Never sent an invoice, now owe nearly 600 to a debt collection agency. Help

chillymoose

Hi I hope someone can help. In October I cancelled my O2 phone contract early and had an outstanding bill of around 500 pounds. Fine. But they didn't send me an invoice, and that's a lot of money to pay over the phone with no invoice. I ask for an invoice. I tell O2 that I no longer live at the address on the original contract and that I am temporality living abroad. I tell them if they cannot send an invoice abroad then they can send it to my parents address, and give them the details. They say fine. Still no invoice. I call every few weeks to chase them up, always told the same thing: sorry for the delay, we will send an invoice now. Never arrive.

Two days ago I find out that they have been sending the invoices to the original address on the contract, even though I told them repeatedly, more than 15 times, that I no longer live there. Annoying but okay – they promise to send the invoice to my parents address this time and say the change of address has definitely been put in the system this time.

Today I find out that actually O2 sold my bill to a debt collection agency two weeks ago, and there's now an extra 75 pounds charge on top of the original bill.

I have tried several times to call O2 about this but now they're claiming that there's nothing they can do as it is with the debt collection agency now.

I don't know what more I could have done to settle tis bill, the fault is entirely with O2 for not sending me an invoice. How can I challenge this?

la531983

I am just surprised they are still sending paper bills tbh. I am with o2 and all my bills are on there, notified via email once a month. Is this not the case here?

chillymoose

la531983 said:

I am just surprised they are still sending paper bills tbh. I am with o2 and all my bills are on there, notified via email once a month. Is this not the case here?

You would think so? I asked many, many times for an email invoice. They said they don't do that.

la531983

Log in to your o2 account online, all the bills will be on there.

Surely you have over complicated this.

chillymoose

la531983 said:

Log in to your o2 account online, all the bills will be on there.

Surely you have over complicated this.

I can't, when you cancel your contract you lose access to that. No, I have not overcomplicated this. 

EssexHebridean

chillymoose said:

la531983 said:

Log in to your o2 account online, all the bills will be on there.

Surely you have over complicated this.

I can't, when you cancel your contract you lose access to that. No, I have not overcomplicated this. 

Annoying this is exactly what happens with O2 - it's really unhelpful. And no , they don't as standard send you any final bill in my experience - again, really unhelpful! 

chillymoose

Does anyone have some advice? I don't know what to do, unsure if this will affect my credit score.

fatbelly

You will need to check your credit file to see what is recorded. Probably a default.


The important thing is whether the third party agency is just collecting for O2 or has indeed bought it.

If the latter, then they will have paid around 10p in the £ and would be open to a settlement deal.

sourcrates

You should register an official written complaint with 02.

Go through their official complaints process, if you remain unhappy, search for the "ombudsman services" that covers 02.

You can escalate your complaint to them.

This will appear as a default on your credit file unfortunately.

02 have a terrible record on complaints handling, so don`t get too hopeful.

Inform the debt collector/purchaser that the account is in dispute and you are in the process of dealing with the matter.

chillymoose

sourcrates said:

You should register an official written complaint with 02.

Go through their official complaints process, if you remain unhappy, search for the "ombudsman services" that covers 02.

You can escalate your complaint to them.

This will appear as a default on your credit file unfortunately.

02 have a terrible record on complaints handling, so don`t get too hopeful.

Inform the debt collector/purchaser that the account is in dispute and you are in the process of dealing with the matter.

Is there anything I can do to undo the default on the credit file? I think any reasonable person would agree that this was not my error. I can't believe a stupid phone bill is now going to follow me around for... what, 6 years? Perhaps more? Goodbye mortgage lol

sourcrates

You would have to take the matter up with the ICO (information commissionaires office) and lodge a formal complaint against 02 with them for mis-use of your data.

You can`t normally remove a default, unless it was applied incorrectly, in your case, you may have an argument that it was, but don`t expect a quick outcome, these complaints tend to take a long time.