A debt went to collections - and the amount tripled! Help!

mh1923

I owed £213 to Southern Water* which went to one collections agency, and now to a third. When I got the notice about this third one, The amount is up to £630!!!

I've given up challenging the fact of the debt, but how do I challenge the amount? There's no way even with fees and such it should have gone up this much, right? Is there a template letter somewhere to use to challenge them on this?


Cheers,
MH








* (FYI: If you have an external water tap that the neighbours can access for washing their cars, put a lock on it! This bill dates from the first month after metered water was put in, and we didn't realize that tap was being billed to us! We exhausted all the challenges we could trying to get out of paying that bill, but Southern Water wouldn't budge... :mad:)

National_Debtline

Hi

You can use this letter to dispute liability and request evidence that the amount is owed. You can adapt it to dispute the amount, rather than the entire debt.

www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Complaining-to-debt-collection-agencies-that-you-do-not-owe-the-debt-%28sole-name%29.aspx

James
@natdebtline

sourcrates

I think they tend to want the full years charge, hence that could be the reason for the increase.

National_Debtline

It’s worth requesting a full written breakdown of the debt they’re requesting, just in case they also added fees for debt collection incorrectly. The debt collection rules set by the FCA state:

CONC 7.7.2
A firm must not claim the costs of recovering a debt from a customer if it has no contractual right to claim such costs.

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/7/7.html

James
@natdebtline

tori.k

Nothing to add other than we share your pain when we found out our massive water bills for over 1k each year over 3 years was down to still being connected to a builder tap in a neighboring property, and even when our water cost fell in line with what we were paying for years in our previous home was told it was a civil issue so nothing to do with them. they've had their money so don't give a damn but cared enough to let me know in the first place.