Debt collector took a year to respond to query - advice please

Trek98

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a bit of a long one, but I really need some advice before I do anything here, due to how frankly ridiculous this is.

In 2021, I ordered something from overseas and this incurred a duty charge with the courier, UPS. Everything was fine up to the point where I received an invoice in June 2021 for £150 in import charges. To cut a preceding story short, I had already paid everything I needed on separate occasions with the courier and had no issues, up to the point where this particular invoice had the words “INVOICE PAID” stamped on it in capital letters. Based on that, I was led to think this was just noise and overlooked it.

In October 2021, I received a letter from a debt collection agency - I had to pay ASAP or contact them etc, and the amount had raised to £190. Now at this point I should say I never had any issue with paying the money itself, but out of principle I thought “ok, I have no issue paying this, but I just need to be clear before I do” based on that stamp saying invoice paid. So I went on their online portal and raised a query saying this (within their allotted timeframe of a week or so). Importantly, my account was then “suspended” until they reviewed the query with the client, so I wouldn’t have been able to do anything else.

So from that point nothing happened, the account "remained under query with the client" for ages - I checked my email every now and then for a few months to see if there was any update, but nothing came through. So of course I just forgot about it and hadn’t checked that email account for months… until today. (I used an alternative email that I don't get any notifications from)

It took the debt collection agency a whole year to respond to this simple query. Only THEN in October 2022, did they tell me:

We have been advised by our client that after investigating and reviewing the invoice, it is unpaid in their system. The stamped "iinvoice paid" on the invoice was in error.

Right, fine. But when I checked my re-issued account, the amount owed supposedly has gone down to £60 from £190?? I really have to nip this in the bud and pay immediately, however, my concern now is that it’s March 2023 and I have only just become aware of this today. I am worried that if I pay them, the debt collectors + courier might turn around and say I owe substantially more because of how long this has taken. Furthermore, in amongst all of this I moved house so I'm not sure if there's a heap of post at my old address on this (my previous estate agent has my contact details and everything and I've not heard anything from them either)

My main question now, is how high can a debt go before any further action is taken? Am I expecting a firestorm here? Any advice before I do anything else, just because of how ridiculously long this has taken, would be much appreciated please.

sourcrates

The wheels of debt collection turn very, very slowly in most cases.

The kind of debt you describe is quite typical for unpaid import duty, or other charges pertaining to international parcels etc.

The company concerned has very little interest in such matters, these debts go unpaid all the time, they farm them out in bulk to some overworked debt collection agency, most likely with an office above a hairdressers, somewhere in wales, who has 1000`s of these debts on their books.

Usually you would get a couple of letters, then it will all go quiet, as the time they spend on each account is minimal to say the least, due to the sheer amount of work they have to sift through.

If you want to pay it, then do so, I doubt you will hear from them again, I can say with some degree of certainty, there won`t be a heap of post, nor will there be a firestorm, and there certainly won`t be any further action either lol.