Harrassment by DCAs for Southern Water Services Ltd

[ostridge]

For 2yrs and 5months have been getting calls from SWEL and 3 DCAs trying to recover circa £1200. for some sort of service to a property in Portsmouth.

 

Tracing by SWEL, EOS Solutions UK Plc, UK Search Ltd, and Ruthbridge Ltd.

 

My wife was unlucky to marry into the same Mrs Firstname Lastname as a Miss Firstname Lastname (I believe a widow) and from what I can deduce same DoB.

 

SWEL was notified by email and replied that they would remove our address from the account. There should therefore have been no need to respond when DCAs sent bills, as SWEL will have provided them with correct information wouldnt they? Lol.

 

A month trial of Experian in 2013 showed no alias information on credit report so that was not worth the paper it was written on.

 

My telephone number is listed in my name and whilst I don't answer witheld CLI calls, nor unrecognised callers; the calls are still logged and made available by my provider.

 

The typical behaviour is to call weekdays and Saturday mornings witheldCLI chain dialed up to about 35 calls in a day, plus 1 or 2 calls with a false CLI number such as '678965' or '0000000000' which surprisingly weren't answered or went to voicemail with or without message. The harrassement therefore also creates the extra work collecting the logs, and any voicemails together.

 

The DCAs send out letters and bills threatening to send someone to visit, but sadly they never seem to get around to any action that could have counterclaim.

 

FOI Information from SWEL reveals that SWEL do not check customers identity prior to providing credit for services. This means that they do not actually know which firstname lastname was provided with services. The question therefore arises why pay their bill if you are moving anyway.

 

I spent half a day in 2013 tracing the actual debtor. This took a little time but was quite easy; and I would be prepared to sell the information for decent fee.

 

It became clear that the tracing done on behalf of SWEL amounts to nothing more than searching the CRA databases.

 

In view of the above I am looking to blacklist the calling numbers but there are difficulties - not least is that their numbers benefit from the privacy settings of CLI system which rightly protects the x-directory numbers of individuals; but these companies and Telemarketers should forfeit by the nature of what they are doing.

 

Using Asterisk software, - "If there is no Caller ID received, then the LookupBlacklist has no effect." and to blacklist a false number would be to little avail as the target is moving.

 

Calls having witheld CLI can be normally rejected.

 

We need laws against the presentation of false CLI numbers.

We need to allow access to phone numbers used by DCAs and Telemarketers, and Telesurvey companies.

We need to be able to communicate with the CRAs without fear of providing ANY information which might be used to add to their collected database.

We need legislation that DCA bills or threats MUST be followed up by court action within 1 month or be withdrawn.

== Oz

[BankFodder]

You are quite right about all of the controls which should be put in place - and maybe one day it might happen. You should write to your MP as a starting point about this.

 

In fact it is probably worse than you think because it turns out that when the DCAs are acting for non-regulated debts - such as utilities debts, they are not subject to any of the usual FCA regulations and so they can broadly do what they want. It is a serious loophole and not many people have realised it.

 

However, in respect of your own problem, would you like to take some action?

[unclebulgaria67]

You can issue a small court claim against the water company, if you have a log of the harassment suffered. Many people have done this and won. I think they start by sending an invoice to the CEO of the company detailing the reasonable costs of dealing with the harassment and to give them say a month to pay up or a court claim will be issued. You just need to provide them with details of the reasonable case you have against them and why you should be compensated.

[Bazooka Boo]

Definitely get onto Flick Drummond, I'm going to ensure that her new appointment as our MP is an exhausting one, especially where the DWP are concerned anyway!

 

Southern water need taking to task as well, as they are liable for their actions, and that of any third party they employ.

[fkofilee]

Arh Flick... I had the pleasure of meeting her and Mr Hauge at the end of April as they were out and about in my home town.

Definitely get onto her about this.