I've just had a phone call from a dodgy company

Toomuchdebt

Some Indian call centre claiming i could take advantage of a "government loophole" to pay back less of what I owe. After a bit of rambling it turned out they wanted to offer me an IVA and claimed I would save lots of money doing that.
First of all is an IVA even suitable if I'm on ESA and PIP? I thought it was only for people who are working? Secondly I've set up my own debt repayment plan and all interest is frozen and my monthly payments are very low. I make extra payments when I can afford it. Why would I want to go on an IVA and struggle?Madness.
The company are called Citizen's Advice Information Centre. The lady originally said Citizen's Advice and I assumed she meant Citizen's Advice Bureau. It was only when she passed me on to a manager because she couldn't understand why I wasn't keen to take up her offer of this loophole, that he gave the full name and also said it was an IVA.
Anyone else had any phonecalls from them?

fatbelly

I work for the CAB (now Citizens Advice) and we get a lot of complaints about these people. But they seem to use constantly changing phone numbers so they can't be pinned down.

The 'who called me' sites are full of numbers they use.

If you can get any real contact details, please report them for trading standards to have a look at, though they are most likely based in Asia

And for sure, don't get debt advice from them...

Toomuchdebt

They use UK mobile numbers, at least the one that called today was a UK number but of course those can be changed easily.
It's quite worrying though how some people could be fooled by thinking it's CAB they're dealing with.

fatbelly

Yes, I don't know how they do that.

If you call back on that number though, you get nothing. I think it's called Caller ID Spoofing.

I asked our IT guy about it and he explained how it worked, but I didn't understand the explanation.

Muttipops

I haven't had these guys on, but plenty of others who seem to know all sorts of details.
My rule is, if I want something, I find out about it for myself and never, ever listen to these guys. I feel so rude, but I hang up immediately, it's not worth 2 seconds of my life to listen to them.


They gain peoples' trust by using what is a well known name, such as Citizens Advice but maybe changing it very slightly and you aren't sure if you heard correctly or not and then of course they are supposedly wanting to help you.


Well done to you for giving them a wide berth.

MrsTinks

Once I even had someone claiming to call from MSE using Martins name - sadly it was a withheld number and I couldn't get enough information out of them to try and pin them down though I tried! I even pulled some favours at the phone providers but to no avail

Toomuchdebt

I've been here 10 years Muttipops...I've learnt a lot (slowly)

Muttipops

I am a newcomer, but reading this forum is a bit like growing up quickly, you sure learn a lot in a short space of time.