This is my response to a DCA trying to negotiate increased payments. Next on my list is the revocation of my TV License following the moral debacle of Ross & Brand. P.O. Box 66 Rosyth Fife KY11 2WG Your Ref: 123456 Father Ted Crilly The Parochian House Craggy Island Co. Kerry Éire Thursday, 30 October 2008 Dear Sir/Madam Thank you for your brusque letter dated 21 October 2008 and your acknowledgement of my regular payment of £5.00 per month to your client, HALIFAX PLC. I understand that you wish for me contact you with a view to increasing these monthly payments. You will be pleased to know that your letter has been duly incinerated as mentioned in my previous correspondence. Having sought further advice regarding the fact that the government only gives me enough money to live on, and noting that HALIFAX PLC have been only been too quick to refer my account to your vulture of a company – even though they originally accepted my offer of £5.00 per month – take note of my intention to reduce these payments to £1.00 per month. The original offer does seem overgenerous, taking into account my limited means. Furthermore, as noted in my previous correspondence, may I reiterate with emphasis that should it be your intention to waste your time, money, and risk the mental health of your representative, and arrange a “doorstep call”, please be advised that under OFT rules, you can only visit me at my home if you make an appointment and I have no wish to make an appointment with you. Your door-to-door ‘collectors’ have no more right to visit me than the person who reads my gas meter. Any attempt of this nature to contact me will either (a), be ignored or (b), be treated with the same kind of contempt I usually reserve for unsolicited callers from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, hawkers of bric-a-brac or gypsies offering to tarmac my drive. There is only an implied license under English Common Law for people to be able to visit me on my property without express permission; the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v. Sheppard and Short Ltd [1959] 2 Q.B. per Lord Evershed M.R.). Therefore take note as the "legal occupier" that I revoke license under Common Law for you, or your representatives implied right of access to visit me at my property and if you do so, then you will be liable to damages for a tort of trespass and action will be taken, including but not limited to, police attendance. I note also that I have yet to receive a copy of your company complaints procedure, as requested. Please send me this documentation as I wish to formalise my complaint and pursue a claim for damages for alleged harassment to the maximum extent of the law. In addition, please supply me with a true copy of the original agreement with HALIFAX PLC. You will appreciate that this is my right and your legal obligation under the legislation contained within section 77 (1) and section 78 (1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. I also understand that it is your obligation to provide me with a statement of account and I look forward to receiving that as well. Since you are a Debt Collection Agency, please also supply a signed true copy of the deed of assignment of the above referenced agreement. Again, this is you will appreciate a statutory obligation, whether you are the original creditor or not, under section 189 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Please find enclosed my postal order for the £1.00 statutory fee. I look forward to hearing from you within the statutory time limit. Yours faithfully Father Ted Crilly

I cobbled this little number together using a couple of templates from this site and a little imagination... First Credit P.O. Box 278 Reigate RH2 7WB Your Ref: 123456 Father Ted Crilly The Parochian House Craggy Island Co. Kerry Éire Friday, 17 October 2008 Dear Sir/Madam As you are well aware, I have made an offer of a token payment of £1.00 per month to your client, CITI FINANCIAL EUROPE PLC, after consulting extensively with them and presenting them with a personal budget plan. At present I am still in receipt of income based Job Seekers Allowance totalling some £60.50 per week and am thus living on very limited means and therefore not in a position, at present, to increase this offer. I will however, continue to make this token payment of £1.00 per month until my financial situation improves. I see little point therefore in them utilising the parasitic services of a DCA, such as your company at this time. May I also express my serious concerns regarding the frequency of telephone calls that I have received from your company, which I deem to be personally harassing. I have even received calls from your company at my elderly parents home; an address that I vacated some seventeen years ago. As you are also well aware, I have no intention of answering these calls. I have however, rigged my answer phone so as your company bears the cost of these calls. I am now formally requesting that all further correspondence be made in writing only. I demand that these phone calls stop immediately. I am familiar with the terms of Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1970 and I believe your harassment places you in breach of these acts. If you continue to call, you will also be in breach of the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1949) and, as such, I will report you to OFCOM, Trading Standards and The Office of Fair Trading, meaning that you will be liable to a substantial fine. Take further note that continued telephone calls after the receipt of a request not to call may constitute a criminal offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. You will be deemed to have been served notice of my request and I will deem it served by 20th October 2008. I am advising you that any calls received after this date will be recorded with the intention of them being used as evidence. Please treat this also as a formal complaint, and send me a copy of your company complaints procedure. Furthermore, should it be your intention to, at cost to your company, arrange a “doorstep call”, please be advised that under OFT rules, you can only visit me at my home if you make an appointment and I have no wish to make an appointment with you. Any attempt of this nature to contact me will either (a), be ignored or (b), be treated with the same kind of contempt I usually reserve for unsolicited callers from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, hawkers of bric-a-brac or gypsies offering to tarmac my drive. There is only an implied license under English Common Law for people to be able to visit me on my property without express permission; the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v. Sheppard and Short Ltd [1959] 2 Q.B. per Lord Evershed M.R.). Therefore take note that I revoke license under Common Law for you, or your representatives to visit me at my property and if you do so, then you will be liable to damages for a tort of trespass and action will be taken, including but not limited to, police attendance. Ultimately, and at further cost to your company, you could seek a court order against me; however, I don’t believe it is in your best interests at this time as I am in receipt of benefits and have already presented a personal budget plan to your client. A court order would only enforce the current affordable payments of £1.00 per month that I regularly make to your client. Even if I didn’t comply with the court’s enforcement ruling and you sought to seize assets by a County Court Bailiff – I have no realisable assets here. You could impound my old banger of a car, you’d probably raise £50 for it (believe me, you’d be doing me a favour), that is after paying for the tow-truck, incurring yet more cost to your company. Please, don’t hesitate in sending further letters of correspondence to me in the post. I realise this costs your company both time and money. With energy prices at their current level, the incineration of these letters serves to heat my home in these difficult times of financial uncertainty. Yours faithfully Father Ted Crilly - Assuming the interest is frozen, and I keep up my regular payments of £1.00 per month, Citi Group can rest assured that the outstanding balance of £2,299.07 should be cleared by the year 2199, by which time I shall be the ripe old age of 231. I can’t see why they’re getting so miffed about it really.

Thanks for all your helpful replies. I think in the next instance I'll get onto the CAB for further advice. It's a week until Christmas now and I am still yet to be paid for November (not to mention bank charges, etc). Effectively these crooks have wrecked my Christmas. I will keep you informed of my progress. Cheers

:o Great, it gets better. So not only do I have to deal with my credit status being trashed and my bank ringing my D/Ds, costing me in charges and anxiety, through no fault of my own; but I may have HMRC to deal with too through being the unwitting victim of a boss that likes to fly a company by the seat of it's pants. I thought that there may be some legal recourse here to recover monies owed through breach of contract. At the time I accepted the job I was even assured of an increase in renumeration after I had attained two professional exams which I have since passed. Great; I should have stayed on the rock & roll .

I’m hoping someone here can help; I’m at my wits end with this… Some nine months ago, after making an informal verbal agreement to level of wages and hours of work, I accepted an offer of employment with a small company where I am (apparently) the only PAYE employee. I was pretty desperate at the time as I had been unemployed previously. Anyway, it soon transpired after the first full month that I was paid late, and when I was eventually paid, I was paid partially in cash and rest in the form of a cheque, written on an ad-hoc basis which promptly bounced; however, my employer seemed extremely apologetic at the time, assuring me this was because the company was experiencing a few teething problems. Eventually, after much incurred stress to myself, my inaugural month’s pay was honoured, albeit completed out of sync with the wage slip that was also issued on an ad-hoc basis. Now, as the months have passed, I face a constant losing battle to get paid on time, in full as agreed verbally after my acceptance of the job; incurring bank charges all the way and wrecking my credit status due to this. Every month I invariably get fobbed off with ‘due to cash flow problems…” During this time, of course, I have reminded my employer that I require a written contract of employment, which I believe I am legally entitled to after three months, but this is not forthcoming. What’s more, due to the ad-hoc way they seem to be issuing my payslips, I don’t believe that they’re paying my income tax or NI correctly, if at all. I’d walk out of there tomorrow, if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re constantly in debt to me and I’m afraid they might play the ‘limited liability card’ on me; and also without a written contract of employment I’m not sure, legally where I stand.

Thanks for the information even though my position here looks grim. I just can't believe that in this technological age, where vast amounts of data are processed and sent to all corners of the globe in nanoseconds, that the anti-fraud systems employed by the mobile phone networks take this long to smell a rat. Even though, as OrangePrimate says Voda are not directly in control of this as a partner network is involved. Surely it's not right for Voda to profit from the actions of criminals and I have a case for at least getting some of this liability reduced. Had this had been a credit card I would never have been exposed to this kind of loss. In hindsight I should really have SIM locked the phone; however, in hindsight we'd all do alot of things differently.

Congratulations on a highly informative and helpful site; I just wish that I'd discovered it sooner. I know that some of this has been covered before as I have been browsing previous threads, which I have found extremely useful, so I'll be brief. In September 2004 I had a mobile phone stolen in Paris. I was unaware of this at the time and returned home to a £1900 phone bill for which Vodafone tell me I'm liable (no luck claiming on my travel insurance either). After arguing my case concerning the enormity of the bill, the phone not being barred sooner and threatening adverse publicity, Vodafone (or rather the debt recovery agency) ceased pursuing me. However, being in no financial position to pay this bill I have had a default registered against me at the CRAs. This seems grossly unfair as, through no fault of my own, my previously good credit status has been trashed because of some thieving ****** ; I feel as though I've been the victim of a crime twice over. Is there any way I can get Vodafone to remove this default? Could anyone suggest a recommended course of action? Should I act upon my threat to use adverse publicity against them? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. A transcript of my corespondence with Vodafone is provided for reference below: Dear sir/madam Firstly may I commend you on the quality of service I have received as a Vodafone customer up to this date and prompt response of your customer service department to previous enquiries which I have made. In regards to the recently received monthly bill detailed above I was absolutely mortified to find that it totalled some £1,873.58 including VAT, bearing in mind that as a light user my typical regular bill will total £20 to £30 on a monthly basis. This was due to the fact that whilst I was on holiday in Paris, France my mobile phone was stolen and used fraudulently without my knowledge. Unfortunately, I was unaware at the time that the phone had in fact been stolen, as I had assumed that it had remained packed. I can only speculate that it had either been stolen from hotel room or removed from my personal possessions without my being noticed. Hence, the first time I became aware of its theft was on arrival back in the UK, when Vodafone contacted me. I am currently attempting to pursue a claim on my travel insurance for the theft of the phone and the ensuing cost of fraudulent calls. However, considering the circumstances of the theft and the lack of a crime report in seems unlikely that my insurer will acknowledge the claim. I must inform you now that I am in no financial position to potentially pay this enormous bill, nor do I feel obliged as I consider it unreasonable and excessive that such a volume of fraudulent calls should be authorised and amassed on my behalf without prior interaction. My case in point is that considering as a light user my average monthly bill being typically £20 to £30, it seems radically outside the pattern of my normal usage that I suddenly should increase my usage by some 10,000% within four days without fraud detection systems curtailing this use - I am not in the habit of phoning Morocco and Algeria from Paris for hours on end from a mobile phone. I know for a fact that if I were to attempt to use my domestic phone in this manner, systems would be in place to flag this and alert me. In the case of one of my credit cards, a sudden and excessive increase in spending would certainly result in transactions being declined, as fraudulent use would be suspected. It is for these reasons I consider this bill unreasonable and I am currently seeking legal advice regarding this matter. I would suggest that an appropriate way forward would be to write off the fraudulent proportion of this bill. As I am a former employee in the telecommunications industry, I know that this could be achieved with little or no tangible loss to you. I must also inform you that, should you continue to pursue this, I will have no option but to open a dialogue with Otelo and numerous consumer groups, publicly highlighting this security vulnerability; in particularly since I was ill-advised (in this case) to remain as a contract customer rather than PAYG – had I switched, I wouldn’t have this issue. I trust I have clarified my position regarding this matter, and look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, XXXXXX XXXXXX Dear XXXXXX Thank you for your mail. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I have had a look at your account and can see that you have no insurance. Unfortunately you will be liable for all of the calls made upto when the handset was barred. You can try claiming from your travel insurance. I trust you will find this information useful. If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Kind Regards, Customer Management Vodafone Limited Dear sir/madam Further to my recent telephone correspondence with one of your accounting representatives and our original correspondence detailed below I am writing to inform you that, as suspected my travel insurance policy states an exclusion which deems my claim for personal liability invalid in this case. Since it seems that you wish to continue to pursue me as an individual for the excessive, unreasonable costs of these fraudulent calls made of my behalf and authorised by yourselves, I feel it necessary to point out my analysis regarding this matter and to enlighten you as to my intended course of action. As a light mobile phone user whose monthly invoice would total no more than £30, I think that it is grossly unacceptable and unreasonable in this modern age that fraud prevention systems are not in place to protect myself, the consumer, from this eventuality whereby it is possible to use the mobile phone radically outside the pattern of normal usage by some 10,000%, without this use being curtailed. Furthermore, to expect an individual to incur this gross escalation in cost on a monthly direct debit basis, without intervention, seems extremely unreasonable - had I not cancelled my direct debit agreement, the account would have collected as normal, crippling me financially. Upon correspondence with one of your accounting representatives, we discussed payment of the account i.e. how much can I pay, and when. To which I replied that I was only prepared (and able) to pay the proportion of the account accredited to non-fraudulent use, as I do not feel obliged to pay what I regard as unreasonable and excessive charges. Also we discussed my financial position at this time - I am currently unemployed and have an extremely limited income. Whilst my case was dealt with most sympathetically, it was made clear to me that failure to pay an agreed instalment on the account would result in a default notice being served upon me, which would have a detrimental effect on my currently excellent credit status. I consider this extremely unfair as I am particularly careful with regards to my personal finances and it wasn't I who amassed these charges. Additionally, prior to the misuse of my phone, I had discussed with your sales department the benefits of switching to a PAYT scheme. As a light user I considered that this would be more suitable as a line rental charge would not be applicable and this would reduce my overall costs. I cannot over-emphasise how aggressively I was dissuaded from switching from a contract scheme, even to the extent of redefining my contract to reduce my costs. In hindsight, considering my current position, this would have indeed been a wise choice and I am currently a PAYT customer. In light of the above facts, notably the security vulnerability in the case of roaming mobiles used abroad should they be used fraudulently without their owner's knowledge; the exclusion policy in many travel insurance policies that offers consumers no protection in this instance; the exorbitantly high charges that these fraudulent international calls can incur on the consumer, I have compiled a shortlist of organisations which I am considering opening an exhaustive dialogue with upon an unsatisfactory conclusion to this matter:- • The Citizen's Advice Bureau • The Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (OTELO) • OFTEL • The Office of Fair Trading • Essex County Council Trading Standards Service • BBC Television's Watchdog programme • The European Commission RE: price fixing and overcharging on roaming mobiles As I'm sure you'll appreciate, this will take time (which I have a lot of) and considerable effort to pursue this thoroughly, and that it would no doubt result in undesired adverse publicity on the part of Vodafone. I would much rather reach an amicable and agreeable conclusion to this matter. I would therefore suggest that, as an act of goodwill in this case, that there is no default notice issued against me and that the fraudulent proportion of the relevant invoice is written off. In this case I will feel that the matter has been resolved and concluded and will be pleased to pay any outstanding monies due to you on the account. I trust I have clarified my position regarding this matter, and look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, XXXXXX XXXXXX

Hi there and greetings from the charver stronghold of 'arlow:) This seems like a highly informative and helpful site; I just wish that I'd discovered it sooner. I will be posting a more detailed post in the relevant section soon but briefly, I had a mobile phone stolen in Paris some time ago. I was unaware of this at the time and returned home to a £1900 phone bill for which vodafone tell me I'm liable (no luck claiming on my travel insurance either). After arguing my case concerning the enormity of the bill, the phone not being barred sooner and being in no financial position to pay this bill I have had a default registered against me at the CRAs. This seems grossly unfair as my previously good credit status has been trashed through no fault of my own; I feel as though I've been the victim of a crime twice over. Is there any way I can get Vodafone to remove this default? Any help would be greatly appreciated.