My husband received a letter from this shower on Friday morning, telling him that he owed over £7k on a current account with HFC Bank.

To the very best of his knowledge, he's never had any sort of account with HFC

- is a "prove it" letter in order to start with?

We intend telling them that he denies it is his debt, in any case.

Thank you all so much. Catherine

Just adding to my own post

- I have looked again at the letter from Ruthbridge

- it accompanies one from the lovely Cabot Financial, which is telling my husband that, as they have not come to a mutual agreement with him to repay "his" debt, they are passing it on to Ruthbridge.

There is no account number given for this alleged current account with HFC Bank, only a reference number from Ruthbridge.

I'm inclined to think that this is a phishing exercise

- he's never had anything from Cabot about anything.

Thank you again.

Catherine.

Start off by sending them an SAR

pers i'd be sending the SB letter if hes paid nowt in over 6yrs.

They must be phishing,

I've had a similar letter from Ruthbridge albeit accompanied by an introduction letter to them via Cabot on an alleged debt where the last communication with the original OC was 2003 (no correspondence from anyone else ever until now, with the best will in this would have been stat barred since 2009.

well the op needs to send something else sure as eggs is eggs

if he's moved since taking this out and neither the OC nor any DCA have been informed in writing about his new address they'll go for a backdoor CCJ at the last registered one to HFC

Re-reading the Ops thread, it's an exact replica (procedure/info) and participants (cabot/ruthbridge).

My course of action will be my sending the letter back to them (taking a copy of it first) also enlcosing a stat barred letter (template from here)

+ informing them I've retained a proof of postage which 'should' leave Ruthbridge with a clear way forward on how not to proceed.

What I won't be doing is responding to anything else they may want to send but instead simply send it back 'return to sender'

Ruthbridge's letter is a little ambiguous (for fca purposes I guess) with terms such as 'to avoid any further action' quite what 'action' they can take once

the star barred letter is sent remains to be seen

Good morning again, and thank you for all the replies thus far.

We've done an SAR for this and also checked hubby's credit record.

Nothing at all on there in respect of HFC Bank, as we suspected.

There have been some calls on both our landline and on his mobile from Ruthbridge this past week, but of course, we've not responded - it's all been recordings, in any case, no "real" person.

Good morning!

My husband has been receiving letters from Ruthbridge (on behalf of Cabot) in respect of an alleged HFC Bank debt of over £7000.

We've checked his credit record, no evidence that he's ever done any sort of business with HFC, and he didn't even recognise "HFC Bank" in any case.

I suspect strongly that they are fishing for business, as the response to his SAR request was a pile of paperwork from Cabot demanding to know everything about him and wanting him to supply various documents to prove his identity to back this up before they could comply with the SAR.

To me, this smacks of "we don't know that you are actually the person we're looking for".

My instinct is to ignore this latest Cabot letter.

We have also written to Ruthbridge telling them to remove my husband's mobile phone number and our private landline number from their records - we didn't give these to them - as we've had a selection of those "recorded" phone calls from them during the late evenings.

We also think it's quite funny that, having phoned him and written to him, they then ask for his address and phone number!!!

Have we done the right things so far?

Thank you all very much.

Catherine.

Anything showing on his Credit Records with the CRA's? It could be a faulty trace as in any J jones will do so long as they grab the hook.

Hi, brassnecked - yes, we've checked his credit record - nothing at all for HFC, which is why we believe they are fishing.

I'm sure otheres will be along soon with further advice, personally I would ignore them now but log and keep all texts and communications as if he is not the debtor, you might be able to clobber team with GDPR breach and harassment later. Might be worth a Cease and Desist stating all communications are being logged and any further calls/emails txt etc will be construed as Harassment hubby not being the named debtor, and will be reported to appropriate authorities including ICO all others will know more about that tactic.

Threads merged...please do not start multiple threads on the same issue.

Andy

as stated before it pointless sending an SAR to a DCA

just send our SB letter as advised earlier

that put the DCA in a tight spot wit regard to providing the info required

and the owness is then on them to do the running around to prove otherwise.

for want of info..HFC did actually do many standard bank accouts, and would certainly have NEVER let an OD get too £7k..

i will guess if anything this is a current account plus..which was actually a LOAN.

but eitherway its not his ...so tough luck cabot.

Thank you dx - I realised a bit late that the SAR was probably not the way forward with this! I don't really want us to get into "letter ping pong", as it really isn't my husband's debt. He's never had any account with HFC. We've checked his credit record - nothing. I think we'll just let them fester for the time being. Many thanks again.

wont be on his credit record if it was defaulted more than 6yrs ago.

pers I would send the letter

ot wanting to get into letter tennis is a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has run down the road.

..you've already done that with the SAR …

send the SB letter.

Morning, dx - should we send an SB letter even if it's not his debt anyway? The wording of the latest missive from both Ruthbridge and Cabot suggests that they actually don't know if they've got the right person - "....we need to confirm that you are the person....." This is definitely not my husband's debt.

SB to them? would make them think they have the right person (admittance) ??????????????????????????

Hi, Old Cogger - that's what I thought, that if we SB them, it will be assumed that he's confirming it was his debt all along.

Morning, dx - should we send an SB letter even if it's not his debt anyway? The wording of the latest missive from both Ruthbridge and Cabot suggests that they actually don't know if they've got the right person - "....we need to confirm that you are the person....." This is definitely not my husband's debt.

Just ignore them....if they are not sure they wont escalate it further...and definitely not if Ruthbridge are involved ( Ruthbridge are Cabots waste bin for unenforceable debts not qualifying for court claims)

Andy

all I was thinking was if the letter states I ack no debt etc across the top etc

it would put it to bed

as it appears to be troubling the OP>

admittance or not.. that makes no odds .. iys statute barred and they'd have to prove otherwise

and when they did, it would prove [or they would have too subsequently prove] who made the payments.

and ofcourse it would not be the OP's OH..

but ignoring is just as good

That's fair enough, dx - what I really want to avoid is further stress on my poor hubby - he suffers chronic illness, unfortunately, and idiots like these two are things he could do without. He's happy to leave things be for now - at least the phone calls have stopped!

just remember that under the new CONC rules

once told the debt is SB, and if they agree [or cant prove otherwise] they must CEASE all comms

that was what I was looking at.

Yep, got that, and, as always, my thanks to everyone who's replied to me on here.