West Scot Debt Collecting Agnecy

falgray

Hello,

This morning I was doing a review of the Debts that I have and I phoned up West Scot to get a balance on an account that I had with them since 2005.

To be told that the account was closed in August 2005 and was passed back to the Bank of Scotland. I then informed them that I had been makking payments of £20 every 4 weeks to their bank account with my reference to pay of the amount owed. The last payment I made was in December 2007.

I was told that I needed to send in proof that I had been making these payments as they did not believe I had been. I then tried to point out that there was brakedown in their process when dealing with payments made to accounts that were closed. I was then told that I was not in a position to question their procedures.

Then told me that if I wanted the money back then I was to provide them with all my bank statements from 2005 to present. They then toldme to contact the bank of scotland as to where the account was passed to.

Called Blair Oliver Scott - to be given some abuse as it why it has taken my nearly 3 years to contact them regarding this account.

I contacted my bank as regards the number of payments that I have made to West Scott and they could tell me it was 27 payments and I asked if they could give me proof of this and was told that it would cost £5 per payment, this would equate to £135 - which I am not prepaired to pay.

Why should I fork out money to prove that I paid the payments? There must be a lot of folks out there in the same boat.

RadoJo

If you bank online you should be able to download the transactions, but either way, I believe that £10 is the maximum you can be charged for a request for information. When recaliming bank charges people have requested 6 years worth of bank statements and £10 is the maximum they can be charged.
Do make sure that you blank out anything not directly related to their account as well - debt collection agencies always seem to be looking for a foot in the door and you would be better off only showing them what you need to reclaim your money!

custardy

werent people paying like £15 for years worth of bank statments for the reclaiming of bank charges?

i would be tempted to lodge a small claims action with wescot just for the hell of it

Voyager2002

Seek help from the OFT, who regulate and license debt collection agencies. I have already made a complaint to them about Wescott, so they will know that your experience is not just an isolated incident.

dmg24

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Seek help from the OFT, who regulate and license debt collection agencies. I have already made a complaint to them about Wescott, so they will know that your experience is not just an isolated incident.

So have I! x

a11waysindebt

Hi,
Have you actually sent of your letter requesting you bank statements.

MothballsWallet

Martin mentioned something like this on episode 2 of It Pays To Watch, in relation to reclaiming credit card charges (hopefully, he'll see this and correct me if I get any bit of it wrong):

Under the Data Protection Act, you have a legal right to request information that a company holds on you - this is called a Data Subject Request - and the maximum fee that the company can charge is £10.