CCA a DCA about utility supplier?

[mrmarmite]

this is a long story that spans out over 3 years now,
basicly scotish power seemed to of passed a debt onto some one called 1st locate. I asked for proof from DCA, they refused, I complained to OFT,
they said they will get in contact to scottis power and get them to write to me, all I received was a copy of final statements.

every letter that I have sent to 1St locate is of course by recorded delivery of which each time they just ignore and just try to threat me more.
I have already told told that no telephone conversation will be entered into, guess what they still pohone, I dropped harrassement into last letter and went quiet for a while and it now starting up again.

I have even told them from my second letter I sent to them due to their ignorance that I will be charging them £4.50 per letter to cover costs.

I really want to bite these people in backside and am trying to find out if I can CCA them, I know when we moved in I signed no documents what so ever to scottishpower the only thing I got was a welcome letter asking meter readings and hope i stay with them,

no agreements of any description has been made between scottish power either by post or telephone, and I will add I have not accepted that I owe money to this DCA.

i know i can now do them for harrassement but I want to do more. it's about time DCA's learnt their place on this lump of rock,

p.s with all the recorded delivery letters i sent and charged them for they now owe me £25ish needless to say I will get this back by any means

[dx100uk]

from july 2006 only 2yrs backdated payment can be chased
as from july 2007. only 1yrs arrears can be chased.
you appear to be the victim of the current trend to get debts to power co's met before this dead line.

if you have sent a cca request to the dca and it has gone past 14 working days since you sent it, then there is no payment due until they produce the correct paperwork.
if after 1 calander month from this 14 days, they continue to chased you, it becomes a criminal offence.

take that as you will, but i think you are just being chased because of the impending deadline & they are just trying their arm.

dx100uk

[mrmarmite]

ok thanks, I've not sent off the CAA yet as not sure if i could but CCA request is in an envelope with cheque and will go tomorrow, by recorded delivery of course.

[mrmarmite]

quick update. I gather the DCA has received my CCA letter as there was a message from them on the telephone (yet again ignoring my letters that telephone convo will not be entered into) asking me very nicely to phone them. needless to say I wont call them. I;m just deciding wether or not to write them a letter telling them yet again I won't telephone them, of course if i did it will be sent by recorded delivery and they will be charged 4.50 as per a previous letter.

Anybody should think that I do write to them? or shall I just ignore it like the rest of thier calls

[gondukin]

Originally Posted by dx100uk

from july 2006 only 2yrs backdated payment can be chased
as from july 2007. only 1yrs arrears can be chased.

This is only the case if the utility co failed to bill you for the power used and they were at fault. If you were billed and haven't paid it, they can chase it for as long as they want.

[mrmarmite]

i know i do owe whats owed to scot power, there no question of that, it really about the princeables. scot power refused to let me pay by monthy direct debit of at the time and said they wanted a lump sum up front that I couldnt afford before they would consider DD, i said that i will pay X amount per month plus 50 to clear the arreas they point blank refused and carried dumping quartely bills on me doorstep, last oct/nov time i paid up everything that was owed to them and changed supplier, i received final bill and it 300.
scot power TOLD me they only accept repayment of £87 per month. i couldnt afford that with the 70 odd to my new supplier. 2 weeks later i started getting bugged by DCA. i sent letter to them asking to send to origional document they received from scot as proof that this debt has been passed on, they refused. i requested which is my right to see proof, as far as i am concerned they could of been anyone who managed to get hold of my details as there is so much identity theft these days. Am I wrong to ask for proof?

as to the 2 £25 charges that scot added to account they claim a collector came to my home twice. I received letter from them couple days ago and they say that the collector would leave a letter saying they called, I had nothing through letterbox so i just sent letter back telling them to refund saying that no letters were left so I said that there collector is not following scot protocols, the collector is lying or scot power never sent them in the first place. liek a lot of people I am really fed up of being screwed by charges (of which i have asked for proof) and be dictated to by BIG companies who seem to think they can take on the world and win.

My aim is to be as awkward as possibly as fed up now, DCA said that they would get scot power to re-send final bill from them as proof they have passed debt onto DCA. thats not proof, I told DCA that a letter from scot telling me they passed debt on would be fine, but that was over 2 months ago, i got nothing.

here's another point to situation ( soz for going on a bit now but more info to digest) I received a postcard from DCA saying that a collector will be calling at your property on a friday april 20 between 8am and 6pm. they received a respone from me the following day which this is my response
----------------------------------------------------------------------

13TH April 2007
Reference 687029*1. 687029*1
I am in receipt of your cards informing me of a home visit on Friday 20TH April between 8am & 6pm.
I have informed my employers that I will be unable to work on that day. As to your pure ignorance I have asked at least 3 times now for proof that you have taken over this debt. I received a letter from you 3 weeks ago informing that you are arranging a home visit and on that same day you left a voice message on my telephone claiming you are sending a letter proving that you have taken over this debt of which I have yet to receive.
I will assume when this person visits they will have this proof that I have requested on numerous occasions that when requested you are legally bound to provide. If they do not provide this proof I will issue a county court summons against you claiming charges for this letter and previous letters. Loss of earnings which will be 11.5 hours and also claiming damages as all you have done is completely wasted my time. All you are is a bunch of bully’s that thinks you can push whomever you want around. I hate to say this but you have picked on the wrong person. You have broken the law with regards to the data protection act 1998. If there is no proof on this home visit I will ask this person to stay at my property for around 10 minutes and let them watch me instigate court action against you and give that person a copy of the claim. If this person fails to call I will still instigate court action unless you inform me by 6pm Thursday 19TH April that this person will not be calling.
You have taken this matter way beyond a joke now. A complaint will now be made to the office of fair trading with a follow up letter to the Data Protection Commissioner. If company’s like you wish to learn the hard way please feel free to ignore this letter that has been sent by recorded delivery as you have already completely ignored all my other letters and I will see you in County court.
A Charge of £4.66 has been made for this letter. An increase of £0.16 due to the increase on recorded delivery letters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

And guess what, I got a message left on telephone. they have decided to stop the collector from calling at my home. this now leads on the the part above about DCA getting scot power to send me final statments as proof. SO based on everthing above either they won't or can't provide me with proof that that have taken over the debt hence my very first question, Can I CCA a DCA about a utility supplier.

Can a DCA really be like this or have they managed to get my details from somewhere, And before any1 asks I won't contact Scot power about LCS (DCA) main reason is final statment as proof. when it just as easy for DCA to tell scot to send letter that debt has been passed on. i have already complaind to the F.O but more i think about all this the more suss it looks

[mrmarmite]

all DCA's do is tend template letters, they never respomd in written format in case they make them selves liable by a mistake i assume, they always telephone thier response, good thing about that is they dont work beyond 5:30, my actual working hours are usually 6am to 6 pm mon to thurs and finish at 11am on fri, i'm just lucky they not phoned on a friday avo yet

[monopoly23]

Originally Posted by dx100uk

from july 2006 only 2yrs backdated payment can be chased
as from july 2007. only 1yrs arrears can be chased.
you appear to be the victim of the current trend to get debts to power co's met before this dead line.

dx100uk

Hi sorry to butt in, but does this rule apply just to utility suppliers? Can it be used for council tax?
Could you please point me in the direction of the source of this info?
Thankyou

[gondukin]

Originally Posted by monopoly23

Hi sorry to butt in, but does this rule apply just to utility suppliers?

Yes. It only applies to gas and electricity companies that are members of the energy ombudsman.

Can it be used for council tax?

No.

[mrmarmite]

ok £1 cheque for cca got cashed a few days ago, I know it's 12+30 days.
now i'd guess the 12 days is actually 12 working days, is the 30 days actually 30 days or 30 working days?. it gotta be correct coz I wanna push DCA for harrasement. these idiots need to learn to abide by the law and i'm going out of my way now to FORCE them to abide by the law, They have failed with my request of Data Protection Act and the CCA is my last stance (unless theres anything else I don't know of I can throw at them) DCA's need to start realising that their typical bullying tatics and intimidation is wrong, I'm speaking up because I've had enough and i'm prepared to fight back, just think of the god knows how many other people are having the same problems and don't know their legal rights, YES while I respect the point of that I screwed up and have learnt from it BUT that is still no excuse for unknowing people to be bullied. All I say to that is think back to your school days, there was always some one who got picked on because they could'nt stand up for them selves and fight back. Think about it and you will see it's exactly the same thing. are we adults or kiddies?

[barracad]

You don't have an agreement which is covered by the Consumer Credit Act so it is pointless asking for a copy of it.

Also, you say you know you owe the money - so even if it was covered by the CCA it would be pointless making the request as you know you owe the money!

[mrmarmite]

thats very true barracad.
it must of done sommit now tho coz i not heard a peep since, I have also updated Information Commissioners Office on this case detailing the multiple breaches of OFT DCA guidelines.

the thing that got my goat is they think they can do/send what ever they want, i just doing this to be awkward to the DCA. when I get some spare cash i will sort supplier out directly, I assume i will be contacted by some 1 sooner rather than later now coz the 1 year thing is up in December.

[mree]

You've probably just confused the DCA to be honest, they'll be wondering why on earth you've sent them a CCA request when the debt is from a utility bill - the 2 have nothing to do with each other, as already stated. The initals CCA stand for Consumer Credit Agreement, i.e. something you sign when you're getting credit, not taking over responsibility for gas and electricity supplies. Therefore, there would never be any need for you to have signed one, so of course the DCA won't be able to provide you with a copy, a CCA never existed because it wasn't necessary!

And this 'one year thing' you talk about is actually a rule put in place to protect people who haven't been billed by their utility supplier in a long time, and it's been the supplier's fault. It's not there to get people out of paying their bills and, again, has absolutely no relevance your case.

If I were you, I would write to the DCA making an offer of monthly instalments or settlement date. You say that the final bill was produced following a change of supplier in Oct/Nov last year - that's at least 9 months ago now, of course they're going to be doing everything they can to get the money from you! You don't really have much of a legal leg to stand on - they may not be pleasant, but in this case the DCA aren't actually technically doing anything wrong (except possibly charging for visits not made, you should definitely pull them on this).