NBCS threatning to take me to court

vacheron

Sounds to me like HoF still think you have recieved the goods and the chargeback means you haven't paid so you owe them £250 (in their eyes).  They may therefore have passed the debt to an internal or external collections agency which may have incurred additional costs which is why they are now chasing you for £524.99.

Do you have any correspondence from HoF during your original discussions where they acknowledged or accepted that you had not received the goods, or did you just rush ahead with the chargeback? (As above the time period between the empty box arriving and the chargeback that you considered was "taking too long" would be useful.)

born_again

jigglyguy23 said:

born_again said:

Given this is Frasers group formally known as Sports direct group. This does not surprise me. 

This is the issue with chargebacks, they are over & above your legal rights & have no legal standing. So retailer can simply not contest the chargeback & then go the legal route.
Although OP said was delivered "parcel was left at the door" I'm surprised that bank actioned it. As that was a slam dunk rejection for HOF with proof of delivery.

@400il
OP only owes HOF the cost of the goods as HOF never refunded them. So the only money owed is the amount OP was debited via their card payment. As that is all they have been refunded.

Do you think they’ll be taking me to court or taking further actions if I messaged them I’m not paying since I did no wrong ? Really stressed

It will be court to claim the money back.

How long did you give them to refund? 
As Visa is 15 days & Mastercard is 30 days before a chargeback for non receipt can be started. But as before unless you failed to mention that something was delivered then a chargeback should never have been actioned. 

We have to give scripting warning customer that retailer has the right to take customer to court if they do not contest the chargeback to reclaim funds.

Sadly a chargeback is as someone put hardball given that you were talking to them & they were investigating the matter.
what were the goods? Is it possible they were stolen by 3rd party after delivery? Was this reported to the police & a CRN obtained, which would have helped your case with HoF.

Aylesbury_Duck

jigglyguy23 said:

I bought 4 items from house of fraser, but the package was empty so i decided to ask house of fraser for a refund. I started a conversation with them going back and forth saying i needed a refund since it is a lot of money (£250). That ended up taking too long so i went to my bank and raised a charge back. House of fraser responded saying we see you raised a chargeback and i should follow up with my bank. I have seen other post on here showing the same problem but they never show their end result. So far ive only recieved a email and responded that i can not afford the amount they are asking for which is 524.99 and that i havent done nothing wrong. I also messaged Fraser group saying i would like to stop being harrased. I dont want to be taken to court so can someone help me please on what to do.

Did you "follow up with your bank", as suggested?  What did the bank say?

Who is the email from? NBCS, I presume?

You're not being harassed.  A debt collection company has written to you once saying that you owe their client, HoF, over a matter you know about.  That's not harassment. 

If you don't want to be taken to court, you have two options:

1. Ignore it, hoping they give up and don't bother pursuing it.
2. Contest it, insisting they spell out exactly how the alleged debt was arrived at and presenting your evidence for initiating a chargeback.

Neither of those guarantees you won't be taken to court. Perhaps court isn't a terrible option, anyway?  There seems to be evidence from your side that there was an empty parcel (the correspondence at the time, which I presume you've kept?).  HoF believe they have evidence to show delivery of the goods.  A court will decide which is the most likely.

Okell

@jigglyguy23


[Edit:  I realise now that the OP has only received an email from NBCS not a letter.  Perhaps the OP should take no action unless and until they receive a "Letter Before Claim"?]


Does this letter from NBCS have a title like "Letter Before Claim" or "Letter Before Action"?  It isn't actually a court claim, is it?

Might be a good idea if you could tell us what the letter says.  Not a precis or a summary in your own words, but exactly what it says, including any headings.  Omit any details identifying you, and any details telling you how to pay.  (You could show us a photo of the letter, but as a new poster you may not be able to do that)

I think the first thing I'd do is contact NBCS, tell them that you don't recognise the amount they are claiming, and ask them for a breakdown of it.  Presumably it will be the original £250 plus costs and fees, but they need to tell you what it is for as you don't recognise that amount.  Don't get into any other conversation with them at this stage and don't acknowledge that the claim is a valid one.  Say you are disputing it with HoF if asked.

Then I think I'd contact HoF and ask them what point your refund claim has reached.  Presumably they cancelled it when your bank paid you the chargeback, and then they handed it over to NBCS for collection as a debt.  But I think you need confirmation from HoF as to what point your refund claim reached before being handed over to NBCS.

Two questions: first, you have definitely already paid the original £250 for the goods that were never delivered?

Second, you are certain that you never actually received a refund from HoF?

I suspect that if you don't pay up then NBCS are very likely to issue a court claim against you*.

If it goes to court then a judge will listen to both you and the claimant and will make a decision based on whether or not they believe you when you say that the goods were never delivered.  (Or that only an empty box was delivered).

Do you know what evidence of delivery HoF have?  Have they a photograph?  Have you seen the photograph and what does it show?

What do you mean by "The parcel was left at the door without me answering it."  Do you mean you were in but didn't answer the door, or do you mean you were out and there was nobody else in the house?

If you don't want to be sued your only alternative is to pay up.  But why pay for something you never received?  And why pay twice what the never-delivered goods cost?


*Of course you could just call their bluff, ignore the letter and wait to see if they sue.  But I think they might...  [But see edit at head of this post]

Okell

born_again said:

https://home.nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com/

Given this is Frasers group formally known as Sports direct group. This does not surprise me...

Does anyone know if these people merely act as debt collectors with no power to sue anyone, or could they issue a claim on behalf of a "client"?

A_Geordie

Okell said:

Does anyone know if these people merely act as debt collectors with no power to sue anyone, or could they issue a claim on behalf of a "client"?

In my view, they are bottom of the barrel scraping type debt collector, a bunch of chancers at best. From what I understand, none of their staff are legally qualified or have any sort of legal training and they are there to do one job only: be aggressive, ignore what is being said and maximise recovery praying that the individual will eventually pay up. 

This seems to be the latest trend that is bucking right now and whilst I haven't had any direct experience with NBCS, I have had a run in with a debt collection department of a law firm, if I recall it was DWF acting on behalf or of Nike or Adidas. They eventually backed off when I threatened legal action for a baseless claim in breach of their regulatory SRA duties. 

My issue was around the fact that I used their nominated courier to return an item only for them to claim that it was never received (or it could have been misplaced in their warehouse or worst case, nicked by the courier). Rather than pursue this with their courier, they seem go after the consumer as an easy target. The OP's issue seems to align with other research I've done where consumers make successful chargebacks. Whilst there is a possibility that the retailers could issue a court claim, I'm not aware of any being filed, not least because they don't seem to have the evidence to back up their allegations and therefore I think chances are slim of it happening - cost and embarrassment more than likely outweighs anything else. 

The OP might find NBCS relentless with letters or text messages as I did with DWF but it should eventually die down once they realise its going nowhere, think I had about 8-10 letter demands in total in relatively short succession. If they are being aggressive with regular demands, the OP may want to consider a letter before action to NBCS and Fraser Group alleging harassment (and possibly follow through with it by commencing legal proceedings if the OP is brave enough). Otherwise, a firmly robust response, reference to any breach of consumer rights under the Consumer Rights Act e.g. failure to deliver and round it off by saying that the OP will not be paying anything and if they wish to pursue then their client should put their money where their mouth is and move forward with legal proceedings, otherwise !!!!!! off. If they keep repeating the demands, keep referring to the previous letter.

Strictly speaking, NBCS could issue a claim on behalf of the retailer, but they would need their consent to represent them. Reputation aside, I know I wouldn't select a company who has no legal training to pursue a claim under my brand.

born_again

Aylesbury_Duck said:

jigglyguy23 said:

I bought 4 items from house of fraser, but the package was empty so i decided to ask house of fraser for a refund. I started a conversation with them going back and forth saying i needed a refund since it is a lot of money (£250). That ended up taking too long so i went to my bank and raised a charge back. House of fraser responded saying we see you raised a chargeback and i should follow up with my bank. I have seen other post on here showing the same problem but they never show their end result. So far ive only recieved a email and responded that i can not afford the amount they are asking for which is 524.99 and that i havent done nothing wrong. I also messaged Fraser group saying i would like to stop being harrased. I dont want to be taken to court so can someone help me please on what to do.

Did you "follow up with your bank", as suggested?  What did the bank say?

Who is the email from? NBCS, I presume?

You're not being harassed.  A debt collection company has written to you once saying that you owe their client, HoF, over a matter you know about.  That's not harassment. 

If you don't want to be taken to court, you have two options:

1. Ignore it, hoping they give up and don't bother pursuing it.
2. Contest it, insisting they spell out exactly how the alleged debt was arrived at and presenting your evidence for initiating a chargeback.

Neither of those guarantees you won't be taken to court. Perhaps court isn't a terrible option, anyway?  There seems to be evidence from your side that there was an empty parcel (the correspondence at the time, which I presume you've kept?).  HoF believe they have evidence to show delivery of the goods.  A court will decide which is the most likely.

Bank can't do anything. Chargeback is done & dusted. End of story I'm sorry to say. 

Reality is retailer should have contested with proof of delivery & claimed their money back, leaving Op to pursue them legally.
But we are seeing more & more companies not contest & take this action. Not sure why, could be staff cutting in finance teams 🤷‍♀️But one way or another they have a issue to deal with. Maybe they feel that a 3rd party taking the debt at a cut down price, is cheaper than contesting a chargeback.

DullGreyGuy

A_Geordie said:

Okell said:

Does anyone know if these people merely act as debt collectors with no power to sue anyone, or could they issue a claim on behalf of a "client"?

In my view, they are bottom of the barrel scraping type debt collector, a bunch of chancers at best. From what I understand, none of their staff are legally qualified or have any sort of legal training and they are there to do one job only: be aggressive, ignore what is being said and maximise recovery praying that the individual will eventually pay up. 

Most people working in debt collection, insurance, banking etc are not legally qualified. They are trained sufficiently to do their job be that debt recovery, recovering outlay from third parties/defending injury claims etc etc. In fact the barrister that used to head up our litigation team would often ask the opinion of one of the non-qualified members on matters of liability. 

Qualified lawyers are expensive and for the majority of this type of work a paralegal is perfectly adequate. 


There are hundreds of threads on Legal Beagle about similar emails from HoF and the rest of the Fraiser group. There people say that they'd just ignore them. Unfortunately most dont come back to give an update, the one that did for a while just kept getting repeat emails with later deadline dates. 

A_Geordie

DullGreyGuy said:

Most people working in debt collection, insurance, banking etc are not legally qualified. They are trained sufficiently to do their job be that debt recovery, recovering outlay from third parties/defending injury claims etc etc. In fact the barrister that used to head up our litigation team would often ask the opinion of one of the non-qualified members on matters of liability. 

Qualified lawyers are expensive and for the majority of this type of work a paralegal is perfectly adequate. 


There are hundreds of threads on Legal Beagle about similar emails from HoF and the rest of the Fraiser group. There people say that they'd just ignore them. Unfortunately most dont come back to give an update, the one that did for a while just kept getting repeat emails with later deadline dates. 

To clarify my point, I was not suggesting that those working in debt collection are not legally trained and I wouldn't expect them to be, I was alluding to the whole hierarchy of the company. Many companies would have an escalation point of contact who would have at least half an idea about the law but in this case, this company appears not to. Which is why trying to tell them anything is more than likely to fall on deaf ears and any real action would be to push back and threaten legal proceedings. That might make them sit up and take notice (or not). 

As for those on Legal Beagle, a similar pattern to what I experienced until I decided to be proactive instead of allowing them to continue to harass me. Each to their own of course.

NikkiNooTwo

I am in a similar situation however, I ordered 2 thing from HOS but only 1 arrived, they are adamant that it was delivered and that they have CCTV proof of this which they are refusing to share. The roundly rejected my claim after approximately 2 months of back and forth I went to my back who refunded me. Other than the picture I sent of the contents of my parcel, I can't prove a negative. Below is the email they sent me. This claim dates back to April 2024.

Re: Frasers Group

 

We email with reference to the above store who is a member of our organisation.

We are instructed that on 15/04/2024 you unlawfully committed fraud totalling £65 by claiming that you had not received goods / retained goods that were in fact delivered successfully.

As a result of your actions our member has suffered a loss totalling £389 and is preparing to pursue this claim in the County Court to recoup their losses.

This action will result in further charges being added to the outstanding amount and can lead to a CCJ being recorded against you.

 

You can avoid court action now by paying the outstanding amount.

 

Payment must be made by bank transfer to the following account:

Barclays Bank: The National Business Crime Solution

Sort code: 20-17-19

Account No: 00398020

Payment must reach us no later than 18/12/2024.

Please ensure you use the reference at the top of this email for your payment otherwise we may not be able to verify payment.

 

It is important to note that the National Business Crime Solution is a Not-for-Profit organisation, with the aim of reducing business crime for our members. We do not seek to profit from the cost of this recovery. Therefore, we willreduce the amount payable to £339 if payment is made in full within 14 days of the date of this email. Failure to make the specified payment in 14 days will result in the full amount of £389 being payable as outlined above.

A follow up letter to your address will be sent 7 days from today’s date if no payment is received.

You are advised to seek independent legal advice from a solicitor or organisation such as the Citizen’s Advice Bureau should you be in any doubt at all as to your legal position. If you are experiencing financial difficulties, please contact us at legalservices@nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com where we will make every attempt to assist you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

NBCS Legal Services Team