orange adventis debt collection

foodster

hi everyone.

need some advice on a problem with orange and adventis. my partner recieved a letter from adventis regarding a £400 debt with orange. first they had spelt her name incorrectly (jennifer), she has never lived at the address stated on the letter and she has never had an orange phone.
when she rang adventis they would only accept proof of address from the council, ( council tax dept) which we provided. now she's recieved a letter saying orange will not accept proof of address as she could have given a false address!
they are now saying if she believes a fraud has been commited against her she should contact the police and all information regarding that has to passed to them. i always thought it was upto them to investigate not the customer. ah well.

if anyone has any experience of this kind of thing i'd be very grateful if they could give us some advice as my wife is getting very annoyed.

thanks folks.

grumbler

I am no expert, but I am pretty sure that they have to prove that you owe them. You don't have to prove anything.
However, if you do care about your credit history that is likely to have been affected already, it's worth cooperating with them in some degree and possibly reporting the matter to the police.
Ultimately you want all adverse information to be removed from your credit history.

foodster

cheers grumbler. we've looked at her credit history using experien. it dosen't show anything regarding an orange contract or the address stated. none of the information adventis have (apart from her current address) is correct yet they are implying she commited used an address to obtain a contract.

Silk

You need to send a "prove it or desist" letter to the collectors

You should find a template on here in the Debt Free section
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76

foodster

thank you very much silk.

Jon_01

It looks as if someone has enough personal info on your partner to have opened an acc with just the address changed. That's why Adventis are chasing so hard (people do open an acc just before they move thinking they won't get chased!).

But as Silk says, they need to prove it was her or go away. BUT if someone has that much info and has gotten away with it once the odds are they'll try it again, so reporting it to the police is a good move...

foodster

Thanks jon01

cgk1

foodster wrote: »

hi everyone.

need some advice on a problem with orange and adventis. my partner recieved a letter from adventis regarding a £400 debt with orange. first they had spelt her name incorrectly (jennifer), she has never lived at the address stated on the letter and she has never had an orange phone.
when she rang adventis they would only accept proof of address from the council, ( council tax dept) which we provided. now she's recieved a letter saying orange will not accept proof of address as she could have given a false address!
they are now saying if she believes a fraud has been commited against her she should contact the police and all information regarding that has to passed to them. i always thought it was upto them to investigate not the customer. ah well.

The police will do nothing because the fraud has been committed against orange not against your partner. As Silk says pop across to the debt-free forum and use one of the stock letters.

foodster

hello again.
we sent off the letter asking them to prove it was my wifes debt etc. she got a letter back today saying they were going to disregard her reqeust and carry on with the process, so what do we do now? she sent the proof they asked for which they then said didnt count. do we goto a solicitor or just tell them to take us to court and show proof there?

Silk

foodster wrote: »

hello again.
we sent off the letter asking them to prove it was my wifes debt etc. she got a letter back today saying they were going to disregard her reqeust and carry on with the process, so what do we do now? she sent the proof they asked for which they then said didnt count. do we goto a solicitor or just tell them to take us to court and show proof there?

If it was me I wouldn't bother wasting any more time

Speak to the Financial Ombudsman 0300 123 9 123 or 0800 023 4567 and report them

They also have the power to award compensation to you for distress etc etc

Jon_01

What Silk says.

As I noted above, it appears as if someone has LOTS of very good info concerning your wife, and the proofs they requested have just confirmed what they thought. People do, do this and take it right to the wire (and beyond).

It looks to be a case of ID theft where the thief has so much info that Adventis can't tell the difference.

I'd also get on to the Orange Exec office. They are the only dept within Orange now that can actually talk to their fraud dept!
Ask them to review 'at the highest level' what action was taken by the fraud dept before the acc was passed to collections and most importantly review what proofs of ID were supplied when the acc was open (they can't give you this info due to DPA).
Also get them to contact Adventis and put a hold on any pending action until a review has been done.
Just keep stressing that this is NOT your acc and that it is a case if ID theft.

Let us know what response you get...

Email; executive.office@orange.co.uk

I had a phone number somewhere, damned if I can find it! I'll add later or one the regulars will whose more organized than me...