Constant Loan/Debt Collection Letters To Wrong Address?

sourcrates

Jami74 said:

focus888 said:

Hi all, thanks for the replies. I was just worried that if they didn't get an response from that person bailiffs might turn up or my address gets marked on my credit reports.

I had someone turn up at my address once, guessing debt collector rather than bailiffs although I wouldn't know the difference. 

There roles, in a nutshell.

Debt collectors have no official, or unofficial powers of entry to property, they mainly work in call centres these days, and only a very few companies actually knock on doors, those that do are just self employed individuals acting as a collector on behalf of a parent company.

You are under no obligation to listen or speak to them, and they have no powers whatsoever.

Bailiffs, there are two main types of bailiff, county court, and high court, county court judgements are usually enforced by there own court appointed bailiffs, if a debt is over £600, it can be escalated to the high court to enforce.

Bailiffs cannot enter private property unless either invited in, by peaceful entry through an unlocked door, or they possess a warrant that allows them entry.

A warrant will only be issued for repossessions/court fines etc, not usually for a debt.

If no warrant, then you do not have to let them in, or converse with them at all, however you will be liable for their fee`s, so good, impartial advice should be taken.

The rules are different for commercial premises.

Jami74

sourcrates said:

There roles, in a nutshell.

Thanks for explaining so well. Thankfully I have never had the sort of debt that would earn a visit from anyone, although I remember as a child that a knock at the door was a thing to be feared.

Diana2014

@sourcrates What do you mean, "...you will be liable for their fees"? That could only be legitimate if the householder is themselves the debtor, surely? Bailiffs can't have any legal right to charge fees against innocent third parties whose address is being misused by a judgment debtor.

I'm having this problem but in a sneakier form: my neighbour's loutish young grandson is deliberately letting enforcement agencies believe that he lives at my house and that his surname is as they've misspelt it. He ignores my repeated requests to tell his correspondents his correct address etc, so I've ended up opening the letters to tell them that myself.
I've had to fend off enforcement agencies for several months; a second lot have just taken over the case, apparently after the first one failed to correct the creditor's records.
The debtor is almost certainly using this garbled court record of his personal details to keep his bad debt off his credit record. He's been acquiring new vehicles recently, presumably from people who don't know about the bad debt. If he's obtained financial credit to buy the latest car, he's committed a crime by concealing the debt from the finance company.

sourcrates

Diana2014 said:

@sourcrates What do you mean, "...you will be liable for their fees"? That could only be legitimate if the householder is themselves the debtor, surely? Bailiffs can't have any legal right to charge fees against innocent third parties whose address is being misused by a judgment debtor.

I'm having this problem but in a sneakier form: my neighbour's loutish young grandson is deliberately letting enforcement agencies believe that he lives at my house and that his surname is as they've misspelt it. He ignores my repeated requests to tell his correspondents his correct address etc, so I've ended up opening the letters to tell them that myself.
I've had to fend off enforcement agencies for several months; a second lot have just taken over the case, apparently after the first one failed to correct the creditor's records.
The debtor is almost certainly using this garbled court record of his personal details to keep his bad debt off his credit record. He's been acquiring new vehicles recently, presumably from people who don't know about the bad debt. If he's obtained financial credit to buy the latest car, he's committed a crime by concealing the debt from the finance company.

This is an old thread, yes, I should have added, "if you are the debtor" to my post.

Diana2014

It may have been started some time ago but the problem hasn't gone away. Indeed, it seems to be becoming even more common but there's not enough good advice on what to do about it out there. The enforcement agencies are bullying non-debtors whose only involvement is having some creep 'borrow' their address (without permission), which isn't at all how the enforcement system is meant to work.

sourcrates

I agree wholeheartedly with you, your preaching to the converted here, its very difficult with the system the way it is, to persuade a bailiff its not your debt, once its gotten this far, they can be very difficult to deal with under those circumstances.

Lack of a cohesive complaints procedure is a major problem as well, you are pretty much limited to the bailiffs own complaints process, and their regulatory body to handle complaints, and neither are fit for purpose.

Bodkin64

Hello,
I’d like to pick up on this thread, as I’ve discovered today that the same thing is happening to my 96 year old aunt. She’s evidently received a few letters recently addressed to her address, but with the name of her next door neighbour, and she’d made sure they were put into their letterbox. However she’d accidentally opened one of these the other day, and sure enough it was from a debt collection agency. The letter states they they have attempted to contact the recipient several times and are demanding payment of a £900 debt apparently passed over to them by a payday loans company.
This was quite an alarming discovery so am wondering what we should do to make sure this stops, or worse, she gets a visit from bailiffs. She’s quite stressed about it which isn’t ideal for a 96 year old. While it was quite reassuring to see further up the thread that if the bailiffs were to visit there is apparently nothing they can do so long as my aunt provides proof of ID I don’t want it to come to this as she’s hard of hearing and doesn’t always even make it to the door.
I was going to contact the debt collection agency tomorrow, but after reading this thread I’m not sure if I should and if it would just make matters worse. If I do this to tell them the correct address would they even believe me? I really don’t want to confront her neighbour over it in case things escalate, I don’t know the guy but he doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to do this to. Any constructive advice would be much appreciated!

molerat

Bodkin64 said:

Hello,
I’d like to pick up on this thread, as I’ve discovered today that the same thing is happening to my 96 year old aunt. She’s evidently received a few letters recently addressed to her address, but with the name of her next door neighbour, and she’d made sure they were put into their letterbox. However she’d accidentally opened one of these the other day, and sure enough it was from a debt collection agency. The letter states they they have attempted to contact the recipient several times and are demanding payment of a £900 debt apparently passed over to them by a payday loans company.
This was quite an alarming discovery so am wondering what we should do to make sure this stops, or worse, she gets a visit from bailiffs. She’s quite stressed about it which isn’t ideal for a 96 year old. While it was quite reassuring to see further up the thread that if the bailiffs were to visit there is apparently nothing they can do so long as my aunt provides proof of ID I don’t want it to come to this as she’s hard of hearing and doesn’t always even make it to the door.
I was going to contact the debt collection agency tomorrow, but after reading this thread I’m not sure if I should and if it would just make matters worse. If I do this to tell them the correct address would they even believe me? I really don’t want to confront her neighbour over it in case things escalate, I don’t know the guy but he doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to do this to. Any constructive advice would be much appreciated!

I would help her to access her credit files, not that she needs to use credit, but to see if there is anything dodgy linking her and the neighbour.   They may well have knowingly used the address as "the silly old biddy next door won't know what is going on".

Bodkin64

molerat said:

Bodkin64 said:

Hello,
I’d like to pick up on this thread, as I’ve discovered today that the same thing is happening to my 96 year old aunt. She’s evidently received a few letters recently addressed to her address, but with the name of her next door neighbour, and she’d made sure they were put into their letterbox. However she’d accidentally opened one of these the other day, and sure enough it was from a debt collection agency. The letter states they they have attempted to contact the recipient several times and are demanding payment of a £900 debt apparently passed over to them by a payday loans company.
This was quite an alarming discovery so am wondering what we should do to make sure this stops, or worse, she gets a visit from bailiffs. She’s quite stressed about it which isn’t ideal for a 96 year old. While it was quite reassuring to see further up the thread that if the bailiffs were to visit there is apparently nothing they can do so long as my aunt provides proof of ID I don’t want it to come to this as she’s hard of hearing and doesn’t always even make it to the door.
I was going to contact the debt collection agency tomorrow, but after reading this thread I’m not sure if I should and if it would just make matters worse. If I do this to tell them the correct address would they even believe me? I really don’t want to confront her neighbour over it in case things escalate, I don’t know the guy but he doesn’t sound like someone I’d want to do this to. Any constructive advice would be much appreciated!

I would help her to access her credit files, not that she needs to use credit, but to see if there is anything dodgy linking her and the neighbour.   They may well have knowingly used the address as "the silly old biddy next door won't know what is going on".

Sorry but I can’t see what the point of this would be. She won’t care one jot what her credit score is as she’s never applied for it in 96 years and isn’t going to now. And whatever this reveals, what would we do about it is the key? Whether it’s a simple administrative error or wilful fraud, I don’t see that it really matters from her perspective.

sourcrates

@Bodkin64

Debts are linked by name, not by address, its probably just a mis-trace, it may be something as simple as when you input the postcode, and you get the drop down menu, someone has clicked the wrong address by accident, or one of 100 other different reasons.

The debt collector will likely be just assigned the account for collection purposes only, which means they don`t own the debt, so can`t take recovery action on it.

Which would mean no CCJ, and no bailiffs, an unlikely scenario anyway..

Do they refer to "their client" in the letter at all?

Honestly if its not addressed to her, then its not her problem, I know it may be difficult explaining that to her, but there won`t be anything to worry about.

Best bet is to put it back in the post, with "not at this address" written on it.