the person who is behind in payments at all do you actually know they are even around? There are two options I can think of: 1) they've had a family emergency and have gone away to deal with that, 2) They have passed away (yeah, morbid I know).

Can you say that you know they are still around? Does the Brother in law still have contact with them?

I agree with the above that you should do a Subject Access Request and check what they hold on her (Although its possible they will claim that they lost it when they took over from the last company). Also have you had anything in the last few years (say 6 or so) referring to you mother as an agent? Specifically with this current legal entity?

What do the commission statements say? If they think its her account only why are they giving her commission? That to me says they know she's an agent and not a normal customer.

Thanks for your reply. We do know that the person who has bought these goods has had a recent change in their finances, and now has less money a week than they previously did. They are fine and still living at the same address. We have been direct family friends for over 5 years if there was an emergency would we not have been told? Or asked how we could help. It is just a case of them stopping all contact with us to avoid making payments (as they are quite high!)

We are convinced they think they are scamming the catalogue, but they are actually scamming us sadly they might know exactly what they are doing, without any regard for us.

My mam has sooooo much paperwork we have been looking through it all to try to find something that will help us. All we have come across is a receipt from 1998 that says 'AGENT'S NAME MRS XXXXXX' (my mam's name)

I will get my mam to look at her comission statements, and look more into why she receives it if they say she isn't an agent.

paddyrg

turn_over_a_new_leaf wrote: »

... a receipt from 1998 that says 'AGENT'S NAME MRS XXXXXX' (my mam's name)

I imagine the catalogue company staff are entirely unrelated to whoever accepted your mam back in the mid-1970's, and that the mode of operation has changed a lot in that time (including credit checks, etc - there were no credit cards to speak of in 1975, for instance!) As such, I cannot imagine the company can provide a copy of their paperwork over soi many changes of hands, and the agreement worked well for them whilst your mam brought the cash in.

Now, I imagine somebody is panicking a bit - they are trying to apply the current regs and rules to a retrospective contract/agreement. The fact that they have written to your mam as an agent sounds positive for you - at least it would show that the case isn't as black and white as the company are portraying, and make them feel jumpier about sueing? Maybe there is some middle ground here - if your mam points out that since 1975 she has put £xxx,000 of business through as an agent (whether signed up formally as an agent, or a de-facto one as I think all catalogue subscribers were by default back in the day) they will see sense and calm down?

Norfolk_Jim

Long ago it was very commonplace to make a little extra money acting as an agent for a catalogue. I did so myself as did my mum. But at some point there must have come a time when the catalogue decided to put an end to that arrangement. Have you asked at what point did the agent relationship come to an end and how was your mam informed of that change. I dont know if you'll get that in your subject access request but I would think it is going to be a key point in who is responsible for the debt.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

Norfolk_Jim wrote: »

Long ago it was very commonplace to make a little extra money acting as an agent for a catalogue. I did so myself as did my mum. But at some point there must have come a time when the catalogue decided to put an end to that arrangement. Have you asked at what point did the agent relationship come to an end and how was your mam informed of that change. I dont know if you'll get that in your subject access request but I would think it is going to be a key point in who is responsible for the debt.

She will if there was a letter sent out to her, and that is one of the main documents she needs to look for as well as the original proof she is/was classed as an agent.

She may have slipped through the net and not been sent a letter stating they were ceasing with agents, and if this is so it then becomes their problem as she has an extra weapon to fight this with.

InsideInsurance

I worked for a catalogue company back in the mid 90s which was at the cusp of them going from the old agency model to direct. Unfortunately terminology gets confusing when considering these things so if we say "agent" means the account holder and "customer" is the person who the goods are for.

Back then 100% of agents received "commission" on what they sold irrespective of who it was for. At that point the company no longer took any interest in who the goods were for and whilst the old green screen system still allowed you to allocate goods to a customer (customer 1 was always the agent themselves) within the account it was a functionality that was not used other than when dealing with bad debt.

Certainly my memory was that even back then the agent was ultimately liable for the full debt however if an agent phoned in to say that one of their customers had done a runner or couldnt pay you would then create the customer in the system, assign goods and payments to them and then send that customer to bad debt. The customer wasnt removed from the agents account but it was ring fenced whilst bad debt did their thing.

If bad debt couldn't recover the goods/ monies a commercial decision was made on if to write off the debt or to unringfence it and make the agent pay.

In my day true agents were getting increasingly rare and those that did exist tended to be fairly big and not worth losing. Certainly had a couple of cases where we did pursue the agent but those were mainly because we simply didnt believe the agents story (eg a woman who claimed her husband was the customer who had ordered all of the £2,000 of items and he had moved out overnight taking everything with him including the gas cooker and double bed)


The challenge you will have is the amount of time involved, the fact that most the call centre staff probably werent even born when your mum became an agent and the fact it is evidently going to take some time to get to the bottom of it which doesnt fit the call centre rep who's salary is dependent on them taking 12 calls an hour.

You could do a DPA SARS request but dont hold much hope, particularly if she has still been doing the old paper statement books (I cant imagine anyone still has been, we were forcing all agents to go to company produced statements bar the top 10% of agents). SARS only applies to ordered information and certainly in the 90s a lot of the agency info was being stored on microfiche purely by date processed order.

You may be better off escalating a complaint to much higher in the organisation where you can find both people less targeted on volume and secondly occasionally more concerned about loyalty etc

unholyangel

turn_over_a_new_leaf wrote: »

I really appreciate your advice and thanks for your reply!

I am busy through the day today but will have a thorough look through all of this tonight :lovethoug

edit: I just need to mention that without your reply I would have no idea what a 'subject access request notification' is! Don't worry about the letter template I will do some research and I'm sure I will find one!

A Subject Access Request is something you can put in writing to a company and by law, they need to provide all personal details they hold about you. They can charge a fee for this but they are limited to how much they can charge and they must provide the information requested within 40 calendar days.

You can find out more information about the Data Protection Act and Subject Access Requests from https://www.ico.gov.uk

turn_over_a_new_leaf

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I worked for a catalogue company back in the mid 90s which was at the cusp of them going from the old agency model to direct. Unfortunately terminology gets confusing when considering these things so if we say "agent" means the account holder and "customer" is the person who the goods are for.

Back then 100% of agents received "commission" on what they sold irrespective of who it was for. At that point the company no longer took any interest in who the goods were for and whilst the old green screen system still allowed you to allocate goods to a customer (customer 1 was always the agent themselves) within the account it was a functionality that was not used other than when dealing with bad debt.

Certainly my memory was that even back then the agent was ultimately liable for the full debt however if an agent phoned in to say that one of their customers had done a runner or couldnt pay you would then create the customer in the system, assign goods and payments to them and then send that customer to bad debt. The customer wasnt removed from the agents account but it was ring fenced whilst bad debt did their thing.

If bad debt couldn't recover the goods/ monies a commercial decision was made on if to write off the debt or to unringfence it and make the agent pay.

In my day true agents were getting increasingly rare and those that did exist tended to be fairly big and not worth losing. Certainly had a couple of cases where we did pursue the agent but those were mainly because we simply didnt believe the agents story (eg a woman who claimed her husband was the customer who had ordered all of the £2,000 of items and he had moved out overnight taking everything with him including the gas cooker and double bed)


The challenge you will have is the amount of time involved, the fact that most the call centre staff probably werent even born when your mum became an agent and the fact it is evidently going to take some time to get to the bottom of it which doesnt fit the call centre rep who's salary is dependent on them taking 12 calls an hour.

You could do a DPA SARS request but dont hold much hope, particularly if she has still been doing the old paper statement books (I cant imagine anyone still has been, we were forcing all agents to go to company produced statements bar the top 10% of agents). SARS only applies to ordered information and certainly in the 90s a lot of the agency info was being stored on microfiche purely by date processed order.

You may be better off escalating a complaint to much higher in the organisation where you can find both people less targeted on volume and secondly occasionally more concerned about loyalty etc

Thank you so much for your reply and all of this information! It seems like my mam has been under the impression that the old system was still in place...

My mam has been ordering goods every year for others through this catalogue, between £2000-£3000 worth. Because of what has happened and how it has been handled she will not be using a catalogue again when her balance is clear, and no more goods are being ordered from this point.

She has never missed a payment, or under paid, in her whole 37 years of using this catalogue. The customer service has been disgusting!