Default Date Question

drewski

Hello and thanks in advance for your help.

I had a dispute with Orange regarding payments and unwisely in 2012 I told them I would not pay until the issue was resolved. The matter never got resolved and so I chose not to pay, and as you can imagine it came back to bite me in the.. I had 282.52 unpaid, plus they charged me 532.62 for the remainder of the contract.

Orange then sold my debt to a recovery firm. They acknowledge that the date I stopped paying was AUG 2012 however the defaults show as starting NOV 2013 with no prior history. I believe this is the date they bought the debt.

Is this correct?

Thanks for your help.

Drew

Tixy

No it is not correct.

The debt collection agents must use the original default date that Orange used on your credit file, they cannot change it. If you have an old copy of your credit report with an orange default showing that would be useful but if not you can still challenge it.

The ICO guidelines state that a default should usually be applied within 6months of payment ceasing. So orange should have applied their default sometime before Feb 13.

People have had success in challenging a default date and getting a creditor/debt collector to backdate it. Obviously to do this you would have to get in touch with them and they will then likely chase you for the debt.

drewski

Thanks for the advise Tixy

I will ask them to update it and see how I get on.

I have another question.

Now that the creditor has bought the debt, does that mean I can no longer challenge the amounts I am being charged by Orange? The original charges that I refused to pay were for Data usage despite being on an unlimited data tariff. They advised that when I started my contract there was a period of 3 days where this would not have applied due to the time in the month I upgraded. They stated the store will have advised me this. I said they did not advise me this and I did not think it was fair. They spoke to the store and again said I was advised this. I asked for them to prove this as there was nothing in writing to advise me this, but they couldn't proved any evidence. Yet they still would not remove the charge. So we came to a stand off and I refused out of principle to pay, stopped using my orange phone and told them I did not want it. I then moved a couple of times, but each time I did advise them of my new address. Eventually they stopped contacting me and I didn't hear from anyone until November last year. I actually thought they had dropped the issue.

So do I now have to dispute this with the debt recover company?

Regards

Drew