Well after emailing Jeremy Darroch (CEO), I received a response the same day. They have agreed to refund the telephone connection charge of £105, and are giving us 12 months free line rental.

Sounds so similar to mine, only with mine the muppet at the other end did not do telephone first. I did get a response from customer relations on Tuesday, they said they where going to speak to the department and would ring me back that afternoon, that was four days ago. It is so frustrating, everyone I have spoken to in sky admits it was Sky's fault and they all say that I need to speak to customer relations, these same people who never actually do anything.

Wow, I must be flavour of the month, just received another letter from a completely different company, to a completely different person. This time it was Buchanan Clark + Wells, now we have been in the house for four years and have received nothing from these guys, Lowell Portfolio (pursuers), or HSBC (creditor) so they must know the person does not live here. Clear phishing exercise.

I would never create a Direct Debit for a DCA, legally though I am sure it would be classed as you withdrawing the cash in respect to Direct Debits or Standing Orders.

Yes 6 years from the date of default, whether or not you have settled the account. I made the mistake of trying to keep accounts out of default when I lost my job, it just delays the agony.

More that they knowingly took our money even though they knew we would be unable to complete within the deadline.

We are going through the process of trying to buy a house on the Catalyst scheme. On the 15 April 2009 we paid £500 to a builder as a reservation on a house and filled in a reservation form in which they specified an unconditional contract exchange was to happen in May (the end of May gave us seven weeks) now they knew at the time that there was a delay with Catalyst of at least five weeks. Out of ignorance we thought this was okay as we believed that after this 5 weeks we could sign the contracts. Apparently this is not the case and there is a further step with Catalyst which the builders new about at the time but never informed us of. This would make it impossible for us to exchange contracts in May. Now they are saying that they are putting the house back on hte market and that we could loose both the house and the money we have spent so far if another buyer is found (they have also taken an additional £400 for options). Tempting though it is to pull out, we can't because we would loose the funding from Catalyst, though if they pull out we don't. If they do pull out are there any grounds for getting our money back as the original terms were unfair?

Do you mean in terms of Direct Debits, standing orders and the like?

I can see you quaking in your boots:-) It still disappears from your credit file after six years whether you pay it off or not.

On the subject of the DPA, I had an interesting chat with Experian the other week and the very helpful advisor volunteered a little piece of information. Whenever you apply for finance and are turned down, you are entitled to appeal that decison. Now in communication with various mortgage companies, so many of them say that there is no appeal if you are turned down for a mortgage:eek:

It is true about Faccenda loosing money, you see now everyone is buying free range chicken, the battery hen side of his business is loosing money, leaving Hillesden and DLC as the only part of his (rather small) empire which is actually making any money.

Sorry to say this but as far as Orange are concerned the contract is with you, they cannot chase your friend as their is no agreement with her. You gave your address to your bank, who pass it on to the CRAs, Orange go to them when they discover you are not living at the old address and get it from there. The only way you could get the money back would be to try to obtain it from your friend either by speaking to her about it and trying to come to some form of agreement or by going through the small claims court, the judge MIGHT accept that as her bank account was on the application, there was a contractual agreement for her to pay your bills but you are taking a big risk here and I would put your chances well below 50%.

No surprise really, I worked for them for a short while back in the nineties, they really are only interested in the bottom line. The only good thing about them is of all my defaults a few years back these guys were the only ones stupid enough to let the debt get statute barred before contacting me.

We had this a few years back with them, we moved and they put us onto ADSL, which we cancelled as soon as we could. Even then they continued to charge us claiming they were still supplying a service, then they tried blaming Sky. The worst part we had with them is that our house doesn't have an aerial just cable from a shared mast so we plugged in and started watching, one day we had a guy come round who told my wife that the service was provided by NTL and we had to pay to use it and that she must sign the contract there and then or he would cut us off, now my wife isn't a native English speaker so she asked him to come back later when I was in, he refused and forced her to sign the contract there and then. Naturally when I got home I was livid plus a bit more, and NTL realising this guy had put them into a very dangerous position legally backed down instantly and gave us free tv, haven't heard from them since. Never use the cable now anyway as the quality is dire (still analogue).

Couldn't agree more, this is the only default left on my credit file (satisfied) yet they keep phoning me (illegally) offering me a credit card.