EE saying we owe money - sent it straight to debt collectors!

TheKeymeister

Hi all, we have yet again had big trouble with EE. A couple of months ago, my partner had her own phone contract, plus two sim only lines for her parents (via T mobile). When she spoke to them on an unrelated issue, she was offered to migrate the two sim only lines to EE, and it would be cheaper with more minutes/texts so she agreed. Before and after this change to EE, all bills were paid by direct debit.

This week we received a letter out of the blue from Buchanan Clark & Wells (debt collectors) regarding an outstanding balance of £28.80 to EE, which was now subject to an administration charge added by them. She spoke to EE and they said it was to do with a closed T mobile account (the two sim only lines) and the debt had now been sold on to the debt collectors and was nothing to do with EE any more, so we had to pay the debt collectors. Since then we have had two messages left on the land line from Buchanan Clark & Wells.

I contacted EE on my partners behalf, and like many others was astounded by the offer of being able to jump the queue for 50p. After the usual messing about and being sent from department to department, I questioned the person at the end of the phone about it, and at one point he said if I pay the balance now over the phone, everything would be OK, so I said yes please take my details. He then said actually no the debt has been sold on it's too late, we can't speak to the debt collectors, etc. I explained how I thought it was outrageous that the first we were told about an amount owed was a letter from a debt collector, and could he tell me on what dates and by what means EE had tried to contact us about this debt - he couldn't answer that, probably because we haven't had any contact from EE themselves about this debt! There was much debate and not much happening in the end, and it culminated in him saying we must contact BCW and pay this debt and EE couldn't do anything.

To clarify - we don't have a problem with paying this debt and I am quite willing to pay EE directly, what I do have a big problem with is paying a firm of debt collectors plus their administration charge, when we have had no prior notification of this debt even existing!

Can anyone advise how to proceed? I'm about to start drafting up yet another letter of complaint to EE. I do think this should go to a higher authority though, would Ofcom be the ones to contact or someone else? Unfortunately I've got 10 months left on my phone contract and about 14 months left on my internet contract, as soon as they are finished I'll be gone like a shot, I've never ever had such bad customer service from a company.

mobilejunkie

The bigger problem is that your external credit records will now be wrecked for the next 6 years, and you will find it very difficult to change that.

Before you can take a complaint to CISAS, you have to give EE 8 weeks to deal with a formal complaint, which you need to email to [EMAIL="complaints@everythingeverywhere.co.uk"]complaints@everythingeverywhere.co.uk[/EMAIL]; don't expect them to even acknowledge it. When you complain to CISAS you will need to show all the facts, evidence and what you are asking for. In the menatime, you will have to decide whether to pay the debt collectors in full and ask for any unjustfied payments back as part of your complaint.

MataNui

You dont have to give the debt collectors a penny. They will probably lie and say you can only deal with them and must pay but dont believe a word of it.

Tell them you are disputing the original debt (that you were never informed of) and make the complaint to EE. As MobileJunkie stated they will probably totally ignore you. Dont worry about this, it will work in your favor. After 8 weeks you can refer the complaint to CISAS. If you push EE a couple of times before that 8 weeks is up it will help your case.

There are a couple of ways to play this.
Firstly, dont pay a penny until the complaint is dealt with. You want EE to put a correction on your credit file and call off the debt collectors.

Secondly, Pay the debt collectors. Then you will want to ask EE (then CISAS) for the above plus a full refund for the original debt you payed the collectors and the charges they added on.

It sounds pretty clear cut to be honest. If you were paying by DD then EE should have sorted that when you migrated. They certainly cant sell the debt to anyone without notifying you that you owe the money. When (and it is when) you refer the complaint EE will need to explain why the DD was not changed on the migration and explain why they didnt contact you before selling the debt.

TheKeymeister

Thanks for the replies so far, I have submitted a complaint via the form on the EE website earlier today giving them one last chance to sort this out (I highly doubt anything will come of it). I've found a site http://eecomplaints.co.uk/make-a-complaint that is very useful for the process of making a complaint and escalating it to CISAS at the relevant time.

I'm quite happy to not pay the debt and have things adjusted later on, whether that will be a popular decision at home though I don't know - unfounded letters and calls from debt collectors don't bother me but not everyone here has the same opinion! We can also stand a temporary black mark on the credit file as anything like that goes in my name rather than hers anyway, we aren't married and don't live at the same address.

I'll get the letters written out, and keep this thread updated with the results...

PS. my other complaint with EE was when I had a T mobile line under my partners account, when it was out of contract (approx 3 months ago) I asked to see if I could upgrade to an EE contract but in my own name, they said the only way would be to cancel the T mobile contract and open a new EE account then transfer the number across. Opened a new EE account online, the first SIM got damaged so had to ask for a replacement one. When it came to transferring my number, I asked many times how to do it, half of the people said it was simple and could be done over the phone, the other half said I had to transfer my T mobile number to an Orange SIM then transfer it from that to EE - as T mobile and EE use the same system so a PAC is not applicable. As a precaution, I went to an EE store and asked for an orange sim, and was told that wasnt necessary and it could definitely be done over the phone. This went on and on for a few days, I asked to cancel the new contract as I got sick of it, but the 14 days had passed due to having to order a replacement SIM. In the end I had to go into another EE shop and it got sorted, but I was told I had to pay £10 for an Orange SIM which I wasn't happy about, so had to sit on hold in the EE shop for an hour until they agreed to credit my account for £20 I think to cover the cost. What should have been a simple process turned into a nightmare, I ended up spending hours on the phone, and had to make two special trips to EE stores......but I think we all know how crap their customer service is now!