Resolve chasing a debt that is not mine

Dec20 · 27 October 2022 at 5:04PM

Hi all,
complete newbie here and have already searched the forum for something similar, couldn’t find anything however apologies if there is something similar.

Anyways, several weeks ago I started to get emails, letters, phone calls to family & myself & door stop visits by ResolveCall. The letters etc were in my maiden name but I have been married for 27 years and we don’t have any debts apart from our normal bills / mortgage etc.

ResolveCall have stated in the emails that the debt is £500 for Arrow Global Ltd and would be reduced to £200+ If I paid in full but the debt is not mine.

I looked on the forum and online at the debt helpline website and found a “prove it letter” to try and figure out exactly what the debt is and how this came back to me, however ResolveCall immediately came back on the email with the response below and are now continuing to call etc.
Not very good with things like this and really don’t want to jeopardise my credit nor pay for a debt that is not mine.

Can anyone please offer any advice?

Thank you in advance

**My email to RC**

Dear Sir/Madam,

Account No: xxxxx

You have contacted me about the account with the above reference number, which you claim I owe.

I have no knowledge of any such debt being owed to

ARROW GLOBAL LIMITED - RECONNECTION

I am familiar with the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Consumer Credit sourcebook which states the following;

"A firm must not ignore or disregard a customer's claim that a debt has been settled or is disputed and must not continue to make demands for payment without providing clear justification and/or evidence as to why the customer's claim is not valid." 7.5.3

"A firm must suspend any steps it takes or its agent takes in the recovery of a debt from a customer where the customer disputes the debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds." 7.14.1

"Where a customer disputes a debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds, the firm must investigate the dispute and provide details of the debt to the customer in a timely manner." 7.14.3

If you do not stop collection activity whilst investigating my dispute, you are breaking FCA rules and guidance.

Also, ignoring claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment is harassment.

Please do not make any further contact about the above accounts unless you can provide evidence of my liability for the debt.

I await your written confirmation that this matter is now closed. Otherwise I will have no option but to make a complaint to my local trading standards service and consider informing the FCA of your actions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

**Email back from RC**

Thank you for your correspondence.

Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that there are certain websites purporting to provide information which will allow their users to avoid repayment or discussion of debts. It is our belief these sites are disseminating misinformation which is both unhelpful and harmful to the consumer. The letter you have sent is one of these templates. It appears to be a letter of dispute but simply lists the regulations around disputed debt and it does not explain to us why you are specifically disputing this debt.

We are contacting you for a legitimate reason, for which we have permission to contact you on behalf of our client.

We would ask that you contact us on 0141 212 8500 Monday to Thursday 8am-8pm, Friday 8am-6.30pm and Saturday 9am-2pm to discuss this further. Alternatively, if you wish to deal with this matter via email we require you to confirm the following:-

Can you confirm that you are happy to receive account related or confidential information by email? You may not be the only person who can access it.
Full name
Date of birth
Full address including postal code
Email address you want us to correspond with

Alternatively, you can view and manage your account on our website or your Resolvecall reference, date of birth, post code or client reference to gain access

We hope to reach an amicable solution and if you require further information in regard to your debt there may be certain pieces of information we can request from our client to help resolve any issues or dispute you may have.

eskbanker · 27 October 2022 at 5:12PM

Dec20 said:

It appears to be a letter of dispute but simply lists the regulations around disputed debt and it does not explain to us why you are specifically disputing this debt.

I'm not a huge fan of template letters that spray all sorts of spurious FCA copypasta around (which detracts from credibility rather than adding to it IMHO), but it seems to me that the start and end of the email conveys all that really needs to be said:

Dec20 said:
I have no knowledge of any such debt being owed to
ARROW GLOBAL LIMITED - RECONNECTION
[...]
Please do not make any further contact about the above accounts unless you can provide evidence of my liability for the debt.

so it might be worth just replying with that on its own.

Aylesbury_Duck · 27 October 2022 at 5:14PM

Dec20 said:

Hi all,
complete newbie here and have already searched the forum for something similar, couldn’t find anything however apologies if there is something similar.

Anyways, several weeks ago I started to get emails, letters, phone calls to family & myself & door stop visits by ResolveCall. The letters etc were in my maiden name but I have been married for 27 years and we don’t have any debts apart from our normal bills / mortgage etc.
ResolveCall have stated in the emails that the debt is £500 for Arrow Global Ltd and would be reduced to £200+ If I paid in full but the debt is not mine.
I looked on the forum and online at the debt helpline website and found a “prove it letter” to try and figure out exactly what the debt is and how this came back to me, however ResolveCall immediately came back on the email with the response below and are now continuing to call etc.
Not very good with things like this and really don’t want to jeopardise my credit nor pay for a debt that is not mine.
Can anyone please offer any advice?
Thank you in advance

**My email to RC**
Dear Sir/Madam,
Account No: xxxxx
You have contacted me about the account with the above reference number, which you claim I owe.
I have no knowledge of any such debt being owed to
ARROW GLOBAL LIMITED - RECONNECTION
I am familiar with the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Consumer Credit sourcebook which states the following;
"A firm must not ignore or disregard a customer's claim that a debt has been settled or is disputed and must not continue to make demands for payment without providing clear justification and/or evidence as to why the customer's claim is not valid." 7.5.3
"A firm must suspend any steps it takes or its agent takes in the recovery of a debt from a customer where the customer disputes the debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds." 7.14.1
"Where a customer disputes a debt on valid grounds or what may be valid grounds, the firm must investigate the dispute and provide details of the debt to the customer in a timely manner." 7.14.3
If you do not stop collection activity whilst investigating my dispute, you are breaking FCA rules and guidance.
Also, ignoring claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment is harassment.
Please do not make any further contact about the above accounts unless you can provide evidence of my liability for the debt.
I await your written confirmation that this matter is now closed. Otherwise I will have no option but to make a complaint to my local trading standards service and consider informing the FCA of your actions.
I look forward to hearing from you.

**Email back from RC**
Thank you for your correspondence.
Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that there are certain websites purporting to provide information which will allow their users to avoid repayment or discussion of debts. It is our belief these sites are disseminating misinformation which is both unhelpful and harmful to the consumer. The letter you have sent is one of these templates. It appears to be a letter of dispute but simply lists the regulations around disputed debt and it does not explain to us why you are specifically disputing this debt.
We are contacting you for a legitimate reason, for which we have permission to contact you on behalf of our client.
We would ask that you contact us on 0141 212 8500 Monday to Thursday 8am-8pm, Friday 8am-6.30pm and Saturday 9am-2pm to discuss this further. Alternatively, if you wish to deal with this matter via email we require you to confirm the following:-
Can you confirm that you are happy to receive account related or confidential information by email? You may not be the only person who can access it.
Full name
Date of birth
Full address including postal code
Email address you want us to correspond with
Alternatively, you can view and manage your account on our website or your Resolvecall reference, date of birth, post code or client reference to gain access
We hope to reach an amicable solution and if you require further information in regard to your debt there may be certain pieces of information we can request from our client to help resolve any issues or dispute you may have.

It may have been unwise to engage in correspondence at all because you've now confirmed who you are and that their correspondence is almost correctly addressed. But now you have, and if you're certain you owe nothing, then make good on your threat to notify Trading Standards and the FCA and don't engage with them any further.

eskbanker · 27 October 2022 at 5:19PM

Aylesbury_Duck said:
if you're certain you owe nothing, then make good on your threat to notify Trading Standards and the FCA and don't engage with them any further.

But this is part of the issue with making boilerplate wording threats like that - neither Trading Standards nor the FCA will accept contact about something like this....

Aylesbury_Duck · 27 October 2022 at 5:28PM

eskbanker said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:
if you're certain you owe nothing, then make good on your threat to notify Trading Standards and the FCA and don't engage with them any further.

But this is part of the issue with making boilerplate wording threats like that - neither Trading Standards nor the FCA will accept contact about something like this....

Indeed, but the important thing is that OP should stop engaging with them because it's just encouraging them to pursue it.

Brie · 27 October 2022 at 5:36PM

I certainly wouldn't be ringing them or email. I would certainly also be blocking their number and email address. And I certainly would not give them any more information than they have already.

I like the simple template idea (without the FCA extras) and would stick to that for any future correspondence. I'd be tempted to send it to them without any stamps on the envelope too but that's just me. Likely they won't bother to pay whomever to collect a letter with postage owing on it.

And if someone comes to the door I'd simply say "Miss Smith doesn't live here." I do this with annoying callers/door steppers. If they ask for Mrs OHSurname I say his mother doesn't live here. If they ask for Mrs MySurname I say my mother doesn't live in this country. OH does similarly on the occasions he's asked if he knows Mr MySurname. Petty but we enjoy ourselves.

born_again · 27 October 2022 at 7:08PM

I understand this make no sense to you. It also seems odd for a company like this to just turn up on your doorstep.

Arrow seems to be a company that offer many services, via different companies. Do any on this page make sense?

https://www.arrowfletchings.net/origination-underwriting-servicing/#underwriting

May also be worth checking your credit record to see if anything is listed there.

Dec20 · 28 October 2022 at 2:56PM

Hi
Thank you for all your responses.

No there is nothing on my credit file at all from them or anyone else. Luckily, I have no debts at all and neither does my husband. I check our credit file monthly due to a fraud / cloned card thing with our bank several years ago.

If for some unknown reason, the debt was mine, then I would pay the £200 to stop the hassle of them contacting me.

They are contacting me via all means possible and it’s embarrassing when they are phoning family, state who they are and ask for me in my maiden name (which I haven’t been for 27 years)
They phone me on my mobile numerous times a day by different numbers so every time I block it, they change numbers.
I wrote the email back to stop them phoning family really and thought that the template from the national debt line site would be the best to send.

Thanks again

km1500 · 28 October 2022 at 3:01PM

If it were me (and I am fully aware others will totally disagree with me) but I would just simply give them what they want i.e. they seem to be asking for your full name, date of birth, address and an email address to which they can send account information

I suspect once you give them your date of birth they will realise they have the wrong person. In any case they may email you something about the debt which will possibly shine a light on the situation