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Dont Sign Anything - A Warning to All!
miniandrew
Posts: 9 Forumite
I recently came into commercial contact with a company called " UK Debt and Legal Services UK Debt & Legal Services Ltd. from Newcastle.
They are effectively a door to door dca. I was given a demonstration on how the Debt Collection agents they employ operate. I was told they got little or no information from the Bank,finance company, Utility company or whoever instructs them to collect a debt other than a name, address, phone number and amount - that's all - and the chap laughed as if to say " so what?".. I sat and played like a business buyer and said "so tell me more" - he then proudly showed me the tools they use and a gadget that looks like a fat pen.
What this company have are roaming collectors like cabs running around town right across the country.. they have with them one of those gadgets like the delivery men have which you sign or the gas man walks around with to take readings - punching in the numbers -hand held thingy.
(I might add that a DCA or any creditor has to prove they have a right to collect money from anyone, they could be asking for money on your doorstep when they have no right to do so. Also, you are entitled , under the law of Trespass I think, to only allow people who you 'invite' onto your property, other than a postman, so they are trespassing anyway if they knock at your door uninvited.
Which is why this activity is so appalling).
A bank, utility company any creditor sends in an instruction electronically to this firms head office in Newcastle with those basic details above. It is immediately sent to a roaming collector onto this hand held gadget at the speed of a text. All he has is a name, client, address and amount, he then goes to the house to ask the debtor to make an arrangement to pay.. he then takes this fat pen and begins to fill in a form with the customers details and gets the customer to sign the form with this pen..."please sign here" if he can get the customer to complete the form so much the better.
The Pen has a minute camera in the tip and while the form is being filled in it is transmitting exactly what is written onto a format back in the office. Once completed the collector then uses his special mobile phone to photograph the customers property so they can see how affluent they are and that is also transmitted back to the 'customers account' so there is a photographic record as well as signature recognition. On the Laptop he had he showed me what they had back in the office. It was an identical colour copy of what I had just myself written on the form in my own handwriting. I asked him if the signature could be lifted and put onto a blue peter agreement..."yes, I suppose it could be"
This was very worrying, what protection does the customer have for being told about this photographic information being beamed about unwittingly? he didn't know... It just goes to show what lengths this industry is going to to entrap consumers and assess their ability to pay. An eye opener I can tell you and these people are all over the UK. freelancers just knocking on doors.
I would advise ANYONE who is asked to sign or write out ANYTHING to REFUSE especially using someones pen that feels fat or onto a document like this
Customers are not told about this Camera, but it is used to recognise a signature or handwriting and compared to documents the original creditor may have like an APPLICATION FORM... the trouble is that this signature is not secure and could be used to falsify documents which is happening far too frequently with DCA's trying to forge agreement documents when they don't have them any longer. TRUST NO-ONE...I cannot emphasise this enough SIGN NOTHING TO A DCA...a Letter does not need a signature to be legal.
Sarah
Yet another Cabot Fan Club Investigative success
I just love the Cabot Fan Club :rotfl:
They are effectively a door to door dca. I was given a demonstration on how the Debt Collection agents they employ operate. I was told they got little or no information from the Bank,finance company, Utility company or whoever instructs them to collect a debt other than a name, address, phone number and amount - that's all - and the chap laughed as if to say " so what?".. I sat and played like a business buyer and said "so tell me more" - he then proudly showed me the tools they use and a gadget that looks like a fat pen.
What this company have are roaming collectors like cabs running around town right across the country.. they have with them one of those gadgets like the delivery men have which you sign or the gas man walks around with to take readings - punching in the numbers -hand held thingy.
(I might add that a DCA or any creditor has to prove they have a right to collect money from anyone, they could be asking for money on your doorstep when they have no right to do so. Also, you are entitled , under the law of Trespass I think, to only allow people who you 'invite' onto your property, other than a postman, so they are trespassing anyway if they knock at your door uninvited.
Which is why this activity is so appalling).
A bank, utility company any creditor sends in an instruction electronically to this firms head office in Newcastle with those basic details above. It is immediately sent to a roaming collector onto this hand held gadget at the speed of a text. All he has is a name, client, address and amount, he then goes to the house to ask the debtor to make an arrangement to pay.. he then takes this fat pen and begins to fill in a form with the customers details and gets the customer to sign the form with this pen..."please sign here" if he can get the customer to complete the form so much the better.
The Pen has a minute camera in the tip and while the form is being filled in it is transmitting exactly what is written onto a format back in the office. Once completed the collector then uses his special mobile phone to photograph the customers property so they can see how affluent they are and that is also transmitted back to the 'customers account' so there is a photographic record as well as signature recognition. On the Laptop he had he showed me what they had back in the office. It was an identical colour copy of what I had just myself written on the form in my own handwriting. I asked him if the signature could be lifted and put onto a blue peter agreement..."yes, I suppose it could be"
This was very worrying, what protection does the customer have for being told about this photographic information being beamed about unwittingly? he didn't know... It just goes to show what lengths this industry is going to to entrap consumers and assess their ability to pay. An eye opener I can tell you and these people are all over the UK. freelancers just knocking on doors.
I would advise ANYONE who is asked to sign or write out ANYTHING to REFUSE especially using someones pen that feels fat or onto a document like this
Customers are not told about this Camera, but it is used to recognise a signature or handwriting and compared to documents the original creditor may have like an APPLICATION FORM... the trouble is that this signature is not secure and could be used to falsify documents which is happening far too frequently with DCA's trying to forge agreement documents when they don't have them any longer. TRUST NO-ONE...I cannot emphasise this enough SIGN NOTHING TO A DCA...a Letter does not need a signature to be legal.
Sarah
Yet another Cabot Fan Club Investigative success
I just love the Cabot Fan Club :rotfl: 0
Comments
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Hi, that's scary stuff and a bit mind blowing!
Opinions are like bottom holes, we all have one 0 -
Hi Miniandrew and welcome.
Thanks for the heads-up, this is really scary stuff, but luckily thanks to MSE there are people out there looking after our best interests. Thank you:rotfl:I'm Cosmo, Cosmo Kramer! :rotfl:0 -
Hi and welcome. Thanks for that info.
Is this legal? Very worrying.Debt 30k in 2008.:eek::o Cleared all my debt in 2013 and loving being debt free
Mortgage free since 20140 -
oh please do give over , do you really think we are all so green !0
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hmmm seems very pie in the sky to me. Sorry.MF aim 10th December 2020 :j:eek:MFW 2012 no86 OP 0/2000
0
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Well my friends, I am known on many a forum for my investigative work with the Cabot Fan Club under the name Andrew1 / Sarah ( take your pick), but I can assure you that I sat and held one of these Camera pens and filled out a form which was beamed back within seconds from their head office system with my picture and the form I had just filled in with the demonstrator hundreds of miles away - this is not James Bond this is real. I held the hand machine which receives the debt information and did what the debt collector would have done - you can call it Pie in the Sky but you'd better believe it because it's true..
The Cabot Fan Club have a reputation going back 2 years nearly for making the Debt Collection Industry abide by the law...I am not making this up.
Sarah0 -
And I,M FATHER CHRISTMAS0
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And I,M FATHER CHRISTMAS
You Father Christmas have over 200 posts on here and I would have thought one might expect you to have a bit more responsible posting for someone with a pedigree. On Consumer Action Group I have over 2500 posts and have earned my reputation. I do not find stupid remarks like yours particularly helpful to the many thousands who come to these forums to learn what is going on with DCA's - I witnessed this myself, I used the system, I was as in disbelief at what I was seeing as one might find anyone on the receiving end of it. If you don't have anything useful to say, stay off my thread and let people learn from something that is going on in the real world please.
Matter of fact call them and ask them yourself 0191 216 4424.0 -
Is this
http://www.destinyplc.co.uk/flash/#/home/digital_pen_and_paper/
the kind of thing you're talking about?0 -
Is this
http://www.destinyplc.co.uk/flash/#/home/digital_pen_and_paper/
the kind of thing you're talking about?
Someone showed me one on CAG but that was bigger, this one you have here is exactly the type I used. Thank you...0
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