Complaining to the OFT

[Torexxx]

Hi All

 

Think its the best way to go,I e.mailled the Financial Ombudsmans Service, got an e.mail back today from the FOS office with a complaint form to fill in and send it back to them,phoned AIC the other day and really enjoyed my spar with them,I must admit before i came to CAG I dreaded them phoning,only good thing is now if I want a bit of fun I phone them,BUT they have tried to phone me 4 times in last 2 days but my Truecall is set to Zap them which it has done on all 4 occasions, wish I could see their little faces when a machine basically tells them to P*** OFF I have now sent a SAR to OD to get the paperwork I want

 

Torexxx

[h8_Halifax]

i've sent a few of the standard letters out in the past and they often seem to be ignored. take the latest one, letter from LCS about a debt that's not mine. i send out the std letter that says it's not mine, stop harassing me or i'll complain to TS/OFT. i even added a couple of lines to help them get the right person. what happened? letter totally ignored and they threaten me with solicitors.

i wonder if these DCA's can read. or are they simply too damned arrogant to care? or do they know that the OFT won't do anything as no-one has a clue about the actual size of the problem so parliament won't force them?

mp's being told that these are isolated incidents. don't you think it would be a good idea to have and independent body who could, a least, count the real number of complaints?

i'm not saying that the CAG isn't help from the gods, just that someone we can trust should be keeping the score.

 

i also honestly believe that when DCA's open letters they look for money, cheques, payment slips, etc. any letter without a payment, they just bin.

 

question: is there a standard complaint letter for Trading Standards please?

[42man]

Send this recorded to LCS

 

OFFICIAL COMPLAINT and LETTER BEFORE ACTION

 

Dear Sirs

 

You have recently written to me stating that I allegedly owed you a significant amount of money. This has made me very, very scared indeed.

 

Despite having written to you on several occasions about this alleged debt. I can categorically state that I have NEVER had an account with (xxxxx). I am now of the opinion that you are harrassing me and completely ignoring my letters and responding by sending generically produced correspondence.

 

I now require your official complaints procedure within the next 14 days, if this is not forthcoming I will have no option but to report your behaviour to Trading Standards and the Office Of Fair Trading, as well as writing to Gareth Thomas who is Undersecretary Of State for Trade And Consumer Affairs. I would also remind you of the recent case of Ferguson vs British Gas

 

 

I will highlight points 20, 21 and 22

1. What British Gas was threatening was undoubtedly serious. Mr Porter sought to downgrade it by saying that Ms Ferguson knew the claims and threats were unjustified. That is absurd: a victim of harassment will almost always know that it is unjustified. The Act is there to protect people against unjustified harassment. Indeed if the impugned conduct is justified it is unlikely to amount to harassment at all.
    
   
2. Mr Porter also made the point that the correspondence was computer generated and so, for some reason which I do not really follow, Ms Ferguson should not have taken it as seriously as if it had come from an individual. But real people are responsible for programming and entering material into the computer. It is British Gas's system which, at the very least, allowed the impugned conduct to happen.
   
3. Moreover the threats and demands were to be read by a real person, not by a computer. A real person is likely to suffer real anxiety and distress if threatened in the way which Ms Ferguson was. And a real person is unlikely to take comfort from knowing that the claims and threats are unjustified or that they were sent by a computer system: that will not necessarily allay the fear that the threats will not be carried out. How is a consumer such as Ms Ferguson to know whether or not, for instance, a threat such as "we will tell a credit reference agency in the next 10 days that you have not paid" (letter of 2nd January) will not be carried out by the same computer system which sent the unjustified letter and all its predecessor bills and threats? After all no amount of writing and telephoning had stopped the system so far – at times it must have seemed like a monster machine out of control moving relentlessly forward – a million miles from the "world class level of service" (letter of 9th January) which British Gas says it aims to offer.
   

Therefore please take this as a LETTER BEFORE ACTION. As if this behaviour continues I will have NO hesitation in taking this before the court.

 

I would like you to please answer/address the following points/requests.

 

I would kindly ask what information you hold on me that made you contact me in the first place, and where you acquired my information from.

 

What steps are in place to ensure this does not happen to me again.

 

Confirmation in writing that I do not owe you or any client you represent this amount of money.

 

A written apology for this mistake which led me to a state of panic.

 

I trust this makes my position perfectly clear and I would appreciate your due diligence in this matter and expect a response along with your official complaints procedure within 14 days.

 

Yours faithfully.

[h8_Halifax]

Send this recorded to LCS

 

OFFICIAL COMPLAINT and LETTER BEFORE ACTION

 

...etc

 

sent this day ... watch out for the next exciting installment

(sorry, flashback to the days of the tanner rush)

[jadey1972]

i am having trouble with barclaycard, they have failed to comply with my legal request for a true copy of a signed credit agreement and passed the debt to a debt collector. i responded in writjng stating i do not wish to engage with them and that i ill not make an appointment for them to vist ststing all the legal stuff etc and explained the original problem, however they have since posted a card to state the day they will be attending my property. i feel i need to report them to the OFT but cant seem to get any help there, does anyone have any advice ? thanks x

[h8_Halifax]

does the stuff you've sent include the standard letter that says they will be trespassing if they visit you? it withdraws the common law assumption that visitors can even hand deliver letters to you?

[jadey1972]

h8 Halifax,

hi, yes it does and it was sent recorded so they have recieved and signed for it, but looks like they have ignored it. thanks for responding xx i appreciate it.

[h8_Halifax]

FYI: "they have received it" ...

when the royal mail delivers recorded delivery items to a company they often only get a signature for a quantity, i.e. not for each individual letter! i sent at least 8 letters to TSB and 5 or 6 to Barclaycard yet when i checked the tracking numbers they simply said delivered but did not show any signatures. when i wrote to royal mail about the missing signatures they explained about not getting individual signatures for items, basically, "when there's more than one".

somewhere on this site it has been said a number of times that there is an assumption under british law that if you obtain a certificate of posting then the item will have been delivered after allowing a reasonable period. this saves a fortune on postage too!

[jadey1972]

h8 Halifax,

thanks for the info on the postage, i will check that out, but i am still unsure what to do when the debt collector calls, i was thinking maybe put a copy of the letter on the door for them to take. but maybe they will just ignore that too. many thanks xx

[Kraken1]

or ignore them? they ain't gonna kick in the door. Answer the door and speak only in pig latin?

 

Answer the door and insist that the dc is your long lost friend, Doug, who you thought had been killed in a freak accident with a cucumber and football. No matter what he says just keep repeating 'God! Doug! it IS you! But I was at your funeral! Your mum! have you seen your mum? Where have you been?'

[h8_Halifax]

... still unsure what to do when the debt collector calls ...

i would think that getting evidence that they have ignored your letters would be a good idea, i.e. answer the door but keep the chain on, better still, if you have an access system, hold the entire conversation via that and get them to say who they are, who they represent and why they are visiting your address - while you record the entire conversation for the OFT, Trading Standards, your MP, ... others feel free to add to the list

[jadey1972]

it seems they recieved the letter as i recieved a response frm thm asking me to call lthem the debt has now gone from £40 o £4900.00 thats complete madness. they also state the armstrong v sheppard (1959) case i quoted can only come from a court and not an individual ? Anyhow i have also sent barclaycard a subject access request an i am waiting for that.

kraken 1 - that is certainly something i will take great pleasure in doing, thats funny x

[h8_Halifax]

the letter to lcs would seem to have done the trick, many thanks.

there's even a little icing on the cake too, they replied to me via email, naturally to my cag address, which i retrieved via googlemail. what's so good about that you ask? only that the filters which googlemail use have declared that the email from lcs was spam! i thought about telling them but this is far more fun.

thanks again for the help.

[Foxy1440]

Hi

I have been harassed by a company in Torquay called Veritas,to be honest I am terrified of him now,He gave me a date to respond,I responded and said I was going away so 2 hrs after he received my response he served me with a Stat Demand,no negotiations,I have now had to pay this and have worked out I overpaid by £250,this is why I responded and said I want to pay but bill is wrong.I told him I was going to complain to OFT etc he has said if I do he will sue me for deformation.I am at present staying with My Mum as I am now too frightened to go home,he just keeps threatening and intimidating,with all my debts I have come to arrangements (dmp)and gradually I am getting sorted but it seems this DC is going around all the creditors and trying to get them to join his gang,I am told this is against the DPA but what can I do.

[42man]

Hello Foxy....can you tell us a little more about this ? If there is a dispute then you could have had the stat demand set aside...And if you have overpaid them then you should make a formal request for the amount (had you disputed this before the stat demand arrived ?)...by all means you should report this to the OFT and their local trading standards....

[Foxy1440]

Hi 42man

I will if I may send you a precise of the episode,but to cut a long story short,he was a debt collector for a previous debt and I proved him wrong,he actually called me a Lady of the Gutter,which did rile me and I was furious,when he was given this debt it was like a red rag to a bull.I was just about to leave to visit my Husband who is working abroad and I didnt have much time to do anything 12 hrs he served it at 8 pm at night and I had until 12 the next day and I wouldn't have been back in time,so I had to pay,but if you saw some of the correspondence he wrote and he called me a Liar etc etc it was absolutely despicable,I feel threatened and terrorised but he has also said if I complain he will sue me for deformation,!

[Kraken1]

that sounds quite wrong, you have longer than half a day to deal with a stat demand. I think the authorities would be interested in the details of this one. Drop them a line.

[Foxy1440]

When you say authorities can you tell me who and where as well as OFT

[Kraken1]

any you can think of. spread the word. oft, trading standards, FOS, FSA, BIS... and any other three lettered departments you can think of.