To be really quite cross about this letter?

[OpenMe]

I've had a letter from a debt collection agency. Me, who apart from a mortgage, paid off years ago, has never borrowed a penny in my life.

But of course I have because whenever you enter into a monthly contract, that's a credit agreement.

Anyway, the letter is from an agency acting for Talkmobile Ltd. I had a phone with them which I cancelled in August well after the initial 2 year contract period was up. I told them I was changing and they told me when the last DD was due, which I paid then cancelled the DD.

Since then I have heard nothing, no statements, no letters, phonecalls, emails but today I've received this strongly worded letter telling me I owe them money.

No details or "evidence" of why or how I owe it.

It's not very much and the easy thing to do would be pay up and forget about it. But it's just not right and I hate the idea of other less well off or more vulnerable people getting similar letters.

A fight is going to ruin my clean credit record though isn't it?

WWYD?

Well I would ring and make polite enquiries first. It could be the result of a simple error and might be easily cleared up.
Not everything has to be a 'fight' from the get go.

Obviously if it cannot be resolved then it needs to be escalated. I don't blame you for being annoyed about the letter, but don't let it ruin your day.

No need to go all guns blazing. A phone all explaining the situation in a decent manner should be a good start.

No, of course not but the tone of the letter is quite aggressive and "fighty" so it feels like the fight has already started iyswim

I don't think a fight will spoil your credit rating. My 3 years + repeatedly telling British Gas and their useless lackeys that I didn't owe them 25 quid hasn't upset mine. You are right to be annoyed, the pestering letters they sent me were a real pain the arse. They eventually accepted I was right then waited a year and started again. I cannot speak lowly enough of them.

Have you kept the correspondence from when you ended the contract?
I had a different problem with 02 who tried to charge me a late cancellation fee for a phone I did not want, despite it being cancelled well within the deadline. It took three phonecalls to sort it out, with each person telling me something different each time! In the end I cancelled my DD with them and despite them telling me on the last call that they would not take the money, they tried to anyway.
Btw - they're relying on the fact that a lot of people just give in and pay because of fear. You are allowed to query it!

These letters are ALWAYS bollocks. I read about them on MSE.

What you do is contact the debt collection agency and say you need to see a copy of the original contract. They will say, "OK fine," but never send it (because they don't have it).

Without the original contract, you have NO obligation to pay the outstanding debt.

I had this after I cancelled a gym contract with LA Fitness. I'm naming them because I cancelled properly and they had no right to put this non-existent debt in the hands of a debt collector.

It took me a while to work out it was to do with LA Fitness, because in all the threatening letters and phone calls I was bombarded with, the person to whom I owed this 'debt' was never named. Just the amount and ever-increasing penalties for not settling it plus dire warnings about bailiffs and my credit rating.

When I received the first letter, and follow-up phone message, I called politely to explain. They asked me for proof of my identity and did that every time I called before they would discuss the ways in which they were harassing me.

In the end I lost it with them and told them to fucking well take me to fucking court. I should have done it from the start, because I never heard anything again.

No Cigar, unfortunately not. It was all done by telephone

To the OPs original point, it probably ought to be illegal to send such dire threats on such flimsy evidence - an automatic penalty for offenders would be nice. Or a regulator that was any use .

I wrote repeatedly (the twunts printed an e-mail address but ignored e-mail) simply stating I didn't owe anything (which I didn't). After they started again I found some keywords on an internet forum about escalating complaints, harrasment, regulator etc, that seemed to work. They are utter twunts though.

I had this with 3 mobile. The "debt" of £30 was apparently about 8 years old. I called them and asked for all the paperwork showing how the debt had been incurred. Never heard from them again.

Good luck, let us know how you get on. Agree that this kind of letter is intimidating and I imagine a lot of people will panic and pay. Unethical twats.

I have had two letters from Erudio, who bought my student loan, reminding me payments start on the 20th May, but I haven't set up a direct debit and I'll be in trouble if I don't or don't get them their deferment form asap.

They have not sent out a deferment form . They didn't last year either, and I was forced to endure their debit collection calls until they finally did so. I also gave them my bank details for a direct debit 2 years ago, and signed a mandate, but they failed to set it up. Somehow this is still my fault in their eyes.

We had the same with Vodafone.

We got advice from CAB and then told exactly what to to ask for.

They claimed that when I called to end the contract I had accepted another year contract. I know I hadn't as I had got my new phone and contract that morning and have no need for two phones.

They kept saying they had the recorded phone call. Then said they couldn't find it, but I had definitely signed up for another (how they could know that when it was years earlier and couldn't listen to the call, I don't know).

As soon as we spoke to CAB, told them that and asked for the information CAB told us to ask for, they dropped it.

I had this with 3 and just after I resolved it with one debt collector another one would turn up to deal with it. The same none debt got sold on something like 7 times.

The very last one when I said I can provide you with a letter from 3 confirming I don't owe the money and if you contact the last company they can confirm that this is a on going problem for which I am not responsible to have them refuse and tell me it wasn't their job and no I couldn't have an address to send letter.

I had a similar situation with orange once. Turns out what had happened was when I was due for an upgrade instead of upgrading me they accidentally cancelled my contact and re issued a new one. However they never cancelled the first one. It was switched to a temporary number so this number was receiving texts etc which I never saw. Out of the blue I was contacted by a debt collection agency. Orange kept apologising but doing nothing. It happened more than once. I ended up paying off the "debt" as was told it would affect my credit rating and had I take it up long term with orange.

The agency isn't Capital Resolve, is it? They wrote to me last month demanding £32 for my debt with Post Office Telecomms, a company with which I have never had dealings. I emailed them asking for more information and, unsurprisingly, have never heatd from them again.

It's a scam. The debt management company buys the debt from the original company then writes to a whole bunch of people to attempt to reclaim the debt, with added costs. The idea is that at least a few people will panic and pay up, which means they receive funds that cover the original multiple times.

They operate using fear of poor credit and rely on recipients being sufficiently scared of their official-looking letter to pay up without question. Which is why the amounts "owed" are usually fairly small.

Bastarding shysters, the lot of 'em.

Open Sounds like they haven't cancelled the DD. Doesn't matter if you have, they need to. If this is the case and months of DDs have bounced, chances are it's already affected your credit rating. They should record phone calls and leave notes, can you remember the date of the call? Might help them pull all of that up.

And check your credit rating for free here www.clearscore.com/

No, it's not enough to be 6mths + of DDs

It's not even one month's DD, very small sum, but that's not the point. In fact, it almost makes it worse if some of the tales here are accurate. It's the kind of amount you can see lots of people just paying to be rid of them. Less than £10

I had this with EE. 2 collection agencies involved somehow

I emailed all of them stating I would not be paying a company I had no relationship with an amount of money requested by them just because they asked.

I refused to take any calls as they wouldn't tell me what it was about & I wasn't about to give any personal information away.

They wrote it off in the end, once I'd asked for the evidence that EE had asked for the amount

Be firm, & polite. Only speak with once baned person & everything in writing

Good luck

PS. In the confirmation letter I got about the write-off, it gave a date as to when it would be off my credit record

If it's from a third party then phone talk talk directly as it may be a scam. Google the debt company to see if they are credible. Also get a free credit check as something like that should be showing on there as black mark.