Moorcroft Debt Recovery.

GitGud

Hello People!

I hope I can find some good advice here from someone who has dealt with Moorcroft. Long story short, I had some unauthorised charges going out of my mobile bill. I argued with O2 for month that I won't pay them but in the end I agreed to pay these charges. The charges were £400 and I agreed to pay O2 £150 every single month for the next 4 months so I can get my number back etc which I really liked and din't want to lose, but I guess it's too late now.

I payed O2 for the first month, I also payed them on the second month, no late payments or anything. When it came to making my 3rd month payment, that was one payment before the last one!! They tell me over the phone that they can't talk to me about any details and that my debt was passed onto Moorcroft.

First of all, can I do anything with O2 treating me like this? Lying to me that I can pay it off in 4 months and that I can get my number back? I have bank statements to prove that they took out money every single month! I have received letters from Moorcroft now asking to pay them money!

Like I mentioned previously, I have already payed for about 2 months and should have had about £200 left to pay off, but the letter from Moorcroft says I owe them over £1k! and they are requesting the payment in full within 5 days! I'm really scared and not sure what to do! I'm currently on a debt management plan with Stepchange to do with other debt I have.

Are these people safe to ignore? Should I get some legal advice from a solicitor? Should I speak with StepChange or Citizens Advice Bureau?

[Deleted User]

It's not clear from your post what happened.

I'm guessing you defaulted on the account, and then at some point it's been passed to Moorcroft?

In which case, you need to settle with Moorcroft. You can agree a payment plan with them. If you believe the amount is incorrect, challenge them on that.

Certainly don't ignore them.

Willing2Learn

It sounds like an auto-generated letter that you have received. Moorcroft have only just taken over the account and the letter then goes out to their new debtor. It may seem scary, but it is nothing to worry about. Liaise with StepChange so that they can correspond with Moorcroft instead of O2, and they will then make sure the correct scheduled payments are set up (pro rata with all your other accounts).

Edit: And welcome to the forum GitGud!

glennstar

It might also help to tell us what the £400 of charges were, if at all possible. It sounds like a substantial amount of money these days. It might be something you can talk to Ofcom about. Don't allow this to get in the way of paying the debt though, any action the regulator takes on your behalf will potentially offset your costs, it won't act as a mechanism at this stage to stop you paying and any delay will result in more costs.

I'm also interested in why you think you had a payment plan agreed and then O2 didn't honour it. Any evidence to this end would also help as MNOs are generally pretty good on this font and something fairly serious has gone wrong with their governance if everything is as you describe which I'm sure someone senior in O2 would be pretty horrified to hear about.

Clive_Woody

Need more information.

You say that you had £400 of charges, but you agreed to pay them £600 (4 x £150) - were there also remaining monthly payments on your phone contract that got included?

You also say that you paid them 2 x £150 (£300) and then said this would have left £200 to pay, but that doesn't match with the initial statement that you were going to pay them £600.

What was "unauthorised" about the £400? Can this be challenged.

I think you need to get your figures straight then talk with Stepchange.

sourcrates

Moorcroft are just acting on behalf of 02, these companies don’t have the resources to deal with bad debt, so they engage companies such as moorcroft to manage them instead.

Reading between the lines, It’s likely your contract may have been terminated and are now liable for your full outstanding contract.

User_101122

Don't panic. Hand the Moorcroft letter to who ever deals with your debt management plan and they'll deal with it.