Is there a process people must take to recover debts?

malefic

Evening all.

But of a strange one - came home yesterday to a letter from a debt collection agency saying I owe an amount to a company I haven't used since 2019. We used the company for 5 years and all payments were via direct debit. We did cancel the direct debit but not until 2 full months after the company stopped taking money from the account.

First I heard about this was via the collections letter! Should they not have called me first or something first? We have had nothing from them since 2019 via email which was their system confirming the direct debit had been cancelled (and  the general of this is a mistake please call etc line)

Tried calling the company which has been sold to bigger companies twice who said they were too busy to talk and I should go through the collection agency. I know it's not normal to call them but I think this is a mistake on the companies side so called them. Confirmed my name and address fine but the company have the collection people a different date of birth. They also said the company in question do this a lot, bridge things up so it's all on hold anyway.

I just want to know if it's legal to go straight to collections after 2 years of no contact?

Thanks and have a good weekend.

M.

fatbelly

Yes that's fine.

I think you need to respond in writing to the collection company and ask them to evidence the alleged debt.

See what comes back.

A useful phrase for your opener is 'I do not acknowledge any debt to your organisation nor any organisation that you claim to represent'

sourcrates

Companies have neither the time, nor the staff, to chase up outstanding accounts.

They simply outsource it to a collection company to collect on their behalf, mostly standard practice these days.

Follow the lead fatbelly has given you, they must prove the debt when asked, so see what comes back.