Urgent - need help - Wescot & Telewest

[Chimera]

Urgently need help today...

Moved beginning of march. Landlord dropped off a couple of bits of post today. 2 of which were from Telewest demanding 13.50- 1 from westcot dding £30 fees and giving 7 days to reply (till 20th July) or a court summons may be lodged.

The thing is. We phoned telewest on 27th feb, paid off our balance, because we wanted them to tranfer the service to our new address. They said they couldn't so, that was that.

They now say that they have no record of cancelling the contract, or us moving. We have offered to pay the £13.50 to telewest - just to stop all the nonsense, as we have no idea why we have been charged - but they say they debt has been passed. When asked if the debt had been 'sold' they said, erm.. no.. well it might have been now.

My partner pleaded with the supervisor - to give information on whether the debt has been passed or sold - and was told he would be breaking the law if he gave us this information.

I do not want to deal with wescot, as all they will want is the bill to be paid - the contract was with telewest and not wescot!!

I need some advice - I want to get this sorted today - before they close at 4pm. I can't believ they are doing this - they haven't tried to contact us apart from sending letters to our old address - and to then pass it to someone who gives 7 days notice. Can we contest that we DID cancel the account - they wouldn't even tell us what the £13.50 was for..

Help Please!!

[Chimera]

please help!! Stressing badly... lovely relaxing sunday - my pc's gone down as well. so am on b/friends..

[sproggi]

I believe that if you phone Westcot and tell them that this debt is in dispute, they may not be able to take action.
This should then give you time to Write to Telewest asking them to provide you with details of how the £13.50 was charged when you had cancelled your contract.

You could try going to the MSE site and asking for help with this on the 'debt free wannabe' board in the forum, they are a mine of info.

Sproggi

[Chimera]

Thanks.. will phone wescot tomorrow... anyone know what I can say to telewest? They say the account was cancelled on the 15th May, yet we paid the final payment on the 27th feb - they say it wasn't cancelled then. It seems we were told it would be cancelled, but they convieniantly have no record of this. I am sure they have charged us in the past for late payments as well.. so I may take that route and claim the money back off them...

Also, can wescot charge £30 for one letter?

[comanche]

For a start, please calm yourself.

The amounts of money here are so small that any threats of court action are almost certainly meaningless.

You are letting Wescot take control of the situation at the moment and that has to stop. Wescot are aggressive debt collectors whose primary tactics are intimidation, meaningless threats and lies. They have been known to threaten people with the police over civil debts.

Whatever you do DONT PHONE WESCOT unless you intend to roll over and pay whatever they ask of you. If you are planning to argue then don't bother. They will wind you up and ignore every single one of your concerns. All communication should be in writing and by recorded delivery. They will ignore every letter that you send them if they can get away with doing so unless, of course, it includes a cheque.

In this situation I'd be inclined to simply send a cheque to Telewest for £27 (recorded delivery) and ignore Wescot's empty threats. I'd love to know the basis of the £30 fee. I'm 99% sure that it's unlawful.

[Chimera]

Thanks so much.. I phoned up and made an automated payment - can't say fairer than that (interesting that I can do this - as they say the debt has been passed on!).
I will now write to them, asking what the £13.50 was for, complain about not cancelling account, and send a Data Protection Act letter requesting details of charges on account since open. I remember my fella, always used to forgot to pay the bill, and I would end up phoning and paying, so I am sure there will be some later charges on there - I will, in the meantime, reserch how other people have got on with their charges, hopefully I'll get my money back...

As for Wescot - shall I just ignore them, or send them a letter saying that the £13.50 has been paid?

[comanche]

Just ignore them but if they're still trying to make contact in a fortnight, post back and we can run through how to deal with them.

[Chimera]

sent them this letter along with Data Protection Act letter - have adressed it to the supervisor we spoke to:

RE: Telephone conversation on 23/07/06

Further to our telephone conversation, I am writing to inform you that I have made a payment of £13.50 via your automated payment system. However I do not accept that this payment for service is valid as I closed my account with you on 27th February 2006. At this time, I made a full and final payment, and informed you that I would be moving the following week.

On the telephone you were unable to tell me what the £13.50 was for. In response to this, I would ask that you send me a break down for this bill, and an explanation to why it was not included in my final payment to yourself, and why my account was not closed upon request in February of this year.

If your actions have adversely affected my credit report, I will be seeking to have this information removed.

I hope that you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me about this matter and I am writing this letter to you on the assumption that you will prefer to do this than merely respond with standard letters and leaflets.

I would request that any response, in made to myself, in writing, at the above address. I have included, with this letter, a council tax bill as proof of address.

I also include a Subject Access Request, which I would ask you forward to the relevant department if you are unable to deal with it personally.

[Chimera]

Got a letter of them saturday acknowledging Data Protection Act request and saying they would be in touch as soon as possible over the other issues.

Play the waiting game now.

[welly]

Telewest have always tryed to charge what they can and always forget phone calls from their customers and I can guess it will only get better now NTL own them lol

Keep up the good work

[Chimera]

Cheers welly, will keep on at em... It was my fellas account, but I always ended up paying it when he forgot.. so the money will go in my pocket me thinks... or pay off Bulldog, who are another thorn in my side at the moment... their customer services is DISGUSTING... I have complained so many times.. getting standard responses.. I ended up putting the important bi in BOLD font size 72 in the end... and they still didn't respond appropraitely... lol

[welly]

LOL bless erm And nice one with the BOLD font in 72 lol have to try that one

[Chimera]

GOt this letter of them this morning:

10 August 2006

National Customer Liaison Centre
Evolution House
1 Chippingham Street
AtterclifTe
SheFField
S95SE

Dear Mr X
Further to your letter dated 25 July 2006. As requested, I am replying in uuriting.
I apologise For any inconvenience caused by this matter and respond to all points raised
as Follows: -
When a move and transfer is received by telephone, our advisor has to book a
disconnection of services onto the account in question. We require a 30-day
disconnection notice period. The account must be paid up to date and the request must
be made by the main account holder only.
Should the account and caller fit all criteria, our advisor uuill explain uuhen the services will
be Fully disconnected, book a date For the collection of our equipment and also take your
new address details. This is For a Final bill or any correspondence.
On 27 February 2006 uwhen we received your telephone call, your account at this time had
been restricted. A payment by debit or credit card takes 24 hours to be processed and
reach your account, therefore we uwere unable to book your request at this time.
As no date For disconnection could be given and no Further calls uuere received From you
uuhen your payment had reached your account, the Broadband Internet service continued
to be provided at your previous address. The bill For £13.50 is made up oF Broadband
Internet and non-Direct Debit Fees. Your services were Finally disconnected on 8 May
2006.
I am sorry to read this has effected your credit history File. AFter reviewing all inFormation I
Find we have advised you disconnection could not be booked. ThereFore. I am unable to
alter any oF this data due to the evidence shouun on your account records.

ALso, notes on account, and billling, but only since last transfer - account was opening about 6 months previous at another address. They have also cashed my cheque, so the account is now £10 in credit (I no longer have the account!!)
Because they have no notes of my partner phoning to cancel, they are sticking to their guns on this one.. Can only find one late payment charge of £10. Apparently the final £13.50 was made up from bband service and non direct debit fees.
I am writing back to ask for my £10, and for rest of information.
SO
1) What to do now - tell them they are lying?
2) HOw do I get them to remove default notice?
2) Can I contest the £13.50 as it was probably mostly made up of charges and non direct debit fee?

Very confused, but determined to get em. I can't believe my partner now has a default on his account for £13.50.

[Chimera]

I have drafted a letter in response. I will attach the standard, give me details of the default, letter to it. Please feel free to alter, add, etc...

Dear Bridget,

Thank you for your letter dated 10/08/2006 and the information you have provided. Unfortunately there are several points you have raised which require further information and clarification:

1) You have cashed the £10 cheque, and credited my account with. The cheque was sent, in the vent that you may have charged me a £10 fee for the Subject Access Request. My account now shows £10 credit, and I would insist that you refund me these monies immediately.

2) You have only included data on my account since it’s transfer to xxxx road, and no information from my previous address at xxxxxx Road. I would request that you send this information within the 40 day deadline set out in my initial letter of 23/07/06.

3) I can confirm that I was advised to call back by the customer service team on 27/02/06. I did call back, and was told I could not receive your service at my new address, at which point I cancelled. I can only presume that the disconnection not occurring is an error on your part, as I am sure you will understand that I would not continue paying for a service I was unable to receive due to not being resident at the property.

4) You state “I am sorry to read this has effected your credit history file”. At no point did I state that my credit file had been affected, merely that if it had, I would be seeking to get any such information removed. I can only assume that this is a standard response to any reference of credit files. However I have now obtained a copy of my default file, which notes that you have placed a default on my account. I wish to take this matter further, and attach a separate letter in response to this. I would ask that you forward this to the relevant department if you are unable to deal with this personally.

Yours faithfully

WHere do I stand, if they have no record of the cancellation?? Really makes me mad!!!

[Donel261]

Hi Chimera, (They will refuse every request you send them and issue standard patronising letters)

I am in the exact same dispute with them at the moment, they did the same to me when I moved and have placed a default notice on my file. I have sent 10 or so letters to them and had the same back along the lines of "we are right, you are wrong, we refuse to remove any of the data as it is correct" even though they cannot provide any original documents, the credit agreement, the default notice, nothing. They said "we do not have to keep paperwork, any court of law would not expect us to have originals, our computer records are sufficient".

I have recently complained to the information commissioner, let you know how that pans out but I am fully prepared to lodge court action to get the default removed. They are one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with, the amounts they default you for are ridiculous.