The joy of LCS

bellerz

Hi everyone,
This is my first post on here as I am getting slightly sick of LCS civil enforcement.
I received a letter from them October last year stating I owed money for the property I moved in to in Feb last year. (I am still living here) Something to do with the changeover period of six weeks when you first move into a new property. I thought nothing of it so paid it.
2 weeks ago I received another letter from them stating I owed £312 from a previous property from 2010. When I questioned LCS on this they got in touch with Southern Electric/Scottish and Southern Power who stated it was from a previous property from 2009????? Apparently the debt had been transferred to my new property I was at in 2010 yet SE never asked for a penny and each time I moved house they were informed within a couple of days and never once was this debt mentioned.
Last week I called SE myself and questioned them on all of this. Apparently my 2009 debt was not written off and passed to LCS until May of this year. When I questioned why the debt for current property was dealt with last year the woman on the phone didn't have an answer.
I also asked why nobody from SE had contacted me regarding either of these debts and why had they just been passed to LCS, the lady on the phone said that reminder letters just get sent in the post, followed by final demand letters. When they do not hear back they pass it onto LCS. I explained that each time I have moved they have been informed pretty much immediately so why did I never received a letter from them when LCS managed to get letters to me straight away? The lady didn't have an answer other than "it must have got lost in the post"
I told them this was unacceptable as I have recently lost my job and cannot pay this bill when I have two children to bring up. The lady then offered to call LCS and have the debt retrieved back to SE to lose some charges. 10 mins later I get the call to say LCS wont hand the debt back over and I still have to pay their charges despite great protest from myself that I have NEVER received a single letter from them. LCS have told me that if I can only pay £5 which I have offered for the time being until I get myself sorted I have to complete an income and expenditure form. The only type they will accept is ones from the CAB. More money I am supposed to fork out to get myself to the CAB in the first place!

Rant over

Basically what is the best way to deal with this situation? Don't really see why I should have to pay charges on a debt thats 3 years old when I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. Better still can I get the debt written off somehow? (I know thats probably a no but if you don't ask you dont get right?)

Please help LCS are now resorting to ringing me at 8.45am and they also tried it Saturday morning. I feel if I asnwer the phone my language won't be all that pretty!

Tixy

Do you think that you likely did have a debt from 2009?

First I would stop calling them. And I would write to LCS with a prove it letter - which will ask them to prove that you owe the money (for a debt like this I'd be expecting to sell copies of bills and a statement of account showing what is outstanding).
Letter when you know nothing about about the debt - AKA "Prove it" letter
With the prove it letter include the info from the telephone harrasment letter.
In the meantime when they ring just tell them you have written to them and hang up. See here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=11571485&postcount=4

Then if they provide proof and you accept you owe it I would simply write to them and tell them that your current circumstances, and that you are not working means that you can only afford £5 a month. Include the first £5 and then ensure you keep up to date with those payments.

You are under no obligation to supply more info than that - and they cannot insist you use the CAB.

paulmapp8306

Indeed,

And a SOE is a SOE. There is no legal, or required format. It is simple a statement by you as to what you have comming in , and what you have going out. If they refuse to accept the info because it was not in a specific format --- well good luck to them if it goes to court.