Hi, I am ex-employee of Jacobs. I have far too much to write here so sent pm...hope I can help.

Yoshiro, yes it is legal to charge these fees and the companies might get charged a small amount but do you really think it is £2?! It most definitely isn't, it might work out as a few pence that's all. It is basically put down as an 'admin' charge, there is no admin involved. Once the system is in place it is almost nothing so yes the fees are extortionate.

Mrswestham, I look forward to hearing!

Hi,

I'm an ex employee of jacobs.

The CAB have an arrangement with jacobs so if they call jacobs then they have to take the case back from the bailiff and stop any action and also they have to accept a payment plan, the minimum is £5 per week.

The fees seem unlawful to me. Can you tell me which bailiff it was and what council you're dealing with? I will give you some advice on exactly how to deal with jacobs. PM me if you need more help. thanks

will send PM tallulah, I need a few more details...

Yoshiro,

The companies do NOT usually get charged for taking a debit card payment, and if they do then it is definitely not more than 50 pence. These fees are unlawful and should be banned.

Good news though, a few more councils have abolished or reduced the fees!

If you are willing to help and send an email or make a phone call to your local council to ask the fees to be abolished the please PM me!

Thanks again

PM sent. We can sort this out, they can't break in but there is a lot more you can do about this too...

I can get you the details (phone numbers and email addresses) of the managers in your local council (council tax department) if you would like them. They are not available to the public. These are the people to deal with if you really want to be heard.

I have them for most, not quite all but I will get them if I can.

Oh and I need to know the council, obviously!

Just let me know.

Excellent, thanks, it would be good to know what all the bailiff companies charge for taking a payment and also what council were you dealing with? Jacobs bailiffs charge a different amount per council because certain councils won't allow charges.

Thanks

I am happy to give any information and a statement (I could get statements from at least 2 other people that I worked with too) but at the moment I am not willing to release my identity because I still have friends in the industry (not bailiffs). So as long as I don't have to give a full name and address then I am happy to provide anything you need.

Let me know if you need anything.

Thanks

And just to remind everyone, it doesn't matter what bailiff company you have dealt with, it is possible to stop all of them removing fees, I assure you.

Thanks for the replies.

To be completely honest, when starting this thread, I didn't really care if it is 'ethical' or legal to charge a fee to make a payment by debit card...Jacobs bailiffs (my ex employer) charge a fee of £2 per transaction unless the council tells them to accept otherwise. This is the important part. Most councils don't even know they are charging this fee. The ones who have had complaints to them (Barnet, Sheffield, Chester Le Street, Durham...the list goes on) have told the bailiff companies to waive fees or reduce them significantly (50p on most occasions)

I actually started this thread because I know how easy it is to have these fees reduced or waived for everybody. All it takes is a few phone calls or emails to councils and they will force the bailiff companies to do this. I have the email addresses and phone numbers for the back office for almost all councils in the uk, all I need is enough people to complain and the fees will be stopped. Remember that these companies take hundreds of payments per day so you can only imagine how much they make per year in fees...so we must stop them!

If anyone is willing to help, even just by sending a quick email, then please help me know! £2 might not sound a lot, but for a family with children paying £5 p/w (there are lots of these cases) it would cost £104 per year, which makes me sick to be honest.

Please get back to me. It is easier to stop these fees than you think.

I'm not surprised to hear you had problems with them! Glad to hear you got it sorted. I know all the little tips and tricks though if people have problems in future and very glad to help anyone.

I thought it was about time I just come out and say who I used to be employed by, otherwise some of my posts will be a little irrelevant.

So, basically, if anybody has any problems at all with Jacobs or just needs some advice then let me know because I know their methods inside out. I'm happy to let anyone know anything they want to know. All I want is for people to stop getting ripped off by any company but obviously I know a lot more about Jacobs than any other.

Oh and just to explain, it's not actually a company but a 'partnership' with three partners in control.

I'm here should anyone need to know anything.

I agree, will do. I obviously want to avoid the place I worked for so what do you think the best course of action is? who should I go to first?

I've just heard that there are fees being added for HPI checks and they are adding £20 per check! I know for a fact that my ex company were charged £3.50 per HPI check as I have seen invoices so to add £16.50 on top for no reason at all is surely the epitome of 'unlawful'??

Any other companies adding this fee yet?

I know of at least one bailiff I dealt with in work who isn't certificated but I'm certain I can find a few more from friends. I searched on the site and it seems he still isn't certificated. He is one of the nastiest people I have ever met too, probably had more complaints than anyone. Do you think I should go ahead and report him now or get a bit of a list? What's the best way in your opinion to go about it?

thanks

Spamheed. I don't see why you have jumped in on this thread? I gave advice to a specific target of people, you didn't have to take it. There were no inaccuracies, I just said what I've seen. Making payment plans isn't for everyone, but in thousands of cases I have seen it really has benefited the person, but maybe that was just with the company I worked for. I said to ignore the advice if it wasn't for you. Life isn't 'that simple' but in certain circumstances what I suggested will work for people and people have thanked me for it many times in the past because they just don't want the hassle of going through with fighting the bailiffs. If you do then excellent, I applaude you.

Have you worked for a bailiff company before? if so then share your views, if not then just read what I have to say and ignore what you don't need. Rant over.

Lets fight bailiffs....I most definitely will be happy to help in any way. I will be able to tell everyone who I worked for very soon but I'm not sure it is the same company you were dealing with. If I can help in any way though then I will.

I'm starting to think I should have named the title something like 'Have you decided to pay the bailiff company? How best to go about it' Maybe my thread was missing the target audience, either way I am sure I can help in other ways so take the advice or leave it. If it was me, I would fight to the death but I know how to without being confrontational, others don't.

BSC, I'm sure many people have given their advice on here before. Giving advice and opinion is part of being human, so is ignoring it if you don't agree.

I am working on a full write up of illegal / unethical / unfair / extortionate acts and fees, and how to avoid them, I'm sure it will be an interesting read. There really are easy ways to get a lot of these fees stopped, not just one off but stopped for every one. People just have to get together and do it. I will probably start a new thread for that though but it will have to wait until tomorrow as a long day at work.

Thanks for all the replies though, either positive or negative, I've had a really good insight to the feelings of people who have dealt with bailiffs.

Back tomorrow...

I am more than happy to say who I worked for but only by PM at the moment. I will tell all very soon, there are reasons I can't yet and people I still know who work there.

It's going round in circles a little here. The company I worked for were completely unlawful, especially the enforcement bailiffs and the company itself added many illegal fees, however, what I described about the first calls bailiffs and how the company sent out 'first letters' is true. In my experience it was much easier for a person to set the payment plan than to ignore it and try and fight them. The councils were often on the side of the company too. I'm not defending the company in any way. It is true that the way they (and other companies) make money is mostly from people who ignore correspondence and have huge fees added on for enforcement visits. If you speak to many people who had payment plans and paid off their debts successfully and then to those who didn't and ended up with huge fees, which the council wouldn't always remove then you would get very different answers on who was glad of their actions.

Again, just personal experience.

I am giving personal insight into my experiences, I don't claim to know everything there is to know but I can tell people what I have seen and the experiences I have had, that's all. If people want to take it on board then fair enough. One thing I won't do is lie or give false information.

Of course people are wary, however, I am here only to help and I have helped many in the past, I also want to stop the illegal acts of bailiffs so if people want to help with that too then ever better.

Not talking about bailiff action though, I'm talking about the methods the company uses, the company I worked for sent a first letter asking for payment arrangement, then it went to first calls and then enforcement if no payment. I dealt with thousands of these cases.

You seem to think I am defending bailiffs for some reason? I could tell you what unlawful methods bailiffs use every single day and one of the reasons I am here is to try and stop them, if only in the company I worked for but hopefully more.

Once again, this thread was to help people to avoid getting to the point of enforcement action, not everybody wants to go to court.

I'm just giving honest information from working for these people.

I'm guessing not all bailiff companies send out a first letter then, just send it straight with a first calls bailiff? I can obviously only talk from my experience and I know at least one other company also sends a similar letter.

The first letter basically says "we have taken over the case from the council / client, contact us to arrange payment" As I said before, some councils allow immediate enforcement action.

I don't disagree with paying the council direct, if they accept it and you may say they can't refuse it but I'm afraid they do, I've seen it many times. Not every council is the same.

From experience, it can be a nightmare sometimes to get fees removed, even through the council because they then have to pay them.

To be honest I just never knew about these forums. I always helped people when I worked there, I was the helpful one of the company, I did everything I could to avoid an enforcement bailiff going out so in a way I was helping all along. I gave people inside information too, risking my job but I hated them that much that it was worth it.

Yeah that can happen, depends what area of the country you're in usually. A few councils down south send the case straight to an enforcement bailiff but not many. The company I worked for almost always sent a first letter then if the person called back within a week to make an payment arrangement (monthly/weekly) then that was that, they would send a levy bailiff if one was around but not always and even if he couldn't do the levy they would still leave the payment arrangement in place as long as it was kept to.