Random letter from 3 demanding money

brody77

Hi all,

Up until October 2007, I was a customer of 3.
I cancelled my account in writing & received confirmation (which I thankfully still have).

Today, completely out of the blue, I have received a letter from their collections dept demanding I contact them within 7 days and pay the sum of £92, or they will refer me to a collections agency, legal action, etc.

To say I'm worried & stressed in an understatement - as I say, I cancelled my account with them 8 months ago!

Now, I will admit, I didn't keep track of whether they actually took a final direct debit from me or not, but surely they can't turn round & do this after nearly a year?

Also, the letter claims "despite previous attempts to contact you" - I have not had a single letter, email or phone call since the one in Oct 2007.

Do I have any rights at all here?
Obviously I'll need to ask my bank to check if a payment was indeed taken last year - as I don't have a copy of that months statement to hand.

Hoping someone can offer help before I phone them tomorrow & lose my temper with them!

Apart from anything else, I certainly don't have £92 lying about!

Thanks in advance

Del_Boy_Gupta

brody77 wrote: »

Hi all,

Up until October 2007, I was a customer of 3.
I cancelled my account in writing & received confirmation (which I thankfully still have).

Today, completely out of the blue, I have received a letter from their collections dept demanding I contact them within 7 days and pay the sum of £92, or they will refer me to a collections agency, legal action, etc.

To say I'm worried & stressed in an understatement - as I say, I cancelled my account with them 8 months ago!

Now, I will admit, I didn't keep track of whether they actually took a final direct debit from me or not, but surely they can't turn round & do this after nearly a year?

Also, the letter claims "despite previous attempts to contact you" - I have not had a single letter, email or phone call since the one in Oct 2007.

Do I have any rights at all here?
Obviously I'll need to ask my bank to check if a payment was indeed taken last year - as I don't have a copy of that months statement to hand.

Hoping someone can offer help before I phone them tomorrow & lose my temper with them!

Apart from anything else, I certainly don't have £92 lying about!

Thanks in advance

had exactly the same situation as the above poster.

I did check my statements and direct debits adn indeed the last direct debit was not collected. I phoned up 3 who confirmed that the letter was wrong in that they had not contacted me earlier re the debt, but I did indeed verify that I owed them that money therefore I paid it.


I would say that whilst waiting this long is a bit excessive if you check your bills (don't forget the last monthly bill statement might not have been sent by 3 if you had given notice to cancel before this date), you will find that you do owe this amount to them.

Hope this helps.

brody77

Well as I say, I'll have to confirm with my bank if they took payment or not, but I really can't see why it's my problem if they didn't take payment?
And I absolutely cannot afford to pay £92 - I'm trying to move home right now.

UPDATE 06/06 - Just phoned my online banking. They confirmed that the last DD taken by 3 was on 3rd October 2007 for my normal monthly payment, but also confirmed that the direct debit was cancelled by 3 on the 24th October!
So they didn't ever get that final payment, but it's their fault!

Can't wait for their lines to open at 8.30!

brody77

Ok, I've called 3.
Anger, rage...none of this covers it.

I spoke to (shocker) someone with a limited grasp of the English language, who just kept saying over & over that "I do apologise" - she was clearly reading off a script & couldn't tell me a damn thing other than I owe them money.

I asked her why she cancelled the direct debit - apparently it's for security reasons.
I asked her why my final bill says they would take payment by direct debit - she "did apologise for that"
I asked her why it's taken them over 8 months to contact me - she couldn't answer.

I am unbelievably angry with these morons - I advised I cannot afford to pay her £92 right now - I'm trying to move home for crying out loud! She has to investigate if I can have "a payment plan" and call me back, but until I make a payment, the collections process will proceed!

This is an outrage.

Is there anything I can do?

highet

same here - closed account oct 2007 and issued with final bill but amount never taken by DD and letter demanding payment in 7 days or DIRE consequences received this week - looks like 3 have a problem with collecting monies owed at end of contract and have a rather heavy handed way of sorting THEIR mistake months later

Quentin

brody77 wrote: »

Is there anything I can do?

They have apologised to you.

They have gone about chasing the debt badly.

But at the end of it all they are entitled to the money, and you do owe them.

So make a payment of what you can afford and contact them to see if they will allow you to pay the rest "on the drip".

Rebel

Quentin wrote: »

They have apologised to you.

They have gone about chasing the debt badly.

But at the end of it all they are entitled to the money, and you do owe them.

So make a payment of what you can afford and contact them to see if they will allow you to pay the rest "on the drip".

Having been in a similar position in the past I have to agree, If you owe the company money, and it seems you accept that is the case, they have in effect loaned you the money interest free for some time, now they want their money back, not unreasonably.

If they owed you money, and you found out even 9 months later wouldn't you want repaying?

I am nothing to do with any phone company, but surely you knew if you had more money than you were expecting in the bank?

PS my contract with 3 ends soon, so I may well have the same problem, but at the end of the day if I owe someone money I know I have to repay it or take the consequences.