I recently received a demand from lowell portfolio1 asking for £322.34

which is alleged I owe to 3 mobile.Lowell said they bought the debt from 3.

I replied stating that I had a 3 month old phone that was faulty,

but 3 would not pay to have it repaired as they said the PCB board was not covered under warranty

(according to Carphone Warehouse who did the inhouse repairs for 3)...

To cut a long story short,

I sent a letter recorded delivery to 3 (received by them and signed for)with the phone

stating that they have contravened the Sale of Goods Act 1979,

as they have sold me a phone that is faulty and have refused to repair, or replace it.

I also quoted that they contravened the Misrepresentation Act 1967, as the phone they provided me with does not do what they are claiming

(The phone would lose its connection midway through a call,

The phone would not send around 85% of text messages,

I couldn't get a signal at work etc).........

I therefore stated that as they have broken the terms of the contract, my contract is null and void.

I then cancelled my direct debit after the next monthjs payment went out.

The letetr was my 1 months notice to cancel, although 3 broke the terms of the contract by contraveneing the above 2 laws........

Fast forward about 3 or so years, and I get this letter from Lowell portfolio1 saying they have purchased the alleged debt from 3,

and I now owe Lowell the money.

I replied by asking for a copy of their Consumer Credit Agreement and a copy of my contract with Lowell that I signed and dated.

They have come up with neither as neither exists.

I also said that the matter is in dispute and they should refer back to 3.

Where do I stand in this issue??

These contracts arent covered under the CCA of 1974.

You wont get a CCA for it...

Forget Lowell... Do me a favour.

[email protected]

These execs office are excellent and they DO get stuff sorted.

Email them and they will be in contact shortly. If it was a genuine fault and 3 refused to fix the phone, then In my view, this should be relatively easy to sort out.

fkofilee,Many thanks for the info.,and Davids email address.

The fault was nothing to do with me.

The phone was never mis-handled or abused.

3 however,

refused to have the pcb board repaired unless i paid for it.

I will email david Dyson and post his reply here when I get it.

go check your credit file has not been trashed too

dx

I got a reply from 3 today, but not what I was expecting.Here it is:-

Hello Mr xxxxxx

I’ve been asked to look into your email, in which you’ve asked our CEO David Dyson to investigate

an outstanding account balance that you feel shouldn’t have been charged.

From the account history,

I can see emails to our customer services confirming that you’d been to Carphone Warehouse (CPW) about problems with your phone.

However, it was after a further check, when the issue was still present, that you were advised the PCB was warped

and we wouldn’t cover the cost of the repair.

In your email, you confirmed this and felt by not repairing the phone we were in breach of the Sale of Goods Act (SOGA),

as well as the Misrepresentation Act (MA), by not providing a phone for use of our service.

Based on my findings however,

I do not agree that we’ve breached the agreement we had with you, or the Acts mentioned.

Our contract with you is to provide the network service and although we may provide a phone to use our with our services,

the agreement is not exclusively in line with that phone.

Under SOGA, within the first six months of a fault being found, we’re entitled to have an engineer inspect the phone and determine whether the fault is inherent.

We complied with our obligations under the Act, but there was no evidence that the phone was sold in an unfit state,

so it would be your responsibility to prove that the fault was inherent.

This could’ve been done by sending it to the manufacturer, or a licensed repair centre.

Instead of this however, it seems you may have returned the phone to us, but unfortunately, we’ve no record of ever receiving it.

As such, I can’t find evidence that we’ve failed in our obligations to you.

I appreciate this isn’t the outcome you wanted, but to help resolve this,

if you’re able to provide proof that you returned the phone,

I can see what other options there may be, moving forward.

At the moment however, the full balance would be due to Lowell Portfolio,

but please let me know if you have evidence of the phone being returned, such as proof of postage.

You can send this to me by email, or if you’d like to discuss our position,

please call me on 0800 358 9042. We’re open Monday to Friday, from 9am until 6.30pm.

*If you’d like to let us know about your experience dealing with our Executive Office,

please complete our short survey at: www.three.co.uk/EOFeedback

Thanks

Mark Bell

Three Executive Office

" Our contract with you is to provide the network service" if I am not getting a connection,

if I am unable to send around 80% of text messages, if when I do finally get a connection,

the phone disconnects the call, then 3 are not providing a service to the phone.

"it would be your responsibility to prove that the fault was inherent.

This could’ve been done by sending it to the manufacturer, or a licensed repair centre.

Instead of this however, it seems you may have returned the phone to us,

but unfortunately, we’ve no record of ever receiving it"

If the phone could've been sent to the manufacturer or a licensed repair centre, then why did 3 not offer to do that?

After all, 3 are the retailer, not me.

And as for having no record of the phone being returned to 3,

I never returned it to customer services or head office,

I returned it to the 3 store in Nottingham,recorded delivery,which was signed for 2 days later.

Unfortunately, after nearly 4 years, I discarded all the information, receipt for posting the phone back,

my contract with 3, and letters I sent them,

as after this long,

I believed the matter was now closed.

However,the first debt collection agency who 3 referred the so called debt to are based in Scotland(Perth I think, and number 99)

,and they have copies of all the letters i sent to 3, so could i ask them for copies?

And if so, does anyone know the name and address of the company?.

Also,I am on the understanding that companies have to keep all documentation for at least 6 years under order from the Secratary of State.

Is this correct?.

I would appreciate any help .

well if lowlife were stupid enough to take this to court

they'd lose on the faulty phone front.

is this on your credit file please?

dx

I am waiting for HSBC to get back to me with regards to my credit record.

Around 16 months ago,

my wife and I applied for a mortgage, and were asked for 2 credit reports .

I obtained 1 from Experian, the other from Equifax.

On that report,it mentioned about 3 writing off the alleged debt, and it stated on the report, something like "Your credit score will be updated in 2-3 weeks".

HSBC should still have those

2 reports shouldn't they?.

If so,then I have what I need.In the meantime,I have submitted a SAR to 3 and Lowell.

Since updating ,I have just received this message from three EO:-

Hello Mr xxxxxx

On checking, I can see you had three accounts with us around the same time.

One of these was a SIM Only deal, where £19 was left on the account as a credit.

As for the other two accounts, no devices were returned to us for either of them.

You sent us a letter in April 2011, with a copy of a letter from 25th February 2011, which was sent to one of our stores

and was noted as being sent recorded delivery.

In this letter, there’s no mention that you’d returned the phone and dongle, but rather that you believed we were in breach of contract.

Based on what I’ve found, there’s no evidence to support the devices were returned to us and no record of us receiving them.

Since there were unpaid bills, both accounts were sold to Lowell, so I’m afraid this means the balances are still owed to them.

I’m sorry if this isn’t the outcome you were looking for, but I hope I’ve explained how things stand.

Thanks

Three Executive Office

Mark Bell

Amazing that the letter I sent to the 3 store in Nottingham has suddenly appeared, but without the phone.

Why would I send a letter and keep a phone that is no good to me and in need of repair?

I don't know how they come to me having 3 accounts with them.

I had 2 only.

1 was the mobile phone at £25.00 per month.

The other was the mobile broadband dongle at £15.00 per month.

Both appliances were sent recorded delivery with the letter in the same package

.If they have never receiced the appliances, why did they give me a £19.00 credit on the dongle??

agreed

go use noddle to see your credit file

[listed below here]

no need to send sar to a DCA.

dx

My credit report states that my closed accounts are

National Westminster Credit Cards

£ 0

01/09/2014

Settled.

Virgin Money Plc

£ 0

30/04/2014

Settled.

Orange Brought To You By Ee

£ 0

03/10/2013

Settled.

Home Retail Group Services LTD

£ 0

30/11/2012

Settled.

HSBC Bank

£ 0

31/12/2011

Settled.

Hutchison 3G Uk

£ 0

01/07/2011

Settled.

O2 Uk Limited

£ 0

01/05/2009

Settled.

The open accounts are:-

Halifax

£ 46,754

28/02/2015

Up to date.

HSBC Bank

£ 7,303

31/01/2015

Up to date.

Vodafone LTD

£ 0

01/03/2015

There is nothing regarding 3 on either closed or open accounts.I cannot find any defaults mentioned on the report either.

if all your old addresses are showing in the link addresses section

then you are quite safe to ignore lowlife.

dx

All the above with the exception of Halifax and Vodafone are my previous address.......

....March 12th 2015,

3 sent me a letter(to my new current address) stating they were intending to sell the alleged debt to Lowell.

.23rd March 2015 a letter from Lowell states they were the account holders from 16th February 2015.

( I never received any such letter from them.

I have one dated 12th March and

one dated 23rd March).

The account at 3 was settled on 1/7/2011.

So how do 3 or Lowell suppose I owe over £300.00 if the debt was settled in 2011???

I assume 3 got my new address from the electoral register..

So,do I just not contact Lowell anymore,

or do I reply to their demands saying the alleged debt was settled in 2011,

and my new address is irrelavnt to their claim???

as long as lowells know and have written to your new address

they cant file a claimform to the old one.

I'd sit tight pers

dx

Oh dx100uk,I see.I will post any updates as I get them.

Now Id just wait...

This is the latest reply I got from Lowells...........What is my next move??

Hopefully,I have managed to upload the Lowell letetr

so to be perfectly correct

your issue is with CPW as they supplied the phone

however, you've 'rasied' the issue with someone then

so that stands.

if you wish to write to lowlife

and inform them the outstanding balance etc

is subject to faulty equipment returned to the supplier you could.

however, pers I'd keep quiet now,

use that if they decide to initiate court action.

The phone was supplied by 3.They use CPW to do their inhouse repairs/software upgrades.It was CPW who said the PSb board oj the phone was warped, and because of that, 3 said they(3) would not pay to have it repaired.

makes it even simpler to understand then

even for a stupid DCA

the op tried to upload the images in the wrong format

follow the UPLOAD

you need to PDF stuff first

pop it ALL into a word document FIRST

then upload that multipage document

after converting to PDF.

dx

Hopefully I have got this right..

.....Here is a copy of the letter I got from 3 at the end of last week.

In para.3, I can confirm that I DID sign a contract in the 3 store where I took out the original contract.

In para.4, they state they do not have a "statement of account", a"Default notice", or a"Deed of assignment" in relation to the( alleged ) debt.

I recall several times a few years ago when 3 kept sending me letters saying I was (allegedly) £XX in debt

.Is this not the same thing as the "Default notice"?

they also state they do not have a "Deed of assignment" in relation to the ( alleged ) debt.

What exactly does this mean??.

I have got literally 100+ pages of my data usage.

Is this not a statement of my account??,

because according to 3, they do not have a "Statement of account".

In some of the documentation I have from 3,

there is reference from 3 to the phone having a faulty PCb.

3 state that they cannot positively identify how it happened.....

.Surely this would be grounds enough for them to have taken the phone from me

and sent it away for analysis, and/or repair rather than relying /agreeing on the "assumption" of the Carphone Warehouse engineer??

On a lot of the data usage pages, there are incidences where I tried to use th ephone,

but it either refused to connect, or dis-connected 15-20 seconds into a call.

All these incidence,I believe, are where the data usage shows exactly 1 minute of usage.

There are hundreds of them where is states in hours, minutes, & seconds, 00:01:00 (no hours, 01 minute, and no seconds).

I believe these are the times where the phone either would not connect, or dis-connected,

as I would find it extremely hard to make a call for exactly 01 minute on this many occasions.

I am still looking through the data pages and will post anything else I find relevant( relevant in my opinion anyway).

ok then keep going.

I've removed your attachment

as theres no real need to put up the simple SAR reply covering letter.

I have gone through all the documents that I received from 3....Loads of usage for the time I used the mobile phone.

However,there are nearly 200 times when the usage was exactly 1 minute.

Nothing less, nothing more. Exactly 1 minute.

Am I correct in thinking that the minimum usage that would show is 1 minute?.

If so, then these 200 X 1 minute usage could be the times when the phone would not get a connection, or disconnected within 1 minute or less?.

Some documents also state that I sent 2 letters to 3 saying I sent the phone back,

but 3 say they have no record of sending the phone back.

However, 3 have not supplied a copy of the original letters that I sent, even though they agree that they have them. I wonder why??

Another document confirms that the phone was declared warped by Carphone Warehouse.

Quote "This is a strange type of issue, but from my experience ,it's normally attributed to bending or overheating (but no evidence to confirm what caused the warping)" Unquote.

My answer is ,if they cannot ascertain what caused the fault, then why tell me that I have to pay for a repair??

Another document states Quote

"If customer calls, please explain that we'll need to book h/s for repairs" Unquote....

Oh, so now they decide they want to repair the phone after all.

Obviously this was an internal memo as I never received any communication from 3 regarding them wanting to book the handset for repairs.

Another document states Quote

"It was the 2nd time when he was told that the phone is irrepairable/PCB board is warped" Unquote.....

..Hmmmm,one says the phone is irrepairable, another says they want to book the phone for repairs.

Another document states Quote

"He got it back yesterday and was told the PCB board was warped and that the phone was irreparable/

when went to the 3 store was told that there is nothing can be done and need to pay for it, or purchase new handset" Unquote......

....So, if it was deemed irreparable, why did 3 want to book it for repair?.

If the fault could not be ascertained how it occurred, why refuse to have it repaired when the fault is unexplainable??

Another document from 3 alleging I owe them money states further down the page,

Quote "We will also pass your account to a debt collection agency WHO WILL collect the outstanding balance

and any associated costs and legal fees" Unquote..

...isn't that a threat/harassment by saying WHO WILL COLLECT?.

It sounds to me like they will get the money allegedly owed, by whatever means they want to apply.

Do I contact 3 and ask for copies of the original letters I sent as well as copies of the envelopes they came in

.Both were sent recorded delivery, the first having the mobile phone in it, and the cost of postage will be on the envelope??

Where do I go with this with regards to Lowell?.

Do I photocopy the documents with information on as stated above, and send them to Lowell,

do I contact them and tell them I have loads of documents and discrepancies,

or do I just sit and wait for them to reply to me demanding I pay up or go to court??

Oh,and I recall signing a contract of some sort in the 3 store.

I haven't had a copy of that from 3,

so do I contact them and ask for a copy to be sent with the copies of the 2 letters and envelopes ??

Update:-

I have since received 3 letters from Lowell portfolio1 saying that

"We are still waiting for statements on your account to be provided to us from 3 mobile.

As soon as we receive them we will forward them to you.

In the meantime, your account will remain on hold"

i guess 3 mobile have not sent copies to Lowell of what they sent me.

I haven't acknowledged receipt of the three letters from Lowell.

I have just placed them in the drawer with the other communication from them and 3.

yep no need for unnecessary letter tennis

dx