My experience with Bristow & Sutor.

ZAB_2

I have come across a few threads discussing how Bristow & Sutor conduct their business and thought to share my experience as well. Although they are a legitimate company, I believe some of their practices are extremely dubious.

In my case, last summer, while on a family holiday, I received a text and an email out of the blue asking me to contact them to discuss my debt. Now, I have never been in debt or had any outstanding bills whatsoever. So, before reaching out to them, I did as much research on Bristow & Sutor as I could and decided that, no matter what, I would not give them my personal details.

I contacted them from abroad, and the first thing they asked me to do was confirm my address. In response, I asked them to confirm the identity of the actual debtor. They declined and disconnected the call. I knew that Bristow & Sutor deals with council tax, PCNs, and TFL debts, and since I didn’t have any of those, I ignored their emails. However, truth be told, it ruined my holiday badly.

Upon my return, I continued to ignore their texts and emails until one day, they emailed me about a £14,000 debt with TFL. Again, I was confident that I was not the right person because (a) I don’t live in London, and (b) I have never driven in London. The last time I visited the capital was three years ago, and I used the underground with my debit card for travel. This situation continued, and one day, I received a call from an unknown mobile number. The person introduced himself as a debt collector from B&S. He asked me to confirm my details. I politely declined and asked him if he and his client were confident that I owed them £14,000, then surely they must have some sort of proof, such as photographs, to prove it was my vehicle. He responded that B&S don’t send any documents, and I should have received something from TFL. I explained to him that if TFL had sent me proof, they would have my vehicle registration number and, of course, my address. So why don’t B&S write to me, and only then would I consider speaking to them? After that, all communication stopped.

Some time later, I received a text from another debt agency, who was acting on behalf of B&S or had probably bought the debt, offering me the option to pay only 30% of the original debt if I made a one-off payment. That would reduce the amount from £14,000 to £4,200. I blocked their numbers and don’t really care anymore.

What you can take away from my experience with them is that if you are contacted by B&S or any other debt agency, and you are confident that you have no debt, do not let them intimidate you. Do not let them get on your nerves. Play hardball with them and give them a tough time. NEVER SHARE YOUR PERSONAL DETAILS. If they are confident that you are the actual debtor, then they MUST have your full postal address to send you a letter.

Best wishes.

Coupon-mad

Nasty firm IMHO.

fatbelly

I work for CA. B&S cause a lot of problems. My advice is not to engage with them at all. Any contact encourages them.

 If they can get your bank details they will try to take the whole debt, regardless of what they might say

Coupon-mad

fatbelly said:

I work for CA. B&S cause a lot of problems. My advice is not to engage with them at all. Any contact encourages them.

 If they can get your bank details they will try to take the whole debt, regardless of what they might say

Citizens Advice?

Any chance you can approach whoever wrote the embarrassingly AWFUL advice online about private parking charges?  They even tell people to pay if they get a court claim, then sue for it back. Clueless and it's costing people money.