 ukgirl34 vs Equita
Well i'm here as living proof that there is life before, during and after equita. First i'll tell you briefly my story.
Been having 'dealings' with equita seen as long back as i can remember. it seemed that as soon as we cleared one debt with them up popped another one. i've been scared and harassed to the point where i parted with almost £300 outside my door in a van a few years back just coming up to christmas.
well here we are again, just coming up to christmas and guess what..........yup you got it. equita must believe that we all save money through the year for christmas so they want a piece of it lol.
well i've spent the last two years paying them religiously, every month without fail. i've even paid the £2.50 processing fee that they charge (which equates to £80). after making the usual payment at the end of october imagine my surprise when i receive a bailiff removal notice dated 1st nov 07, then a week later 3 24 hour removal notices. well in a state of panic i phoned them only to be told 'don't worry, you've been making payments regularly, just continue as before'. wonderful i thought, problem solved..............NOT.
i rang as usual in Nov to make a payment. they refused to accept payment and gave me the apparantly allocated bailiffs mobile number. between myself and my partner we rang said number several times over the next few days but got no reply, despite us leaving messages to this day we have still received no reply.
we also rang equita several times only to be given numerous excuses as to why they had sent the notices and instructed their bailiff. the funnies one was 'there was no payment recieved in november'. when challenged regarding the date of the removal notice (1st nov) and the fact there were 30 days in nov and also that they had refused to accept payment; they hung up the phone.
on another call we requested details of their ombudsman; we were told to 'look it up on the internet' phone went dead again.
Good job we have access to the internet.
well imagine my frustration by now!!!
THIS IS WHAT I DID:
sent a detailed letter to the complaints manager at equita, listing at the bottom all the other people i'd written to regarding this (including the ombudsmans), did that so equita would be aware that we were not going to be 'bullied' any more and that we were very serious with our complaint.
wrote to my local councillor and enclosed the letter to equita along with photocopies of the notices i'd received.
sent a letter to my MP also enclosing the above again.
sent a letter to the council, again enclosing the above.
downloaded, printed and completed the compaints form from two of the ombusmans that equita are members of; again i also enclosed copies of all relevant information.
our local councillor phoned me and arranged to meet the day he received my letter. what a wonderful man he is.
PLEASE DON'T THINK IT'S REALLY THAT SIMPLE THOUGH!!!
as luck would have it i had kept all of my bank statements from at least the last 5 years (was missing a couple though, but one phone call to my bank and they are now on there way to me via the post). the bank statements clearly show dates and amounts paid to equita. my partner will never complain about me 'hoarding' stuff again.
my local counsillor has already contacted said company on our behalf so they are now aware that we are not just going to 'lie down and let them bully and harrass us again'. he is now in possession of all the facts.
we are now waiting for contact from our local councillor to instruct us further. i will keep updating this thread.
the point is that if it wasn't for this site and some very good advice from it we would have felt alone and bewildered. we would also quite easily fallen into the equita 'trap' and felt compelled to somehow get the money they were demanding.
i would strongly advise anyone in a similar position to this to access and utilize the advice, template letters, quotes etc that this site provides. don't feel scared or intimidated by letters you receive from the baliffs; they are worded and designed to do just that!!!
if your having trouble finding your local councillor's contact address etc, just ask if i can help you locate it i will be only to happy to do so. the same applies to ombudsman addresses i have those to.
i hope this experience gives hope to those in the same position. although our problem is not yet over we are hopefull of a positive outcome.
Last edited by ukgirl34; 16th December 2007 at 17:56.
Reason: adding information
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