Fake debt collector advice

jammy_c

jammy_c

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James
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I received a letter from Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd, apparently on behalf of “3” mobile telling me that I owe them £260 in unpaid bills.
I havn’t owned a 3 contract since early 2006 and I know that I paid it off in full each and every month via DD.

There is a lot of stories about this company and others like it chasing people for debts that do not exist. The BBC watchdog website is one for a start: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/01/the_chase_for_debts_not_always.html

I just wondered if any of you guys had heard from these types of companies, and what should I do about it? I’ve read about the “Prove It” letter, but I’m not sure if I should even bother contacting them at all.

I had a similar letter last summer from Advantis Credit telling me that I owed AOL £62 for a contract back in 2007, but I know for a fact that I don’t so I ignored it. Nothing happened, but will my credit file start to be affected?

cheers in advance,
James.
 
jammy_c said:
I received a letter from Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd, apparently on behalf of “3” mobile telling me that I owe them £260 in unpaid bills.
I havn’t owned a 3 contract since early 2006 and I know that I paid it off in full each and every month via DD.

There is a lot of stories about this company and others like it chasing people for debts that do not exist. The BBC watchdog website is one for a start: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/01/the_chase_for_debts_not_always.html

I just wondered if any of you guys had heard from these types of companies, and what should I do about it? I’ve read about the “Prove It” letter, but I’m not sure if I should even bother contacting them at all.

I had a similar letter last summer from Advantis Credit telling me that I owed AOL £62 for a contract back in 2007, but I know for a fact that I don’t so I ignored it. Nothing happened, but will my credit file start to be affected?

cheers in advance,
James.
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I had a couple from Mackenzie Hall a monh or so ago about a debt to a company I've never heard of. I was advised to ignore unless they chase further
 
If you do write to them don't sign the letters with your normal signature. I believe that if you do write to them asking for proof of any alleged debt they cannot then chase you for the debt until they have provided said proof to you.
 
Don't open envelope, write return to sender deceased on it and pop it back in post. In the past I'e found writing back saiying No way in hell do I owe you money, blah blah blah results in a letter back saying yes you do blah blah blah BUT for some reason they seem to give up there! Ignornig it tends to get mire and more letters from them and evewntually a knock on the door.
 
I moved into a flat recently and was getting very official looking letters to the names of at least 3 residents that lived there in the past. In the cupboard were old, opened but clearly discarded, letters to said residents and they were all about debt collection. After a month of living there I was sick of getting these letters constantly so I got some post-its and wrote on them "not known at this address", sellotaped them onto the address window of the envelope, and dumped them in the post box. Any which didn't have a return address were just binned.

I haven't had a single letter addressed to any of these previous tenants since I did that. You could try the same thing.
 
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i had this with lowel porfolio group 2 years ago

mine was because i refused to pay 3 mobile because they refused to repair my phone

it was sent to them and they said there was no issue yet nokia said there was a big big problem with this particular phone and i got a written letter of nokia proving it was a fault

however 3 mobile refused to do anything about it so told them to stick it up the rear

2 years a go i got letter asking for £600 odd on 1 bill and anohter £345 on another

now i know the £600 was legit and that i owed it as for the other certainly not

they were trying this on

so said to lowell about all this and no way i was going to pay for either otherwise trading standards will be getting involved and i had proof ie bank statments that i onl owed for the 2nd year contract with a faulty phone

the £300 odd bill got removed within a week , which i expected them to do this

the £600 odd bill was also thrown out after 6 months of me arguing with lowel but finally got a letter saying both were clear debt any sorry for any incovinience caused

what a day that was not worrying about £900 for the worst company ever especially customer service's thatw was 3 mobile aswell as lowell
 
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It would seem that 3 are quite the bunch for doing this, a few years ago my mate got a similar letter claiming that he owed hundreds of pounds, he had threats and everything.Never got it sorted out, ended up paying it in the end!

I can't stand 3, hate having to have anything to do with them. I mostly don't, except for the occasional use of mobile broadband through them. Would never have a phone through them. They either have seriously dodgy staff working for them who make a lot of "mistakes" or are genuinely committing robbery...
 
3 have got to be the worst phone company ever, I finished my contract with them and got an abusive call from somebody in India giving me all sorts of grief for leaving 3. It has taken 18 months for my wife to fianlly end her contract with them, after many phone calls at our expense and threatenng them with legal procedures they fianlly relented and sent us a letter ssaying the contract was finished. Caused us loads of stress and wasted hours of our time.
They really shouldnt be allowed to trade.
 
wow, good response from this. (y)
It's shocking they can do it and get away with it. Part of me wants to send them the "Prove It" letter and see what they come back with, and the other part wants to ignore them and see if they stop hassling me. maybe I should just wait to see if I hear any more from them. I KNOW that I don't owe anything, so legally they shouldn't be able to do anything. :thinking: It's like banging on some stranger's door and saying "you owe me £500 so I'm coming in to take your telly away". i'd expect to be greeted with a punch in the nose! :nuts:
 
yep I'd agree with you, but ignoring the fools and letting them go away seems the easiest approach and the one most likely to leave you sane
 
Either ignore everything unless you receive properly stamped county court papers, in which case you must respond or you will get a CCJ by default.

Or send one letter.

Put it in writing to them that you have no lability as it is not your dept. State that you will consider any further contact from them other than proof of debt as harassment and refer them to the Supreme Court case of Lisa Maria Angela Ferguson v British Gas Trading Ltd. [2009] EWCA Civ 46

If they do not cease and desist you have set them up for an open and shut case of harassment.
 
Companies and organizations that have "inadvertently" made use of my snaps often treat me the same way, but I don't give up :nuts: ker-ching
 
British Gas are the worst. They were chasing the debts for the previous owner of my current house. When the services were reconnected not only did the cheating barstewards fiddle the initial meter reading to try and make me pay for the previous people's electricity they also wanted a huge deposit to connect or I'd have to have some stupid pre payment meter! I switched immediately and will not now or ever have anything to do with them. Thieves. They carried on chasing the debt until I made a complaint and mentioned that case. Then they backed off very, very fast. Not heard a peep out of them since.
 
Does no harm replying. We were plagued by a company called Global who purchased a debt from Arrow that had been paid off. They alleged £20,000 of debt and were threatening debt collectors. Citizens Advice told us to reply recorded delivery stating that we dispute the debt an requesting Proof of Debt. We never heard anything for 1 year then they sent a statement showing £26,000 debt. I sent a very clipped letter with an attachment of the first stating that I had disputed this debt 1 year ago and requested proof of debt which I was entitled to by law and that as they had failed to supplied said proof within 30 days they had, in fact, broken the law - what were they now intending to do about t as any further communication would be forwarded to my lawyer for consideration of legal action against them bi have heard nothing further.
 
Just ignore them and then if they carry on that is the point to start getting heavy with them with requests such as providing original bills for that apparent in paid debt and then report them to trading standards, request there complaints procedure, take them through every step of that complaint procedure and then drag them through every single step of the FOS financial ombudsman service, I bet they give up before you do and the best thing is it will cost you little but time if that is the way you wish to play it, too many people do that to them and a couple of things will happen, it will cost them a fortune in FOS fees and they may even loose there FSA licence or whatever it is called

Matt
MWHCVT
 
Keith W said:
Get good and free advice over at the consumer action group http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk

Lowell Portfolio 1 Ltd come up a lot in there forums
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I am sorry but the CAG are often very much guilty of misinformation and having spent a long time reading threads on there I have seen threads by people on there that were blatantly people that I had dealt with in my old job and they were very good a misrepresenting there cases to make themselves look like innocent victims to the bid bad banks, and please don't get me started on the armchair experts on there
 
When I was on my borough's fraud unit, I used to see this sort of thing quite regularly. One of the most common was a letter purporting from Media CAT, demanding money from people for downloading copyrighted films from torrent sharing sites. This was sometimes accompanied by a phone call.

Quite scary for the recipients (after all, they'd reported it to the police) and very convincing looking - but don't engage with them if you think they're fraudulent.

I eventually managed to trace one of them to a shared office in Wales. Following arrest, charge & conviction, sadly the sentence was so woeful that my suspect practically laughed on his way out of the courtroom.
 
There's a similar outfit who send out threatening letters using the name Graham White Solicitors and when that fails in the name of a debt collection agency,Roxburghe.

Both transpired to actually be part time businesses run by an employee of Hackney council, if you ignore them they simply sell the debt on - my disputed Tiscali bill has been sold on about six or seven times, in fact the last letter I received was from Roxburghe - the ones that sold it in the first place, so they've ended up buying their own debt back :LOL:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
... my disputed Tiscali bill has been sold on about six or seven times, in fact the last letter I received was from Roxburghe - the ones that sold it in the first place, so they've ended up buying their own debt back :LOL:
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Fantastic - love it :D

One of my businesses is involved in the 'debt business' so I know a little about this. I would caution people to differentiate between debt scams and debt collectors pursuing you for real debts - whether they are mistaken or not.

If you know the approach involves a debt scam then ignore it - totally.

If it is a real debt then deal with it - seeking proper advice the sooner the better.

If it is a mistaken debt, and by this I mean a real debt recovery company is pursuing you for a debt you believe you are not liable for, then I would suggest that you do not ignore the matter but write (not telephone or email) a brief and succinct letter stating that you do not recognise the debt and you seek definitive proof of the debt. Keep a log of every communication. Handle it properly and the recovery company should also deal with your correspondence professionally.

Only this week, my company (not me personally) received calls from a debt buyer company concerning an outstanding landlord's energy supply debt on a property in Essex. My company had been involved with the property in the past but not in any sort of way that makes it responsible for energy or other supplies. Someone had found a letter or notice at the address and passed it to E_ON who then passed it on when they sold the debt. I had two rather heated calls earlier in the week then on Friday, after receiving a letter, I insisted on speaking with someone further up the food chain and I believe it is now sorted. But I'm keeping a log of all conversations and the letter received on Friday.

On the subject of returning mail not addressed to you. I see many situations where ongoing debt-related cases have caused grief and distress to both debtors and innocent parties through mail not being returned or people accepting mail on behalf of someone who doesn't live with them.

You should never simply chuck away any mail intended for others (except obvious spam/marketing mail). Put a line through the address and write large 'RTS' (return to sender) and pop it into a post box. It takes just seconds. It matters not whether there is a return address printed on the envelope.

And never, ever, agree to accept mail for anyone who does not live at your address. No matter how persuasive their reasons appear to be. ;)
 
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Received another letter late last week from Lowell, well, apparently from "3"mobile saying that they have now sold the debt to Lowell, but came in the same envelope as a statement from Lowell. very official looking, but definitely not Proof that I owe anything, and not something anyone with an inkjet and a bit of imagination couldn't knock up. it could say anything to be honest.

I'm just at a bit of a loss now as to whether I should respond or ignore.
 
we are still getting debt collection notices from the guy that commited suicide in our place before we took it over. We kept writing deseased return to sender and even sent one an email. Some officials came to the door were quite rude and forceful and wanted us to prove who we were. I simply said

"for one you can get your foot out my door before you lose it, and secondly its not for us to prove who we are, its up to you to do your job and check official and freely open records to see that the person you are looking for no longer enjoys oxygen, now unless there is anything else... off you fcuk!"
 
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MWHCVT said:
I am sorry but the CAG are often very much guilty of misinformation and having spent a long time reading threads on there I have seen threads by people on there that were blatantly people that I had dealt with in my old job and they were very good a misrepresenting there cases to make themselves look like innocent victims to the bid bad banks, and please don't get me started on the armchair experts on there
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Have to disagree, they were VERY helpful when I needed help and those armchair experts know an awful lot.
 
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