My brother-in-law received two letters from Ruthbridge regarding a debt supposedly owed to Argos Distributors LTD. He ignored the first letter, as he has no knowledge of any such debt. A second letter arrived on the 2nd Dec, in which Ruthbridge were offering a 65% discount, which seemed more than a bit fishy. After looking around the site and seeing other actions taken regarding Ruthbridge, I have sent them a prove-it letter. If they don't stop, what further action is advised?

For the past four years I've been getting letters from these debt collection agencies and it's beginning to drive me a bit crazy. They never say where the debt originated but I suspect it was from a Cable&Wireless phone line in my name in my shared house in university (14 years ago!) that I forgot to get disconnected when I left. I had a letter from C&W shortly after I left university asking me to contact them but I was leaving the country shortly after for a few years and so left thinking nothing of it. It then started about four and a half years ago with a letter from Thames Credit. I wrote to them asking what the debt was and they didn't respond so I found a thread on money saving expert and wrote a Consumer Credit Act letter asking for the credit agreement, they didn't respond in time so I sent them the standard follow up letter ("Therefore on 20 March 2008 this account became unenforceable at law") and phoned Trading Standards who said there wasn't a lot they could do but they would make a note of it. A year after that ActivKapital sent me a contact letter, I sent them the first response and they sent back a letter saying they hadn't been able to verify my identity and so would not continue action. After that Mackenzie Hall sent me a letter asking for contact, I sent them the first CCA letter and they stopped sending me letters. Earlier this year EquiDebt sent me a letter. I replied in the usual way and they sent my £1 postal order back with a letter saying "Having receiver [sic] your request, we have undertaken a review of the tracing procedure and are unable to verify that you are the correct individual that we are attempting to contact. As suck we are not in a position to provide you with a copy of the original agreement relating to the account. We have therefore removed your details from our records and will not contact you again in respect of this account. We apologise for any inconvenience that has been caused, this certainly was not our intention." Finally a month and a half ago I got a letter from Ruthbridge asking me to contact them. I sent them the same letter asking for the credit agreement under the CCA and then today I received a letter: "We take notes of the points you have raised in your correspondence, however we must advise that we are not in a position to comply with your request at this stage as we are required to verify information we have been provided with yourself [sic] for the purposes of data protection in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998. We would appreciate it if you would contact our offices so we can complete the necessary verification." I could just sent the second letter again and I'm sure it would go away but it is driving me crazy that they all just keep selling/passing it on without addressing the fact that there clearly is no credit agreement or the statue of limitations is long since up. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks & sorry it was so long, good to vent finally!

Hi All I recently wrote to ScotCall regarding an old statute barred debt which they were trying to get money for on behalf of Activ Kapital Ltd. In response to the statute barred letter I sent ScotCall, they did the right thing and confirmed that they had closed the account and were returning it to their so-called client at Aktiv. However, despite my insisting that ScotCall advise their client of the contents of my letter, Aktiv Kapital have now just passed the same statute barred debt on to a DCA called Ruthbridge. I have received a letter from Ruthbridge making the same demands for payment on the same debt and insisting that I must pay to avoid their recommendation to their client (Aktiv) that further action be taken against me. This makes me furious. Can they legally do this? They must know full well that I have written and informed one of their associates of the status of this debt and that I will not be paying now or in the future. I thought that was suppose to constitute harrassment? Do I have to write to all of these "so-called" collection agencies in the same way as I did with ScotCall? Please can anyone give me the correct advice on how to proceed from here. Many thanks in advance.

hi just had letter from ruthbridge stating that they have traced me to this address, please contact us immediatley or an agent may telephone between the hours of bla bla bla. should i sit tight or send them a letter asking for prove of the debt which i am pretty sure is over 10 years old as i have been living abroad for the last 10 years!

Hello all, This is my other debt issue, apart from the Equidebt one. I moved to Ireland 2001, inadvertently leaving a debt to PCWorld, and returned to the UK in 2007. Ruthbridge sent me a letter, I called them, there was an inconsistency in the details they held, and my recollections (the address they had was slightly different to what I remember, but having checked later, I'm pretty sure they are right). Because of this, they were going to send me (and I quote) 'the signed paperwork'. This was in May, I still have not received it, they insist they have sent me letters which I haven't received. They've called me three times, and I refuse to answer their security questions (which I feel is a sensible precaution no matter who calls me!). I've now diverted their number to voicemail. As I understand it, the fact that I have not received this paperwork (I assume it's the CCA) is an offence on their part? As it stands, am I quite within my rights to refuse to engage with them at all?

Has anyone ever heard of these. I had a CITI Card . Haven't heard anything / Paid anything for nearly 3 years, Its a complicated matter. Was dealing with a Debt management compay who messed me about. Then i done a record of debts / Payment plan to all my creditors with CAB Sent them off and its been in place for nearly 3 years. However i heard nothing from CITI untill Now ? What should i do as they passed debt onto Direct Legal Collections. Who now seam to have passed it onto RUTHBRIDGE

Hi. New to here. I got a letter week ago from Ruthbridge asking me to call regarding a 'sensitive matter'. rightly or wrongly I just emailed them and with the reference asking what this was about and got no response. Today i got another letter with capital letters stating they had trace me to my address and to call them in 5 days. of course their letter was sent on the 12th. I have a feeling it is related to a Barlcaycard I had in 2001. i was made redundant in my job but did send a letter (which i obviously don't have now) asking them to contact me at a new address. But I never got a reply. Stupidly I never paid because I never got a reply. Shall I send to them in writing now? I don't think phoning them is a good idea after what I have heard about them. any help gratefully received thank you

Hi, i wonder if anyone else has been subjected to something similar. In brief, i disputed a payment on a contract that i was told had been stopped when i reported a mobile loss, and was later billed for the contract after it was supposed to have been stopped when i reported it because it was out of contract. In trying to resolve this. I was then told the account had been closed. I am aware THREE different DCA had bombarded me with telephone calls on my home number - my number is ex-directory and i rarely provided it as an alternative contact number to anyone as i always used the mobile number - and sent me various demands by letter aswell over almost a year now. Subsequently, none of the DCA's were able to provide me with billing information or even any details about the dispute i had raised with the mobile company prior to it being passed to them by their client who is the mobile company. I reverted back during this time to the mobile company, to resolve their internal maladministration and mistake (i suspect it was plain human error that then caused a huge problem along with some pretty dire incompetence from having being cut off to being promised call backs to not even having notes made on my account and even some of the notes being wrong), and have recently reached a resolve with them almost a year on now, and agreed to pay an amount which tallies with my reckoning of the account prior to being told the mobile was out of contract and would be stopped anyway and i would be contacted for a new contract and mobile. I was then told my request for the mobile company to remove any default from my CR would have to go through a different department for an assessment, and would be called back. I was also told it should not prevent me from now taking out a new contract with the same mobile company - of whom i've been a customer of for over a decade - and besides the issues of the removal of the default, i was led to believe everything was ok. I called the contracts department, but because the account had been closed they could not revive my old mobile number. I was then told not to worry they'd look at a new number. Many hours later, i was told that they could not even manually bypass the problem as there was fraud on my account, and the person suggested i obtain a copy of my Credit Report from Exqifax, he also told me the regular company the mobile company use too. Inbetween this, i had also received DCA letters from TWO different DCA, Fredrickson who then detailed Bryan Carter as a client of theirs in managing to account also on behalf of my mobile company - More recently i have called them to inform them of a resolve had been reached due to the maladministration and malpractise and they should not be making any demands as the account should never have been closed in the first instance. Besides the horrendous attitude, i was told by Bryan Carters they would need to refer back to their client, the mobile company. I then called the mobile company to speak to the girl i had reached the resolve with, for three days now she has not returned my call, since reaching the resolve last week. I was also cross examined by them in respect of the outstanding amount, of which i had originally disputed, and told i still had to pay it and would be chased for it if i did not have the resolve in writing (hence my calling the mobile company back to request this), and according to the DCA because i spoke to the operative over the phone and did not put in writing that the mobile account needed to be terminated - even though i had reported the theft and was told it would be stopped as it was out of contract anyway - i was still liable for the amount as i had not complied with their terms and conditions. I did point out that in the whole time of being a customer i had ever put in writing the request to terminate a contract to then take out a new one as i had always dealt with them verbally over the phone. They then said they would revert to their client. Last week i also received a call from a company called Redbridge, who i had never heard of. I did not confirm any of my information to them, but requested to know who they were when they called my number. They gave me their company name and then insisted they had sent correspondence. (I had not received any correspondence from them and had no idea who they were when they called.) I reiterated that the number they were calling was private, and requested for them to remove it from their database and ended the call by putting the handset down. This week i then receive two letters in one envelope from Redbridge stating they have been instructed by Cabot Financial Services Europe Limited who have passed a debt onto them which relates to another company Monument. The letter further states that if i do not respond they may recommend their client to apply for a CCJ, aswell as a further action if i don't pay them that would include attachement to earnings, a charge against my property, and a demand to contact them to discuss the above account to avoid a recommendation to their client to proceed with further action against me, followed by ways to pay. The other letter is from Cabot Financial stating a mutual agreement has not been reached and Cabot Financial is passing the debt to Redbridge, and then states a contact will be made in the next 7 days to set up a "sustainable repayment arrangement and ensure your account is cleared, whilst taking into account your personal circumstances," and then details an enclosed letter (which is the first one above) of how to contact Redbridge. I then tied to request online my Statutory Credit Report via Equifax's website, it costs £2. I went through two different processes in requesting the information, and repeated the process twice on each function aswell, making my request four times in total - the first being, that i noted (i rarely if ever read terms and conditions - but due to the DCA guy and the conversation i'd had earlier, this time i did) that in requesting access to my credit report via one link i was then enrolled in an online subscription service, which then when i unticked the "retain payment information for later purchases" found that i received a message at the end of the process requesting i call the company at 5p per minute. When i used the other link to request online a copy of my report to be sent to me by post, the process although complete in their function gave me a message at the end which said i had to send a postal request and to use the link to download the form. To be sure i repeated the process twice in each case. I also telephoned them at a cost of 5p per minute. In calling Equifax, i was then told the information i had provided needed to go through another department who would call me to ask me to send them copies of my passport, driving license, and copies of my utility bills. I then disputed this and asked them to qualify why they needed an excess of information, as i am the only person registered at my address with my name and date of birth of which i had provided to them for the last 6 years. I was told i would be telephoned - i had not provided a telephone number) and then asked for a telephone umber, which i refused to provide on the grounds that it is a private number and i do not wish for it to be used, stored, retained, but i had provided my email address. The person was not able to transfer through to the "other department." I was also told i needed to have an "active account with equifax to receive my credit report." I also disputed this verbally stating i did not want an account with the company, i was requesting information that there was a legal obligation to provide, and that i had no problem in paying £2 for a copy of my report, but did not want to be a customer of theirs or a subscriber to their services. I then received a stupid email back which did not answer my question nor address the points i had raised detailing the request for copies of my passport, drivers license and utility bills. I wrote back requesting them to qualify why they required what i believed to be an excess of information. They wrote back saying they needed to match my information to their information, further security in making sure my report did not go to someone who was not me. I wrote back asking them who they thought i was since i had provided them with my personal information, including my email address which is nor public, and i am the only resident at my registered address with my name and date of birth etc - i have yet to have a response. I did have debts, like many people, i disputed the charges on loans, credit cards and repayments and interest, as well as requesting they freeze the accounts prior to my stopping paying them, in order to manage the debts, this was in 2005/2006, which was not done, if anything they uped the anti and pursued me even more by adding on more charges and fees - for example, a £2k debt turned into a ££6k debt with fees and late payment charges and DCA fess and Administration costs. I stopped responding to them and stopped trying to resolve the issues as i felt i was being bullied, victimised and threatened not only by being blacklisted, by bankruptcy and having my employment record associated with my personal finances, and with bayliffs, and doorstep collections and constantly harassed by telephone calls and postal demands. I did speak to several debt advisors and companies, but also felt quite bullied by a few of them in their instance that i needed to take out an IVA immediately, but of course with their management fees on top and a pre-requisite lump sum payment to them to start the process, it did little to address the accumulation of the debts as a whole or to resolve the problem on a long-term basis. My questions are; how do i avoid a CCJ being lodged against me how do i stop these companies from continually selling on old debts i am aware that i only need to provide 6 years as an address history in requesting a copy of my credit file (as stated on the ICO website) so how do i insist a company send me a copy of my credit report without providing them with further information save for the basic requirements (and i am sure i cannot be confused with another person at my address, which eliminates any false pretence of theirs in insisting they need more information from me) how do i have old defaults from my credit file, once i've received it removed As i have not ever seen my credit file, how do i manage and Cifas markers I have also requested a subject access request from my own bank as i also suspect an element of foul play where they are concerned - they cancelled my overdraft when i paid off a loan which was restructured previously due to being sold PPI that was ineffective for the employment i did, and should never have been sold to me as a product in the first instance, although this was some years ago, it seems, i think, to be having a knock on effect. Also, i have looked into an organisation called CIFAS, and i understand they are quite respectable, but there seems little information available to contact them, except to request a subject access report of which they charge £10 for - again, i note that there are many of their members who are banks, retailers, etc, as well as the police - my concern being, what if someone who has access to their system has abused their privilege by blacklisting you, such as for example, equifax or redbridge/cabot - or even in the case of my mobile company where i raised a dispute and they closed account and passed to a DCA in an act of negligence/malpractise and maladministration - i have read some of the other forums and requests for assistance and note there is a mention of a Statutory Default that says after 6 years you cannot be chased for a default/debt, what is that exactly (sorry for being stupid) and what does it mean in very basic laymens terms, and how can this be applied without engaging in further disputes or marks on your credit file, and could someone also explain what a CCA is? The other concern i had, although i suspect it is related, but i am not sure how i can prove it, is that i also received a number of marketing calls from my internet service provider - their call centre is based in India - i noted Experion, Call Credit and Equifax use overseas call centres, and some of them have diversified business interests in marketing/digital communications/advertising and other software products - in calling my bank to dispute an issue from last year, i was asked which travel company i use as a Data Protection question, i had already verified my information when i called in and prior to be being transferred again, i was also asked which restaurants i ate at, i refused to answer the questions and despite my protests the person still insisted they were Data Protection questions, which resulted in my putting down the phone and calling back where i spoke to someone else who did not ask me that information - are there any breaches of privacy in a company holding an account of mine where the collation or sharing of personal data including shopping habits or any type of personal preferences that i may purchase using my bank card, that i can report if that information is then being sold, shared, or collected by the provision of a pyment method and given to other companies or sold as data about my person without my consent or knowledge to participate in such an activity or research/marketing/data harvesting process? Thank you.

Hi all, first post here. I had a credit card debt back around 1995 - nearly 20 years ago! - which I believe ended up in a CCJ. I was young, dumb and skint back then. There were a few attempts by various DCAs to track me, probably Mackenzie Hall were the most vigorous, but I was living overseas at the time they contacted my UK correspondence address, and they eventually wrote to me saying my case was closed. Suddenly, up pops this new outfit Ruthbridge Limited, with a standard fishing attempt. "contact us urgently about a personal matter..." etc. Now, I expect that this is in relation to the same debt, as I have no reason to believe it is any other, so I fully intend to have much sport with Ruthbridge over this. I could easily afford to pay back this debt if I so chose (it's the only debt I've ever not paid in my life) but to be honest, their approach instantly makes me hostile to them. If they ever want to see a penny out of me they're going to have to work damn hard to get it. So, until they lay out what the debt is, and supply a copy of the signed credit agreement etc. etc. etc..I'm just going to keep blandly responding to their contacts to noise them up a bit. I've already told them I will not speak to them over the phone but am perfectly happy to engage in a written dialogue. Do you think they read these forums? I'm rather looking forward to this.

Hi Everyone! I read through this site last week after receiving a letter from Ruthbridge and you guys look like you know what you are talking about. Today (11/5/12) I received a second letter from Ruthbridge and would like to know the best way forward. I received the first letter about 10 days ago, the content of the letter was along the lines of: Dear Mr..... We are trying to contact you..............please call us on XXXXX The letter was longer, but it felt like a phishing letter so I ignored it. Today I have received a letter:- Dear Mr..... We note that you have failed to respond to mail directed to you YOU HAVE BEEN TRACED AT THE ADDRESS STATED ABOVE. PLEASE CONTACT OUR RECOVERY DIVISION IMMEDIATELY ON 00000 If you have not established contact with this department within the next five days, an agent ay telephone between the of hours of: (gives times) Yours sincerely Yvonne Richards So, what should I do? I was out of the country between 2005 and 2010, I believe that some debts may have been incurred in late 2007/early 2008 (credit card/bank account), however i have not heard from either the bank or credit card company since 2008. I certainly haven't paid anything to them since 2007. I have checked my credit report and there is nothing showing on it, my rating is not great, but as i have only been back in the country for 2 years it wouldn't be fantastic. There is nothing adverse showing. Should I write to Ruthbridge and ask them what they want? and if so what should I say? or should I just ignore them? I look forward to your assistance/suggestions. If you have any questions please let me know

Does anyone know who the Chief Executive Officer of Ruthbridge is as i need to write to him/her. Thanks