What are a person's rights in this situation?

Geoff1963

he needed more of this company's products and services as a matter of urgency

My general recommendation is that if dealings with a particular organisation are difficult, don't add any more complexity. If only that company can provide the necessary, then things are very difficult.

lea_lea

@karonher From what you said he originally was paying £100 and they agreed to between £20 and £50 so he must have told them about the problems and they were trying to be helpful.
No, that's not what I said. He didn't agree exactly on how much he'd pay regularly but he said if possible he would try to make a larger payment that would reduce the immediate debt so it could be reduced to smaller monthly repayments if need be and still cleared within 12 months.

He wasn't having these financial problems until recently, and this was the first opportunity he's had to raise the issues with the run of bad luck he's had but they put their fingers in their ears and went "lalalala!" And no, the person who needed the goods/services could not have paid themselves, if they could have none of this would have happened.

@keepcalm Thank you for that, I'll take a look.

@Tarambor "Then maybe they should have given him the money so he could have paid in cash.....
And don't you think if that was an option, it would have been done? I'm not going into explicit detail about what the product/service was for because it's not my place to reveal that but you can rest assured there was a significant risk to wellbeing but if that's irrelevant why keep bringing it up?

@geogg1963 If only that company can provide the necessary, then things are very difficult.
Well, they're not the only company but they are the most convenient to him. Their refusal to release my friends account information to them leads me to believe that they are trying to prevent him taking his business elsewhere or at very least they're hoping to know where he goes to with an eye to bad mouthing him in some way to whoever agrees to do business with him next.

Windofchange

Jeez, it sounds like some sort of drug deal gone wrong. Nothing official in writing, the local thug wants his £200 back or he'll break some legs. You desperately need some? Ok, send your friend round with the cash and have some more, but I'll break your arms too if you don't pay by next month.

Aside from the above, if I were a business owner I think I'd probably want some repayment before giving you any more of whatever it is. Someone is already screwing me over with repayments - I'm not going to give you any more sunshine until you've cleared a large amount of the last lot! In terms of being nasty, well if someone owed you xxx pounds and couldn't pay, you might be a bit miffed too.

In this case, I am 100% certain there is another side to this story...

FBaby

So he lied to them. He WAS able to repay a larger chunk of the debt since this is exactly what he did. However, he didn't want to because like so many people, what they claim they can pay is more a case of what they want to pay because they still want to prioritise paying other things.

In the end, he hasn't paid anything he shouldn't, he's paid towards his debt, meaning it will be paid off sooner. It sounds like he was very fortunate to be able to purchase from a company he owed money to and didn't show much commitment to repay. Amazing that despite that, he, and clearly you, think he has been hard done by.

lea_lea

For people on a debt free forum, I would have thought you wouldn't have been so gungho on somebody plying an interest free debt onto an interest gaining credit card and causing them self further financial loss but it's good to know how judgmental and superior you all are.

I really hope misfortune never befalls any of you and puts you in a situation along these lines. I'm sure none of you repaid any of your debt in less than a few months and that any cost was spread out over at least two years, but you expect the person I know to be able to do so and feel it's appropriate for them to be held over a barrel for practically instant repayments.

Also funny how a lot of you didn't even read my original post correctly before drawing pearl grabbing conclusions, so thanks for nothing.

takman

lea_lea wrote: »

Also funny how a lot of you didn't even read my original post correctly before drawing pearl grabbing conclusions, so thanks for nothing.

From the responses I would say everyone read the post correctly and I agree with what has been said so far.

But here is the original post so everyone can see that the responses are reasonable:

lea_lea wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm genuinely asking this for a friend as we're divided on whether or not it constitute "theft" of some kind.

My friend owes a company a few hundred quid on an account he has with them (no T&C's were ever signed or agreed to his knowledge) he is on a low income and as a result entered into a verbal contract last month with their accounts officer to repay around £20 to £50 a month to have it all cleared off within 12 months (interest free).

Recently he needed more of this company's products and services as a matter of urgency, and so he arranged for them to provide this without being quoted for the cost up front. When he went in to collect and pay the bill, it came in at over £200.

He didn't question this at the time of payment because he knew what he was paying for was expensive anyway, and was too stressed due to his current circumstances (which the business was aware of) at that point to think to query the high price.

At no point did the person who took the payment make him aware that he was not just paying for the services/products he'd had on that day but they'd also charged him £100 to go against the debt on his account.

He only discovered this a day later after entering into a bit of a dispute with the manager of this company over the verbal repayment agreement he made with their accounts officer and how the manager had apparently not "signed off" on this agreement to repay the debt in installments.

Now, my friend knows he owes this business this money, he's not disputing that at all, but he had made an arrangement to repay the money at a rate he could afford without facing financial difficulty, and because he was desperately in need of what this company provides he had no other choice than to blow his budget on paying the £200 bill they rang up for him on the spot, thinking that he was paying for essential goods/services and not realizing (or ever being made aware) that he was paying an extra £100 off his account debt. He's now struggling to make ends meet this month and facing bank charges left and right.

It was not at any point requested or made clear for him that he would be charged an additional £100 to go towards his debt and I find that extremely dishonest and very questionable business practice. I personally don't consider it to be theft because he does owe the money but to not tell him what he was paying for there and then, and to not even give him an itemized receipt that said he'd paid that money off his account is very concerning to me.

Because he's got into a dispute over this with the company, they are now demanding that he clears the entire debt off his account or they will take him to court over it.

It's my understanding that as long as he's making a contribution to clear the debt within a reasonable time frame they can't take legal action against him, but this company have turned out to be a real nasty bunch of sods and it's stressing him out to no end.

I listened in on a call between him and the manager is a really nasty piece of work who has also refused to provide a copy of my friends account information, which under the data protection act and code of conduct he is obligated to supply on request.

I feel something really dodgy is going on here, and so I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice on this and what the rules might be applicable to this kind of situation and the verbal agreement he had with these people and how to go about handling it all?

Thanks for reading, any help and advice would be hugely appreciated.

Karonher

"No, that's not what I said. He didn't agree exactly on how much he'd pay regularly but he said if possible he would try to make a larger payment that would reduce the immediate debt so it could be reduced to smaller monthly repayments if need be and still cleared within 12 months. "

I think you need to re read your post

This is what you said

My friend owes a company a few hundred quid on an account he has with them (no T&C's were ever signed or agreed to his knowledge) he is on a low income and as a result entered into a verbal contract last month with their accounts officer to repay around £20 to £50 a month to have it all cleared off within 12 months (interest free).

The figures I quoted are the ones you put in the post. Just because everyone does not agree with you it does not mean they did not read. You have been given good advice but are choosing not to take it.

Helvetica_Van_Buren

lea_lea wrote: »

Waste of time. Didn't even read correctly before offering "advice" that would have incurred further debt and not resolved any of the issues had. An exercise in learning how quickly people make a judgement before actually absorbing all the facts.

I hope you get the help you need for your all your issues - not just the financial ones. You're clearly troubled.