Advice on old mobile contract

turkles

First of all thanks for any help in advance!

Here's the situation, I recently decided that i need to take an interest in my credit score and try and build it into a good standing.

I viewed my credit report and saw a debt that i believe is from vodaphone and has been sold to a debt collector that i had no idea about.

Here's what happened in august 2010 I cancelled my mobile phone contract with Vodaphone, as i was leaving the country for 6 months so I cancelled the contract but cant remember if I was out of contract or not.

Now the sticky part, I don't have any record of me cancelling the contract as being naive and young, I just assumed that was the end of it.

The info on the credit report states that the account was opened in May 2007 and was defaulted on 02/04/2011, but my last payment to vodafone was in august 2010, so is the date of default (02/04/11) when the debt was sold to another company or when i last first defaulted which would've been sept 2010 if the contract wasnt cancelled?

Another weird thing one of my friends said they'd tried ringing my old number and it just rang out, and i tried to and she was right. but I don't know how this is possible seen as I had destroyed the sim card.


Anyway my two main questions are....

1) should I try and contact vodafone and see if I can resolve this, or should I just leave it as the debt is nearly 6 years old, and if I contact them and try and resolve it am I committing myself and basically saying 'yes this debt is mine' which am I right resets the time frame for statute barred debt?

2) also I now live in Scotland so is the debt covered by Scottish or English law with regards to statute barred debt?

Again thanks for any help in advance

Buzby

You may have been defaulted automatically as the file was sold on to debt collectors. The phones number is not on the SIM card - only an ID which limks to it. After 2 years the old number would be recycled and allocated to a new customer, or if ported, transferred back to the original operator and the same recycling takes place.

As to jurisdiction, you will find the contract is based on English law by definition, BUT recovery under Scots, which is 1 year less (5). This also means the credit file should wipe it after 5 years for scottish addresses, but I doubt they bother.

As you're cruising into it becoming invisible, I doubt VF will care, and I'd just ride it out as if you provide new details the info will be passed to link your file. Not that this will work against you in any meaningful way, but the CRA's just love being tidy.

Vodafone

Hi turkles,

If you'd like me to look into this, email me via the Contact us form here.

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Kind regards,

Lee

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