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Such is the lifestyle, I went to bed at around about 7am last night.

I'm the type of big hefty lad who likes his 8 hours. I don't really like it when something wakes me up just 3 hours after I've entered the lovely land of nod.

That's exactly what happened at 10 o'clock this morning though. The missus woke me up in tears.

She isn't usually like this so early in the day. No stranger to tears naturally, but it typically takes a couple of glasses of red and an episode of Eastenders to get her into such a state.

So I dutifully enquired as to what the hey was going on.

It seems she is paying off a small council tax debt via a debt collecting agency, a messengers at arms type company. They had sent her a letter saying that her bank account was to be arrested, and money taken directly from her monthly paycheck. On top of this, they are charging her a £40ish account arresting fee.

She hadn't fallen behind in her repayment schedule or anything, she is due to to pay back £50 on the first of every month, and has not failed to make this payment or anything.

Her crime, was cancelling a direct debit last week. She decided she was no longer a fan of the whole direct debit thang, and to pay them manually instead.

The man at the debt collectors she'd phoned about this had made her upset. Very unsympathetic, not listning to her story, and hung up on her.

I looked at one of the earlier letters they sent her regarding the setting up of the direct debit. It says things like "you have the right to cancel the direct debit at any time" at no point does it say anything like the line the man on the phone was qouting her, that changing the payment type without prior notification may result in her account being arrested.

I understand they gotta do what they gotta do but it seems a rather extreme measure for one who has not missed any payments. It's nasty the way these types of places go about their buisness. They were still going to get their money, but seem to jump at any excuse to slap charges on the people they are collecting money from (who are obviously already in debt)

I've a good mind to phone em up myself and give 'em a piece of my mind make a sensible well mannered complaint while she's at work. Not sure if that would do any good, so I'm holding off for the moment.

Does anyone know if there is an independant watchdog like organization that you can complain to about the practice of debt collectors? Or is there anyway I can charge them £40 for making my missus cry and getting me out of bed  ;tk;

With a letter saying "you have the right to cancel this direct debit at any time" I think she should have a leg to stand on, but am otherwise clueless in these matters.

Once you know who to complain to then you definitely should follow through a complaint. Bailiffs and Debt Collecting Agencies have been known to be a bit lax with keeping inside the law with the way they do things and this definitely sounds like the case here.

These kind of companies will run roughshod over the law and your rights if they think they can get away with it.

When cancelling a DD  it's best to contact the company you've the DD with as well to assure them of payment by another method, but even so, they've feck all right to arrest the bank account. Citizen's Advice are VERY good at helping on this kind of thing.

So she hasn't actually missed a payment?

She cancelled a DD, but they said that was OK?

What exactly are the grounds for their action?

There's this

There's a code of practice concerned with debt collection. It's sponsored by the Credit Services Association whose address is:

Wingrove House
2nd Floor
Ponteland Road
Newcastle upon Tyne NE5 3DP
You can also contact them on 0191 286 5656
Email: mail@csa-uk.com (general enquiries) or complaint@sca-uk.com (complaints)

Just found it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/your_rights/credit.shtml

But CAB would be a good place to go too.  These people get away with all sorts, good luck in sorting it.

thats disgraceful, I'm sure there must be an ombudsman or something you can complain to.
they have no right to do that.  I'd be upset too ;grr;

Ta folks.

Turns out there's a citizens advice shoppy two minutes away from the house. They're closed the now :( but I'll go along on Monday.

Gonna kick some ass, and they can tell me how.

A nicely worded letter, pointing out the bully boy tactics thier debt collectors are using, to the local council may not go amiss.

I dont believe it, you play more than me, when have you met someone, lol

you should check out the fool.co.uk dealing with debt forum.

He bought her with his Stars FPPs.

baliffs themselves call their job legal theft.

They are scum of the earth and should be outlawed especially for civil debt.

They are doing that in your name as your tax dollars finance the courts who appoint them to collect tax debts. It should be a government run operation.

Look up the company on the internet and see if they are a member of the recognised body that regulates them, they have a full code of conduct and if they have broken any of it you can report them and they will drop the charges but they will still want the debt.

http://www.acea.org.uk/

are the regulaters in the uk but it is voluntary.

She's in debt to the council.  They've arranged a payback method for her via a collection agency.  She cancelled the direct debit, for reasons unknown, without telling them?

 ;shitfanhit;

Thankyou ACE2M.

Will hold off on that card till I've spoken with the CA peeps :)


lol, should hope so too.  :D

Debt collectors have no rights to arrest a bank account. Only by applying to a court (usually a high court) can this measure be brought into place. This is a council tax bill, which is punishable by imprisonment (even in Scotland where you cannot be jailed for any sort of debt other than unpaid court fines) if it remains unpaid, so quite how debt collectors got involved I am unsure, must be Glasgow city councils way of dealing with things.

Typical scare tactics. I usually file debt letters under BIN and doing pay too much notice to their nasty threats, but I've never seen one quite as bad as this.

Not a great help as its in England. Scotland has (subtley) different laws.

I wouldn't bother complaining mate, these company's are inherently disagreable, they're trained to act thus and i think that any watchdog that serves to scrutinise and regulate the actions of independent collection agency's would take any such complaint with a pinch of salt uniquely down to the sheer volume of similar complaints that they receive.

I'm not sure that it would be worth the hassle in order to prove that cancelling her direct debit wasn't a contravention of her agreement with them, where does it get you? the rights and wrongs of that issue dont seem too important in comparison to the severity of their proposed method of future collection.(though i understand how your girlfriend could find it all a bit upsetting)

The main focus of your investigation should be in identifying wether or not their intended method of "wage docking" is legal.

Ultimately these guys want the dough so this is what you should tell your missus to do:

Have her wages paid into another account for the immediate future

Phone the company and inform them that their will be no available funds in that account for the foreseeable future and set up the manual payment system, be sure not to tell them why their will be no money in the account, they're bound to ask because of their pretensions of superiority, buck its got f*** all to do with them

Pay off the debt in its entirety and them tell them to go f*** themselfs for the penalty she incurred, In order for it to become a ccj they would have to take her to court which you inform tham that your than happy for them to do citing an impeccable record of payment of the related debt accompanied with the part of the contract that memorialises the availability to cancal a direct debit as being pursuant to arrangement with no mention of default or financial penalty as a rebuttel, theye'd drop it out and if they didn't from my understanding of the situation they'd have no chance in court.

However i dont know why you didn't just do a super tank and pay the whole lot off right there and then for her, then spend the rest of the day shopping for French maids uniforms, revealling underwear and some hand cuffs and see if the brownie points you'd acrewd were enough to get her to do a little show for you!! Its the first thing that would've occurred to me  :dontask: ;D

I didn't get to bed until 6:am this morning, I was planning to get up about noon.
At 9:30 there was a very loud knock on the door, It was the kind of knock used by policemen or women running from axe murderers. I heard Mrs Red open the door and a short, muffled exchange, then it was quiet.

I tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use, I was fully awake, and not in the best of moods. I slipped on my jeans and went to find out who it was.

Mrs Red told me it was someone who was mapping the area and needed to check some measurements on the ground against some aerial photographs. I went outside to find some bugger in a yellow coat walking around with a clip-board.

OY!!" I shouted, "Who the hell are you?"
:I'm from the Ordnance Survey.
:Do you have an appointment?  
:Er, no.
"Did you show any ID?"
:No.
:My gate is locked, how did you get in?
:I climbed over it.
:Well climb back over it and F*** OFF!!

He left, rather quickly. I still haven't calmed down.

Removing the charges they are unlawfully placing on the account would be a start!!! Anything that saves £££ is a good move IMO.

It does seem fairly clear cut, you should never have any penalty payment unless you've actually missed a payment, and even then they should make an effort to collect it over the phone before they take any harder action.

Bloody right too! Well said Red! :)up ;applause;

This is quite simply the best advice anyone can give you on this subject Tank, I hope you heed it .... oh and take some pics. ;)

I dont think that is a good "start".

If you get on the phone to these people ranting and raving about unfair penalty charges whilst also attempting to change your method of payment it becomes excessivly convoluted and all you want to do at the moment IMO is to successfully change the method of payment to a manual one, for me that would be a priority because of the empowerment and intrusion involved in their alternate proposal for collection.

If you attempt to address the financial penalty before anything alse dont you see your giving them an advantage? your giving your hand away!!
If they know that your of this mind they will make it as difficult as possible for you to change the method of payment also you have the equity of having paid off the entire bill when arguing about the legitimacy of their imposed penalty, Its no longer a government matter, its just between you and them for a derisory amount, see how far they want to take that when theres so much you can argue in your favour against it.

If you go steaming in with inexorable indignation you'll achieve nothing other than letting these people that have the present ability to make your life uncomfortable know exactly where your at and that will serve as a significant encumbrance in having the payment method change.

If you follow the chronology of my instruction in my previous post you'll have the amount paid off in felicitous fashion, and the penalty will be revoked.

Its still a government matter unless you pay off the bill in full (and pay it to the council, not the debt collectors, that will royally fuck them off). I did that with a credit card bill once. First they said well we've passed it on to a debt collection agency. But when they heard the words "balance paid off in full" they said, umm, okay, ill transfer you to the collections department. No fees, and debt collector gets no money weeee

Really?

Did the agancy chase you up for any added charges, penaltys, or fees they'd accumulated whilst dealing with your account?

I ignored those letters. never heard anything. Been about 6 years now.