Debt collection for internet charge

sixtyfoothigh

Just looking for any advice I can give my friend. After a month with no internet and begging POP Telecom to fix it they cancelled their account. They thought they were actually owned money due to compensation for the outage, but they’ve since been pursued for fees. Between mid Jan and early Feb they’ve asked in writing for a breakdown of charges about 4 times. They would get a response that would half answer the question and they’d ask again.

Then they get a debt collection letter which has added on £90!!!! But still no breakdown.

They wrote a massive complaint with a timeline and asked again for a breakdown of what they owe. And today they finally got a breakdown (a different breakdown again and still with missing info and giving the wrong contract end date…), a comment that they weren’t getting as much compensation as they thought due to “them avoiding calls from POP telecom”, and told £90 debt collector charges stand.

It just seems crazy that my friend was trying to get a statement off them to pay, and rather than just providing it and letting them pay they’ve passed it to a debt collector.

Other than replying each time with “this is the timeline, I’m still awaiting you to provide a breakdown of what I owe, and I dispute debt collection charges as you have obviously passed it to debt collection in error given that the only reason I hadn’t paid was because you hadn’t replied to your damn emails”, is there anything else they should do?

sourcrates

The debt collector will likely only be acting as collection agent for this debt, so will have no powers of enforcement.

Unless the letter states they have bought it?

Plus your never going to get any sense out of a debt collector, hence they don`t really need to say anything to them.

They can play letter tennis with them if they wish, but unless a pre-action letter drops on the doormat, they don`t have to worry about it.

Plus the charges are a joke, as they cannot legally add charges unless the original agreement allows them to do so, and its not even their debt so explain that one to me?.

sixtyfoothigh

Their entire experience with this company has been an absolute joke. 

They cancelled 11th Jan and were out of contract so should only have 30 days to pay. They get a bill with a random amount. They email “what’s this amount for” they get and answer “you never returned the router and that was £x”. Ok fine they’ll return the router, what should I be paying now? Someone replies and says “I’m sorry I don’t understand the question, I don’t see a record that you’ve canceled, you owe for Jan and Feb”. They reply “cancelled on the 11 Jan, how much will the charges be without router”. Someone says “oh you need to pay until 30 Jan”. They reply “yes, but how much is the charge”. Etc etc. My friend gets fed up and says “I’m done with this please can a manager call me on X number”. 

And… next thing you know they get debt collectors.

EssexHebridean

I would strongly suggest they avoid doing anything on this over the telephone regardless - keeping things in writing means that everybody is clear on who has said what, and when.