I had a card dropped through my door yesterday by a debt collection agency. This has come totally out of the blue and I’m not aware of any outstanding debts. The card gives no details about the debt or the amount, only that I should call them (which I won’t as once they have your number they’ll call 5-10 times a day). I signed up for Experian and I see nothing outstanding on my account.
Looking at the various advice sites online they all say that you should request proof of the debt in writing and I’m in the process of writing a letter to this effect. Some advice is to quote legislation and others keep it short.

Does the hive mind have any other advice? As far as I know I owe nothing and if it’s proved that I do I will of course pay. I am however reluctant to engage with a debt collection agency if I don’t need to.

Sounds like a scam to me, I would throw the card in the bin. If anybody thinks you owe them money they will know your name and address and the amount owed and to whom it’s owed. Definitely don’t write to them.

It’s a numbers game; they are counting on a handful of people getting in touch and confirming they owe money. Just like the car park fraudsters who issue Parking Charge Notices in the hope of terrifying a few people into paying.

Happened to me years ago, so I phoned them. Turns out they were looking for the previous owners, so I never heard from them again. Not sure why you think they’d start bombarding you if you don’t have a debt to pay

EDIT: assuming it’s not a scam as above. A random card does seem odd

There hasn’t been a previous owner of this house since the mid eighties, I don’t think that’s the issue. I should add that this card was hand delivered and not posted. They sent someone here which is time and money. They must think they have something to go to that trouble.

Who is the card addressed to? Could still be a fairly simple reason like the wrong house number being noted…… or someone taking out finance using your address (not so good).

Is the card addressed to you?

Yes, to me personally.

Call them back from a public phone and ask them what it’s about

Dial “141”. Enter this prefix before dialing a phone number to prevent the person you are calling from seeing your phone number on caller ID.

I get one turn up occasionally as someone registered their Amex card at my flat despite never living there. A quick flash of my paperwork showing I’ve lived there for X amount of years alone (tenancy agreement, council tax bills) and they go away. Maybe that’s what’s happened to you?

Don’t volunteer any information. Just find out who they say the debt is owed to, how much it is and what it’s for. If they can’t give you those details then hang up, they must be scammers/timewasters.

IF you are certain you have no outstanding debts then I’d either ignore and treat as a scam or potentially do as Perchy suggests and use a phone box. The latter may be difficult round here though, I’m not sure where I’d find one.

Not sure why you think they’d start bombarding you if you don’t have a debt to pay

One of the problems with bad debts is the get handed from agency to agency with what scant information the creditor has – which by the time all other avenues have been exhausted is an out of date or false address and an out of date or false  phone number. Obviously each agency appointed fails to collect the debt, so after a while someone else gets appointed. Each time the job of chasing the debt changes hands that one – wrong – piece of information is the only thing they have to fo on.

We had calls for years and years looking for someone who had never lived at our address but had once had our phone number. Each agency – once I’d figured out who they were if they stayed on the line long enough would cease if I wrote to them – but then it would start again with someone else a few months later. They wouldn’t tell me who was instructing them because of ‘Data Protection’ so I said not only have they got to amend their own records but they have to feed the correction back to their client…. that didn’t work. So the next time it happened I wrote, cc-ing the other agencies I’d already dealt with, saying they needed to inform their client and I needed a letter from that  client acknowledging the correction.

That worked – I got letter from the loans company that had been sending out dud details to collection agencies for at least a decade. And the calls stopped

Then – about a year later … a call …. asking for the same guy who’s never lived here. I wrote an email to the loans company basically saying ‘I hope this has nothing to do with you’

They sent me a cheque for £200 🙂

First I would not call the number on the card. check online if the firm actually exists and call from there. Do not give out any information that could compromise your security. Ask them to mail out a hard copy of what is owed and to whom and take it from there. I once had a debt collection letter to me and it was the rented house next door the woman had the same surname so I do not know if the collection agency was trying it on with me or she had changed the house number on her debt. (she had previous for non payment) got it sorted out pretty quickly TBH.

I’ve got a letter written asking them to prove it. I’m not calling them. The letter will be sent recoded and we’ll see what happens. It’s not a fun experience though….

NewRetroTom

Subscriber

Don’t volunteer any information. Just find out who they say the debt is owed to, how much it is and what it’s for.

This would be my approach. “I’ve got a card from you, I don’t know what it’s for”. Also, they’ll be used to folk kicking off down the phone at them, so can be quite easily disarmed just by talking nicely

Still not sure why you wouldn’t call them, especially when you can shield your number if you want to. It could potentially be dealt with in 5mins

I had a debt with PayPal years ago, due to an ongoing ebay issue and a chargeback.
PayPal sold the debt on to an agency, they used tactics like this. I had a card through the door from the agency, looked like it was hand delivered, no postmark etc. But actually came from the postman. It was ‘signed’ by their bailiffs, but I was a member of a forum for people in a similar PayPal situation and 25 other people had the same card ‘signed’ by the same guy across all areas in the UK ‘hand’ delivered through their doors on the same day.

If you are certain you have no debts then I can’t see that you have anything to worry about. Could you call your local CAB to see if there is a scam going on? I also agree that you have nothing to lose by calling them (but look them up online and find the correct number to go with the business – don’t call the number on the card as it may be a premium rate number.

“We tried to kick your door in, but you were out.

Please ring 01234-567890 to arrange another time for us to kick your door in,
or,
send us a load of money for no reason
or,
bring all your valuables to our office within 7 days to save us the trouble of kicking your door in
or,
we can call you every day fifteen times until you break and one of the above options becomes more palatable

thanks

Bstards and co
debt inventors”

They sent me a cheque for £200 🙂

So now you owe them £200?😂

I had similar a few years ago. Adamant I owed nothing to anyone. Turned out BT (eventually confirmed by them and that it was normal) cancelled my direct debit before taking my final payment. 6 or weeks after I’d left BT they mailed out a glossy “come back” envelope (which apparently contained a bill I needed to manually pay) I promptly binned, didn’t email my final bill (despite paperless billing) and sent a few marketing looking bits to tell me I owed them 16 ish.

I wasn’t a happy bunny.

But yeah, ring, don’t give then any info they don’t already have, ask them to provide evidence of debt in writing then take it from there once received.

but look them up online and find the correct number to go with the business – don’t call the number on the card as it may be a premium rate number.

That would be my main concern with the whole thing. And ask the neighbours if they have received one too. Could have just flooded the area with cards

So now you owe them £200?

Dammit!

So now you owe them £200?

Of course he doesn’t. He never cashed the cheque.

Turned out BT (eventually confirmed by them and that it was normal) cancelled my direct debit before taking my final payment.

Virgin do the same.

They’re shady AF, but thankfully powerless.

My bet it’s not a ‘debt’ as such, but a bill (huge difference) hence why it’s not on your CRA file.

It’s usually a Gym or other subscription service short of a bit of cash who’s dumped their entire list of customers who quit before the end of their year-long “contract” on to a Debt Recovery agency for 2% of it’s value.

Still not sure why you wouldn’t call them

Because it’s too easy to accidentally incriminate yourself.

What’s the company?

My then-partner had one of these a few years ago chasing a ~£200 debt which she had no knowledge of. We got increasingly threatening letters through the post, she was like “let’s just pay it” (which of course is what they’re banking on) and I was “not a chance in hell.” This is the letter I wrote to them on her behalf, I never heard from them again.

You have contacted me regarding the account with the above reference number, which you claim is owed by myself.

I would point out that I have no knowledge of any such debt being owed to [company].

I am familiar with the Office of Fair Trading Debt Collection Guidance which states that it unfair to send demands for payment to an individual when it is uncertain that they are the debtor in question.

I would also point out that the OFT say under the Guidance that it is unfair to pursue third parties for payment when they are not liable. In not ceasing collection activity whilst investigating a reasonably queried or disputed debt you are using deceptive/and or unfair methods.

Furthermore ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment amounts to physical/psychological harassment.

I would ask that no further contact be made concerning the above account unless you can provide evidence as to my liability for the debt in question.

I await your written confirmation that this matter is now closed. Otherwise I will have no option but to make a complaint to the trading standards department and consider informing the OFT of your actions.

Thanks to all that have taken the time to post a reply. I have written and sent a letter (signed for) stating more or less exactly what @cougar has written above. I’ve a feeling that this is something similar to @monkeyboyjc has had.

I had similar a few years ago. Adamant I owed nothing to anyone. Turned out BT (eventually confirmed by them and that it was normal) cancelled my direct debit before taking my final payment. 6 or weeks after I’d left BT they mailed out a glossy “come back” envelope (which apparently contained a bill I needed to manually pay) I promptly binned, didn’t email my final bill (despite paperless billing) and sent a few marketing looking bits to tell me I owed them 16 ish.

And similar for me, but with one of the utilities when we moved 11 years ago. There was about £30 outstanding with the company that we hadn’t been informed about.Can’t remember who it was now..

when we moved 11 years ago.

As I understand it from the reading I did back when I fought the one I mentioned above,

If it’s older than 6 years then it’s statute barred. They cannot legally pursue it even if you do actually owe the money. However, if you admit to them that you owe it then it resets the clock, which is one reason why it’s a bad idea to talk to them on the phone.

Incidentally, on the back of what I just said,

You have googled the company name / address / phone number to confirm that they match what’s on the card, yes? It’d be very easy for someone to pull your name out of the recycling or the phone book or something and then stick a card through your door going “give us money or else.”

The fact that there’s no other details like what you allegedly owe or to whom rather makes me wonder whether their game plan is to trip you up into admitting to a non-existent debt or fessing up to a debt which you know about but they don’t so they can go “why yes, of course that’s the one we meant.”

The more I think about this, the more I’d be tempted just to throw it in the bin and not reply. Who goes directly to “debt collector”? Even the shower we dealt with started off with “solicitors” letters before moving to a debt collection agency (which is the next desk over in the same office).

The card looks authentic, I’ve no real doubt it’s from the DCA and non premium rate number matches. The straight to Debt Collector threw me. I’ve had no letters telling me I owe anyone. Could be that they hope I admit to something. We shall see though, the letter is in the post and I await their reply.

The more I think about this, the more I’d be tempted just to throw it in the bin and not reply. Who goes directly to “debt collector”? Even the shower we dealt with started off with “solicitors” letters before moving to a debt collection agency (which is the next desk over in the same office).

I had a debt collector come around after my utility provider didn’t bother sending me a bill.

They had the wrong address (one that did not exist), which is quite an achievement when you’ve managed to do meter readings!

They simply stated the money due and as I’d not had a bill I told them politely to do one, they said they could in no way do one, but once I gave them a ref. from energy watch they said they could in fact do one and would I like some money off too.

It’s usually a Gym or other subscription service short of a bit of cash who’s dumped their entire list of customers who quit before the end of their year-long “contract” on to a Debt Recovery agency for 2% of it’s value

Yeah, I had one of those.

I was politely informed by the desk staff that cancelling the direct debit was a perfectly acceptable way to terminate the contract. So as a naive 20-something with bad filing abilities who had misplaced his own copy of the contract, that was exactly what I then did.

After successfully taking the first debt collector – they never had any evidence – to small claims court for my fees (I charged them £20 per letter, which was what they were adding to the debt every letter they sent, so it seemed reasonable), it got passed along a couple of times and ended up with an agency who turned up a photocopied contract which said I absolutely would pay up until the 12 month period concluded. At that point I figured I should fold, and promptly returned the money I won off the first place to the third place.

Along the way I learned a valuable lesson about small print.

It’s usually a Gym or other subscription service short of a bit of cash who’s dumped their entire list of customers who quit before the end of their year-long “contract” on to a Debt Recovery agency for 2% of it’s value

Mine was a well-known credit card, but yes, that’s exactly what happened in my case. The company doing the chasing buy bad debts that the originating company have given up on. There’s many, many threads about them on the MSE forum and on some consumer action site or other whose name escapes me just now but I used info from to fend them off.

Somewhat amusingly, they’re one of our customers now. With the access I have to their systems I could shut down their entire operation, temporarily at least, if I felt so inclined. (-:

Along the way I learned a valuable lesson about small print.

I used to get this all the time when I worked in tech support in the 90s. Customers would want refunds and be refused so they’d say “well, I’ll just cancel my direct debits then!” Thing is, we’d already been paid in full by the credit card companies so it mattered not a jot to us what they did, but cancelling would get them in bother with the card company.

TL;DR, just cancelling a direct debit in isolation is generally a really bad idea.

I suggest you to just don’t talk or send them any letters. It’s better to consult this to Experian if you are in doubt. That’s the best thing to do. It’s even better if Experian can help track who sent you those cards. I have just read an article about similar debt collector scams at https://www.whycall.me/news/ftc-files-charges-against-bogus-debt-collection-scheme. They have been around for years. Beware of them and keep spreading the word, folks.

Be sure to start your letter with “Darling fascist bully boy”.

It seems to work with bank managers.

Boomshanka 👍