Red DCS Query

[scouserat]

Red DCS (Lowell Fianancial Ltd) have sent a couple of letters to my partner regarding an account she doesn't remember having with Royal Bank of Scotland. The amount is just shy of £935. She's just rang them up and argued it out with them and they've more or less shot themselves in the foot by stating they don't have a copy of her CCA to send her, and as the last payment made was in 2003 I believe it's now Statute Barred. It's been passed over to the 'review team' to look at, so I hope they'll now just go away.

 

There are three things troubling us though. The first one is the fact that my partner has no recollection whatsoever of ever having this account, even though it was apparently opened in 2001. Who would we approach to find out who opened the account? She's obviously pretty concerned there has been some sort of identity theft, so do we approach Red or RBoS? If there has been identity theft we'd obviously have to try and find anyone who believed she owed them money, although she did a check on her credit file last year and it came back without anything unexpected.

 

The second is Red seemed to have a list of all her addresses since 2001, with the exception of her mother's address where she lived from 2005 to 2009. This I can understand, but they also knew she had two mobile phone contracts and several other bits of information. When she asked how they knew this, the drone said he was looking at her credit file as they spoke. Can they legally do this? Thankfully our caller line ID is withheld by default on our landline (although we did 141 just as an extra measure to be double sure) and she refused to hand out either mobile number, but it concerns me that they can see what we have subscribed to etc, as opposed to just dealing with the alleged debt at hand.

 

Finally, assuming the debt is now written off by Red, will it adversely affect her credit rating? She's slowly rebuilding it after several financially turbulent years and the last thing we want is this appearing on the credit reference file.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited April 1, 2011 by scouserat
typo

[padja]

First yes they can look at her credit file, secondly they will continue chasing the debt these idiots never stop even though in my case I actually had court rule in my favour and was in possession of judgement stating I did not owe the money. I would contact RBoS in case of ID fraud if it is then contact police and that will be the end of the clowns at Red & Lowells. Lowells buy a lot of debts that are due to become statute barred and hope they can threaten and bully payment. Wait until the say they will make you bankrupt and said the boys round to empty your property, they even got a police caution for that one

[dx100uk]

you broke the golden rule

 

you phoned a DCA

 

NEVER EVER use the phone to talk about your debts!!

 

as its been 6yrs AND they have NO PAPERWORK

 

there is NOWT they can do to you or your CRA file

 

they are just trying to fleece people that know no better

 

you ALMOST fell for it.

 

hampster bedding to follow in large quantity when they realise a mug has not been found.

 

dx

[scouserat]

My general attitude to DCAs used to be to let them send letters out and save them up for November 5th bonfires, but my partner worries since she had a bit of a problem with one creditor who got a judgement in default after she buried her head in the sand for a bit too long. The main kicker for this was she swore blind she couldn't remember the account so wanted to see what it was about. Thankfully speaker phones and a little script for her made a world of difference. We didn't almost fall for it. She had no clue about what this was about so they wouldn't have got a penny from us, but I'm just wondering how long the drone will survive letting people know they have no CCA lol.

 

I think we'll now contact RBoS and see what they have to say about this. Will keep the thread updated if we have anything new on it, even if it's a conclusion.

[padja]

contact RBoS by mail recorded delivery, I always ask them to contact me via email (set up one i have it as [email protected])

[scouserat]

Well it looks like there has been success. We've just received a letter from Lowell stating that the Section 5 of Limitation Act 1980 did indeed apply to the account (although we're still trying to work out who opened this account), that they won't be chasing us for any more money and the account is now closed. A result we're pleased with.

 

A BIG thank you to the various caggers that have posted about the Limitation Act as I wouldn't have known about this avenue to go down, if I hadn't read about it (albeit on other threads).