Lowell - DCA - sharks, bullies... stay away! Here's my story.

deliciosa

Another Lowell pearl. The only reason I called was because T Mobile told me that Lowell have confirmed that they have received their letter and they will take action. Just wanted to hear it from them. (Am getting desperate here).
(After giving account etc details, confirmed postcode etc)
Sharji (or something like that): Miss xxx are you calling to clear this balance by credit or debit card today? (Not this one again….)
Me: No, I have just been confirmed by the alleged creditor that a.) this debt is not mine and b.) they will not pursue payment for this. They have also said they have instructed you to delete the account and remove the default from my credit file.
Sharji: One moment I will check (clickety clickety, distant talking…)… I can see your account here, please can you confirm your home telephone number?
Me: Why exactly do you need that? I thought you had my account details first.
Sharji: So that we can contact you if we need to? We just want to make sure that the number we have on our system is right. (They DON’T have my home number, so here I go)
Me: Ok that’s fine, just read out the number please and I will correct it if its wrong.
Sharji: No Miss xxxx you need to tell me the number. (Ha!)
ME: I'm afraid I can't read it out loud as I am sitting on a busy train with strangers around me, surely I wouldn’t want to disclose my personal data (ok that was a lie but I actually enjoyed this). Why don’t you read out just the first five digits.
Sharji: (clickety clickety) One second (click, click)… Soo miss xxxx it starts with 0207… (bravo man, you figured out what belongs to an nw3 postcode, either 0208 or 0207).
Me: If I am not mistaken this is four digits? (sorry guys I just enjoyed myself for a few seconds. Cheap thrills I know)… Look why don’t we skip this step and talk about the account. You have a notice there that this account should be closed and the default removed. Right?
Sharji (after half an hour of clicking): I see that xxxx from T Mobile contacted us on 27/01/2008 (wrong, that’s a Sunday, mate, nice as the t mob guy is, doubt he would work weekends just out of love for his company). We need to investigate this and if the investigation is satisfactory we will delete the account.
Me What do you mean investigate - since the alleged creditor withdrew the allegations this surely means you have to rectify your mistake now?
Sharji : Miss xxx wwe did not make a mistake we put the default on your account because you didn’t pay your debt.
Me: But its not my debt. As you have just confirmed.
Sharji: I do not confirm that but we will investigate and if the investigation is satisfactory we will delete the account. (Have I heard this before?)
ME: Right, so then you will delete the account and remove the default, right, when the investigation finished.
Sharji: We will delete the account and we will not send you any more letters.
Me: But you have never sent me letters, the default has just appeared on ym credit file! Anyhow, this will be removed, right?
Sharji: If our investigations are satisfactory we will mark it as settled so that it won't show that you owe us money. (Do they think I am a complete idiot???)
Me: No, I have NEVER owed you money, this was a mistake, an error, and the default needs to be DELETED, not SETTLED, as I have not settled it!
Sharji: I can not confirm that (WHAT?) but would you like to settle it now, you can pay by credit or debit card today and then we can offer you a settlement figure of only £80 but only today. (at this point I was considering bursting into a hysterical laughter)
ME: Since its not my debt, I do not wish to settle it. You need to delete it. So that there is no reference to it whatsoever. (and now:::)
Sharji: Miss xxx I see that you are trying to rectify the situation and that you genuinely try to resolve this matter (what on earth has caused the change in tone???). Therefore I can offer you something we don’t offer to all our customers. (hmm….). If you pay the settlement fee of £80 today by credit or debit card, we will arrange for this default notice to be removed from your credit file and your account deleted. (OH MY GOD!) Is that a satisfactory solution for you?
So these guys want to take payment knowing that I don’t have to pay and having been instructed by the alleged creditor to closedown the account!!! They try to lie and bully me into paying them to get it removed!!!!!
Me: (Losing patience) No, you HAVE to remove it as its not my debt, and not only on the condition that I pay you any money! I dotn owe you any money!
Sharji: So you are denying that you have debt to our company. You will need to send us proof of your identitiy so that we can investigate it further, an cpy of your passport is good. (I can't believe this person is for real)
I then demanded to be put through to his boss. He advised me that he was the shift supervisor and he had no boss. I then announced that the transcript of this call will go to his bosses, whether they exist or not, and also to the OFT. He hung up on me immediately. I still wonder whether he knew what the meaning of the word "transcript" was.

RAS

Next time, you might suggest that the person concerned seeks legal advice before they say anything further as they are liable to get their emplyer into trouble?

I think I see some training issues here.

deliciosa

today i have been contacted by a very very nice lady from T Mob, who CONFIRMED that THEY will remove the default (even tho its Lowells name), and that they HAVE instructed Lowell to delete my account and that she will send me confirmation when she receives conf. from Lowell that this has been done./ I have told her how awful L. are, she assured me she will sort it out, so it seems I wont have to talk to them again....

what a nice bunch of people these T mobile idfraud people, they are so helpful, especially compared to these dcas. i was really getting desperate before. i still dont know how the whole thing happened and who used my name to get a phone... so dodgy.

Snaggles

Oh my goodness, what a complete nightmare - I hope the default now gets removed so that you can relax and forget about it.

SPANIEL36

i think you deserve to pour yourself a very large drink (not this time in the morning obviously!!) stress aint the word!! well done on you for ticking to your guns!!

gilligansyle

Putting the transcripts on here was brilliant! Just shows that they are obviously working to targets and are really ignoring what you are saying. I have an ongoing battle with RED, who are part of the same group, I think, as Lowells. They contacted me but would not tell me who the original creditor was, so I didn't know if I owed or not. Eventually tracked down who it was, and I do not owe this company money. On the phone all they do is say, if you make a payment we will investigate. Errr no! Investigate first. But they don't really want to do that, they just want to frighten people into paying something. Am now getting the info direct from original company using Data Protection Act - Subject Access Request.

Will keep 'popping by' to see how this one goes.

Zebedee69

Hia!

What a horrible way to start the day! A phonecall to these muppets!

I would go for compensation and report them to whoever you need to. Its a shame you couldnt record the conversation as im almost certain someone calling you a liar without any evidence is illegal and you could take them to court for it.

Lets hope that default pops off pronto! That would be my first thought as it would put the brakes on your credit report!

Could it be an idea to report them to T-Mobile too? Maybe T-Mobile have no idea their name is being thrown around by this company........ If thats the case they wont be amused either!

deliciosa

Hiya

thanks guys for all your support.

I DID record them, thats how I made the transcripts, otherwise I wouldnt have remembered so well... I just cant use it, of course, as evidence, because of the stupid data protection act. I can only have it for my own use... pain.

I have told T Mobile everything Zebedee. They said first they will sort my account out and then they investigate Lowell.

Yes, They have even given me a deadline now (we are emailing every two hours but will stop now, that is with T Mobile, very nice ppl). She said it will drop off on the 10th of February which is when they update their reports to the CRA. Wowie I cant wait!

And thanks to all for the advice, once its over I will be reporting Lowell and send out the transcripts and maybe ask for compensation, but can you guys help me in letting me know WHO to report (I know I have links at the beginnign ehre ) and also, on what grounds (ie, what to say.)

Cheers!!!

Welshwoofs

deliciosa - these people are scum, pure and simple. If you look out for the Consumer Action Group site you'll see lots of people who've been 'Lowelled'.

My tale is similar to yours. Firstly I had someone ring up who wouldn't identify themselves asking if I'd ever lived at an address he gave - when I said I hadn't (which was true) he hung up. I then got a letter from Lowell Portfolio 1 asking me to update my address details or it would be assumed that they were correct. I didn't respond as there was no mention of what the company actually did or what their letter was in regard to.

A couple of weeks later I received 2 letters on the same day from Lowell Portfolio demanding payment totalling nearly £4,000 for 2 Barclaycards. The problem was that I've never owned a Barclaycard before last year and that Barclaycard account is still active and has a ZERO balance (I've never made a late payment on it, let alone defaulted). I paniced and suspected identity fraud so called in all my credit reports only to find absolutely nothing on there other than a search by this company. That angered me tremendously because as far as I know it's not lawful to do a credit search without prior consent - which I absolutely have NOT given them.

I've sent them off a CCA request demanding to see the credit agreement because I'm very interested to see what they come up with. It can only be somebody else's agreement (a Google search shows there are over 25 people in the UK with my name) in which case I dare say they're breaking the Data Protection Act by sending me somebody's financial details...or it'll be a forged document.

Either way I intend to bury this company in any way I can because, from what I've been reading in my long hours of research on this bunch, is that they specialise in buying up statue barred debts for pennies and then trying to extract the money from people - whether or not they're the right person!

deliciosa

oh my gosh welshwoofs this is scary!!!! FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS???? gosh this is so rubbish!!!!! I hate these lowell guys. How can the OFT let them get away with this? Seriiusly, how come noone complained first?

They are trying to bully vulnerable people into paying them!!! If WE did that, you, or me, we would be prosecuted! why isnt anyone doing anything against these people? Surely its not legal??? If I called you up and started sending you threatening letters, demanding payment for something thats not yours, I would be ARRESTED!!! Or am I completely wrong here???

WHY are these people allowed to exist? THIS IS RIDICULOUS! OK, there are people who are in debt and dont want to pay it back, (even though everyone I see on this board for example is a genuine person, whether or not a real debtor... who want to make things right!) but then again there are people like you or me who do NOT owe to these companies!!!

I do have debt, for example, and its not small, but I NEVER missed a payment, I am paying more than the minimum and its NOT a problem debt, I can afford the repayments (its just that I am also spending a lot, so basically my debt is not growing, but kind of staying the same...) I have never even been called by a genuine creditor, and then I find a DEFAULT on my account just because I want to put my life in order and maybe buy a home one day, a DEFAULT and these scums make me cry over the phone because they dont understand that its really not my debt and dont listen??? and what if you were a vulnerable old person who gets scared and WOULD pay that 4000 or even if only less, just to get rid of these unpleasant people, even if the debt did not belong to them, just ebcause they are afraid???!!! How can these people look into the mirror in the evening? What kind of a lowlife person applies for a job at these companies? GOSH I AM SORRY FOR THE RANT BUT how I hate them.

Please give them a hard time, I tried to do that too (once T Mob sorted I got relaxed a bit, as you can see from transcript...) and lets all report these disgusting creatures. Doubt anything will happen though, why havent they closed them down by now? surely a lot of people complained before....