Blockbuster "debt" being chased by Oriel

Glevum_Owl

Under UK law the burden of proof is on the plaintiff so once in court Oriel Collections will have to provide evidence of
1 - an outstanding debt including details of the specific goods / services provided to create the alleged debt, (these certainly don't appear on the email I received)
2 - a contract between Blockbuster and the defendant (us) (proof of an extant membership at the time the alleged debt was incurred and also the transaction leading to the alleged debt - see 1. above)
3 - actions taken to recover the debt prior to taking legal action (the email was the first I'd heard of the alleged debt so calling it 'final' and threatening legal action does not allow for exploration of all reasonable channels to settle the alleged debt prior to going to court).

This is little more than a brazen attempt to extract monies from ex-customers using FUD. Not quite illegal, ethically questionable but certainly immoral.

Ignore it.

BillyBunk101

I took some advice from my local CAB/Trading Standards team. They advised me to write a letter stating they were in breach of contract because I do not have the goods they are pursuing me for. Giving them the outcome I expect (i.e stop bothering me, and close the case) if they cannot prove otherwise & a time frame in which to do all this 7 to 28 days. They also said that although its tricky to prove I don't owe them anything the burden of proof is on them to prove I actually do owe what they say I do etc.

GEETEE_2

I checked this and other forums on advice for paying the meager £1.60 debt with my local Blockbuster.It seemed that general advice would be to pay the outstanding fee,so i did.On checking my bank account today Oriel have taken the £1.60 plus on a seperate withdrawal have charged me £25.00 on behalf of TFR.I was told the £0.60 was the only charge.What should i do now? any advice would be appreciated thanks.

BillyBunk101

Contact your bank immediately, tell them a payment has been taken without your consent. They should treat it as fraudulant and take action on your behalf. They may even put the money back into your bank for you while they sort it out. Lloyds did something similar for me when I had a problem once.

sian1001

They are telling me that I owe them £30 which is a nice round sum considering id not rented from them since they did the kids summer holidays special offer last year whereby you pay a fee and can rent unlimited dvds for 6 weeks. We only had one lot of dvds and returned them in plenty of time. But how am I supposed to prove that??

Glevum_Owl

sian1001 wrote: »

They are telling me that I owe them £30 which is a nice round sum considering id not rented from them since they did the kids summer holidays special offer last year whereby you pay a fee and can rent unlimited dvds for 6 weeks. We only had one lot of dvds and returned them in plenty of time. But how am I supposed to prove that??

You don't have to prove anything. It's up to Oriel to prove you owe them money. Ignore the email. See my previous post.