Get rich quick start a debt collection agency!

[longstay]

I have been dealing with debt collection agency’s for many of my friends over some time and have a bit of inside information as my X worked for a collection agency. So far I have had many favourable results but I have just run into a new problem!

About three years ago I helped a close friend set-up a repayment plan with Step Change (formally CCCS), many of the debts are now paid in full and she has letters stating the debts are paid. However one of the collection agency’s (Lowell) is now sending letters to an address from five years ago in her married name (she reverted to her birth name before starting with Step Change), the account numbers all tally with payments made via Step Change but the amount outstanding is higher in Lowell's demand for payment, (not to mention alleged missed payments) than stated in the Step Change statement showing all payments made on time and in full.

We only discovered letters were being sent to this address by complete accident, I do not wish to stir-up a Hornets nest but it appears to me they are trying to collect the same debt twice. As far as I can see this company’s accounts are in complete disarray and that makes me wonder if she owes them anything at all or are they just firing off letters at random hopping to extract money from anyone who opens one of there letters?

Dose anyone know how I should deal with this?

Thanks in advance to anyone who posts a reply.

 

[ALewis]

Well they may be sending out these letters in hope of quick cash from scared people. If your accounts show that they are paid in full - let them know, offer to send proof of this, and state that should they not respond within x days you shall consider them corrected and therefore shall not receive any more communications from them.

That should do it .

 

[Witch consumer]

Then when you have tried Adams polite answer, report them to the ICO forsending letters to a stranger when the current details will be available to them and to the OFT who provide their licence. If they dont scrap the non existent debt when you have proven it has been paid, report them to the FOS too, for good measure.