DH contacted about debt he doesn't owe

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

Yesterday we got a letter in the post from a company called CCS Collection. They have DH name and address and say they are pursuing a debt of £700 odd on behalf of Sky.

The thing is, not only does DH have no debts (except mortgage) or any history of debt - he's never even had an account with Sky. Like, never - not even a lapsed one, or a shared one in a uni houseshare, or anything.

Obviously he will ring them tomorrow but can they do anything? We have no experience of ever having debt and I am concerned this will impact his credit rating.

Does he have access to his credit report? Equitable/Experian or the like have apps you can get to check. That would be my first port of call, check if there's anything on there; if there is and your DH has never had an account flag following the fraud procedures.

Prove it letter. Go to Money Saving Expert debt board, plenty of advice on there. Don't ring, write or email so you have an audit trail of what's been said. I've dealt with debt collectors at work and it's - surprising 🙄- how things get garbled or ignored at their end when they're being told 'Nope, we don't owe you.'

It's possible they are hitting everyone with a similar or same name as the debtor. Had that, as well. They don't care if you pay up to make them go away (don't) they just want to be paid.

They can only collect if DH agrees to pay or it is court ordered. If its the latter then you should have had a letter giving you a court date where you could have disputed the debt.

Never ignore these so him phoning them tomorrow is the best thing to do.

They've probably traced someone with the same/ similar name and possibly the same d.o.b incorrectly. Not actually uncommon at all. Incredibly frustrating and inconvenient at best for the person they incorrectly trace to. Does he have a fairly common name?

Thanks all. I did wonder if they had "blanket bombed" people with similar names.

DH has one of the commonest UK surnames like Brown, Jones etc and a pretty common first name. Totally possible they just wrote to all the "Steve Joneses" in our city on the electoral roll I guess.

I'll mention MSE to him.

Until very recently I worked for a debt purchasing company and this is by far the most likely scenario. You’d be surprised how many times it happens, particularly for people with fairly common names. I’d recommend he contacts them and advises the debt has been mis-traced to him. If they’ve provided him with any information about the debt (account number, amount outstanding, etc) then it’s important they know as soon as possible, because they’ve also committed a data breach.

They’re not able to do it on a blanket basis, but they have almost certainly utilised a credit reference agency or data aggregator, who’ve provided them with your DH’s details as the “most likely” match for their debtor. This is perfectly legal, but it’s also open to error.

There's a Youtube video explaining what to do if you get a letter from CCS.

If they’ve provided him with any information about the debt (account number, amount outstanding, etc) then it’s important they know as soon as possible, because they’ve also committed a data breach

This is why I advise you to put everything in writing. Exjob was being chased by a debt collector, and despite me doing the legwork for them and actually telling them the company they probably should be chasing, they ignored me and kept calling. I suspect keeping the file open and getting client fees might have had something to do with that, as well as the likelihood of a big company (us) paying up rather than the small company who actually owed the money. Unfortunately it was all dealt with by phone. The usual ' we've been trying to contact you' malarkey.

When I used to work in complaints for a bank I ended up wiping a large outstanding debt as each time it moved along to a new debt collection agency they incorrectly traced it back to the same poor man who happened to be wealthy but at one point was declined even a phone contract through absolutely no fault of his own. It's legal but the consequences can be bad and totally out of the control of the person the debt is traced to.

My DH had this once. He called the company and they said there was loads of "DH name" and they were trying to locate the right person, so just wrote to everyone with that name in the vain hope they would reach the right person. They deleted DH details from their system.

I'm not sure that's an ethical / legal way of operating!

Good luck!

Don’t ring and speak to them. They will use that number to bombard you with calls. I would ignore the letter. It’s a fishing expedition.

Whether it is ethical or legal is a good point.

It is a darned stupid way of operating if all it takes is for someone to say "No, it's not me" and they cross you off the list.

What do the expect the actual person to say? "Oooh, you got me bang to rights there guv'nor, I owe the money all right, drat I thought I'd got away with it for a while!!!"?

Lots of good advice. Also check it isn't a scam. There was something doing the rounds recently.

I used to read MSE a lot, and some people will actually pay up even if they are sure it's not their debt because they are intimidated by the debt collector and don't know how to go about getting them off their backs (sorry about any confusion over pronouns there). Basically it's a fishing expedition - they've bough the debt for pennies and are looking to recoup their costs. They don't care if they have the right one or not, they just want someone to pay up. And think about it - if they target as many T Smiths as they can and even a couple pay up to make them go away, they've recouped their cost of buying the debt.