Thread: Equita...Help please !!!

Please can somebody help... I had a council tax bill passed to equita some months ago. I made a arrangement with them to pay £50 a month which i have been doing so. At the begining of the month i rang to pay and was told that i am up to date. When i got home yesterday i was greeted by a "REMOVAL NOTICE". I rang Equita and after some hard work they agreed that they messed up and said that they would call back the debt from the bailiff and that someone would call me today to confirm. I waited till 12.00pm and still had had no call from them so i rang, first time i had the phone put down on me by some arrogant male, second time i got a female with the worst attitude problem ever telling me i could'nt speak to anyone other than the bailiff. She would'nt even look at my file to see what discusions had took place the night before. At this i rang the council tax office to tell them about the problems i am having with the bailiffs and they said " we can see that you have made all of your payments so they should not be acting in this manner. But unfortunately we can not help, you have to speak to the bailiff". They are going to email their head office of this problem but that might not make any difference. I then called the Bailiff only to be told that he is not in possesion of my file yet, so he will ring me when he gets his hands on it. My point is i have made all of my payments on time to Equita, was given false information saying i was up to date and now i am going to suffer for it because someone in their office can't do their job correctly. What can i do please can anybody give me some advice?

Thanks.

Kezjack

Hi, the bailiff said he did'nt have my file yet, so the office have'nt passed it on yet (but they are saying that they have). Do i ring the council tax office?
Sorry if i seem abit thick, but this has knocked me for 6 today.

Thanks

Kezjack

I have had NO bailiffs at my door (yet) and do not want them here. i will email BCC tax office in the morning and forward a copy to the bailiff's. Should it be emailed to anyone in specific?

Thanks

Kezjack

I made the agreement with equita as soon as i received the first letter off them, so initialy there was no charges added. but as soon as you default they send the bailiff in, then you get all the extras (charges). Should the council tax office be able to stop this from going further as i hav'nt defaulted ?

Thanks

Kezjack

All advice is gladley received.

Will let you know how i get on when i speak to them tomorrow

Many Thanks

Kezjack

Be CAREFUL. We had an identical query as this yesterday where the debt was passed to the bailiff and yet the bailiff had not received the file. NO CHARGES CAN BE APPLIED TO YOUR ACCOUNT AS NO VISIT HAS BEEN MADE.

WRITE to Equita IMMEDIATELY and complain that you have kept to an agreed payment plan and that this action by them of passing the debt to the bailiff is simply a method a obtaining additional bailiff fees at your expense and that you will be writing to the Office of Fair Trading as this method of collecting a debt is against their own guidelines.

State also that you will not hesitate in making a formal For 4 Complaint to the court concerning the actions of any bailiff that tries to charge fees to you when you have kept to an agreed payment plan and FINALLY request a copy of the Screen Shot of your account and confirmation that NO CHARGES are to be added to your account for this mistake !!