Advice about BCW Group Please

ScarlettTiger

On Friday, I received a hand delivered letter, addressed to me slash occupier, from BCW Group, on behalf of Southern Water. It was from my previous address, and I received about one letter from them when I first moved, and nothing more, so to be honest, I completely forgot about it, but have an account with my them for my new address.
As this letter was hand delivered, I am worried about how many times these people will turn up at my door. Having done some research, they arent the nicest of debt agencies, so I dont want to deal with them. Can they take my car? The debt isnt for alot from what I can remember, (its been a year). Where do I stand, can I contact Southern Water about this?
Any help gratefully received.

sourcrates

Hi,

Ok, your jumping the gun here by a long, long way.

BCW are just debt collectors, they are not Bailiffs, no one can take your car without first taking you to court, obtaining a CCJ, then you must default on that CCJ, after which a Bailiff, could be appointed to collect the debt, and possibly impound your car.

You are a very long way off that scenario, so stop panicking !!!!

You do not have to deal with the DCA, BCW will just be acting on behalf of the creditor, you can contact southern water to arrange payment of the debt, they will be able to help you sort this out.

ScarlettTiger

Hi, thank you for your reply. I know I was panicking, and after writing this post, I checked what rights debt collectors have. I did know a fair amount of what they could do, but this is the first time Ive owned a car so got a bit worried, (you see it on tv programmes, and forget its not always as simple as they make it out to be) .

charmed1318

Hi,

I have been dealing with BCW for a couple of years now due to an old bill. The debt was for a couple of hundred if I remember correctly, and I dealt with them directly. If you do decide to, when you call make sure you have a written down income and expenditure, if you haven't already, your circumstances and an offer of payment. I pay £5 every four weeks as I am not working which they were fine with and like many (if not all) all they require is a 6 monthly review which I now do by email or post. When I call DCA's I always say I'm calling from someone else's phone as I don't have one at the moment, and they have never called back.

ScarlettTiger

Sounds like your experience has been ok, but alot of people who have dealt with them, have left less than positive feedback about them.