I have just seen this thread. Just last week I wanted to buy an email gift voucher from Next for my granddaughter and when I went onto the website I was told I would have to register for an account and given the option to either pay £3.75 for a catalogue or a similar amount for postage on my first order. As I had no intention of ever buying from their catalogue I chose the second option even then I was told that as a new customer I would have to pay upfront (this was what I had been expecting to do in the first place). The following day I got a phone call from Next saying they were checking my credit file and as my granddaughter was sat next to me and I was caught unawares I agreed. The more I thought about this I got mad about it as my credit rating is first class and I didn't want any searches marked so I fired off a letter of complaint about the this. I got a reply back saying it was "procedure" and which had to be done but they have marked my account with them that I won't have to pay postage on my first order. Seeing as I haven't paid for the catalogue there is no way I will be ordering from them

We live in the N-East England and my husband got a letter with this address on the back for an appointment at our local NHS hospital, so we assumed it must be where they centralize appointments. Why they send it from over 200 miles away for a hospital that we could walk to. This is probably why it takes over a month for the appointments to come.

Thank you

Is it possible to have the reply number in a darker colour?

I got an email notification but when I looked into my inbox it was empty. This is the first private message in almost 3 years and I didn't get to see it!! I think the site team must be already onto it, and are removing them.

The letter I got yesterday saying they could not remove my details also included a printout from the BT site showing all my details so they had done a search themselves and come up with my name, number and address so I went onto the BT site and asked to be removed. I have just had an email back from them asking me to confirm my phone number and BT account number so they can deal with it. The fact is that we haven't been with BT for about 15 years as we are with Virgin, and the phone book number has always been in my husband's name. I will send them the stop processing letter tomorrow.

I saw my details last week (Name, address and phone number)on this site even though we have opted out of the full electoral roll. I sent in the form (CO1)for being taken off and had a reply yesterday saying that they cannot remove phone numbers as the core database OSIS just updates them daily. They say that the only way to get it taken off is through the phone provider. The thing is that my husbands name doesn't come up and the directory entry is in his name. I have never had an entry in my name so how can I have it taken off at source? We are also on the telephone preference list yet we still get calls often asking for me by name. I wondered where on earth they could get my details from - I need wonder no more!

Try a program called Hotspot shield for anonymous browsing. It gives your IP address as somewhere in America. I only use it to access Pandora radio which is now barred for UK listeners, but it would also baffle any DCA's

Thanks, will do this Should I also send it to DLC as they seem to be the ones passing the alleged debt around?

This is just a continuation of a previous thread we thought was over and done with. To recap : In 1993 we returned a car under the 50% rule (even though we had paid a bit more. As far as we were concerned that was it and we never heard any more until 2001 when we got a letter from DLC saying we owed them £1200+. Included in the envelope was a letter from the original lender saying they had passed our account on the previous year. This was the first we had heard from them for over 8 years. My husband went to CAB and was told that even if there had been a debt it would have been statute barred and just to ignore it which was what he did and we never heard anything else 2 years later in 2003 another letter arrived and again the CAB gave the same advice. Again we heard nothing after 1 letter. In 2006 he started getting letters from Ruthbridge acting for their client DLC. I think we got their full array of threatening letters and parcel letters. This time the CAB said to try Trading Standards. The woman there isn't very approachable and painted the blackest picture saying it could still go to court and we would have to have proof of all our payments which we didn't have as by this time it was over 13 years since we surrendered the car. She did write to Ruthbridge several times and told us that they never replied to her, but somehow it seems to have worked and it is about a year since we last heard from them. Now we have started getting phone calls from JB dept recovery and a letter from their collection agents ATI after the same amount and on behalf of DLC. TS is still no more supportive and very dismissive of anything from the internet. She wouldn't even look at the printout from JBDR's own web page where they say they specialise in statute barred debts and No win no fee. We don't even have a debt to be statute barred and even if we did it would be doubly statute barred again since DLC first bought it. She now says that as we didn't dispute it with DLC originally we can't do it now. We didn't know about this site then and we just followed CAB's advice. She is writing to ATI, but even if they stop what is to stop DCL passing it on again even though it is now 15 years since the car went back?

Hi Becky My husband has been getting a lot of phone calls from JBDR which we haven't acknowledged. I have found on their website that they collect debts on behalf of debt purchase companies specialising in statute barred, so they might not have anything on you especially if you don't ring them back

I have looked on their website and they only collect on behalf of debt purchase companies on a no-collection no-fee basis, specialising in statute barred debts. They obviously don't own the debt, so as long as we don't give them any identifying information they won't be able to write to us (hopefully). We are not unduly worried as we know there isn't a debt in the first place, but if it winds them up so be it.

I enjoy just hanging up on them, especially when they ring back and leave messages, but with this new one we have never answered any of their questions so I suppose legally they can't do anything. It really seems to annoy them when they can't get what they want.

Thanks to you all for your replies. We are not with BT so I don't know if refusing would work. Up until yesterday the calls could not be traced with 1471 as they came through a switchboard so we weren't sure who was calling. Now we know it is a DCA my husband will be getting TS involved again, although they were never very helpful they did get the letters and calls to stop for a year. The strange thing is that when the Aberdeen Angus woman from Ruthbridge used to ring before and I always hung up on her, she used to leave messages on the answer phone using my name and telling me more or less to mind my own business as the calls weren't for me. This week I had a call asking to speak to "DaisyMay" and when I said it was me the caller hung up. I wonder if it is the new DCA doing some fishing!

If, when they ring again my husband refuses togive any details does this mean that they won't dare write to him. We had over a year of threatening letters from Ruthbridge and before that DLC. As I said before we gave the car back under the 50% rule in 1993 without any bother until 13 years later. We haven't moved or changed our phone number in all that time either. Trading Standards got involved a year ago and we haven't heard anything till these calls started coming. Has the "alleged" debt been sold on?

Be my guest!!! I just happened to be listening to some old country music when they rang and I just happened to leave the phone next to the loudspeaker and I just happened to accidently turn up the volume

Mrmarmite When I rang it was American voice until an agent came on and she was Scottish but she wouldn't tell me anything until I gave her my phone number which I wouldn't as I was using Skype. All she would say was it was to do with a legal matter The only dealings we have had with debt collectors was my thread. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/debt-collection-industry/66629-harassment.html It was a Scottish women who used to ring up then from Ruthbridge. We have never had any debts owing and don't have any credit cards and the mortgage was paid off over 10 years ago

For the past few weeks my husband has been getting calls from foreign sounding people who can't even pronounce his name properly. When I ask what it is about they say something like they need to write to him. The number is usually from a switchboard that doesn't transmit numbers. Today however when I did 1471 I got 08002889838 I looked it up and came up with several possibilities GDR, JDR and JB debt Recovery I rang back using my Skype phone so they couldn't trace it and the woman that answered was definitely American but she didn't give a company name and said all their agents were busy. We had a lot of threats from Ruthbridge last year for a debt that never even existed from 1993 but after we got Trading Standards involved we haven't heard a thing. Could this be connected?

When Ruthbridge were threatening doorstep visits we happened to see someone selling CCTV cameras so we bought one and we just have to press record on the video and we get both pictures and sound of anyone at the door (Surprise surprise they never turned up!!!) but it was worth the £40 for peace of mind.

Thanks to you all. We will be following your advice. Since we started getting the letters in 2001 we have kept copies of everything, letters, answerphone messages and anything to do with Ruthbridge. It is good that you agree with us that there is no debt. There is definitely no CCJ against my husband and he hasn't applied for credit since the car went back.

We queried taking Ruthbridge to court with this woman from Trading Standards but she was so negative and more or less told us that there was no guarantee that we would get a judgement in our favour and we would have to stand all costs. Listening to her you would think we were in the wrong. The facts are we don't owe a penny to anyone and we have never been in debt, but according to her the onus is on us to prove it. She has been trying to get a response from them since February but they just seem to have run circles round her and started threatening us again

Sorry for bumping this up, but is there any way this couldn't be statute barred. We thought we were doing the right thing by getting trading standards involved but Ruthbridge just seem to ignore them.

Apart from a letter in April from Trading Standards asking if we had heard from Ruthbridge as she had written to them twice and not heard back from them. We hadn't heard anything and the calls and letters had stopped so we thought she had some clout. Last week we got a letter from Ruthbridge's Debt counselling service offering us free debt counselling!!!!! If they don't hear from us they are going to start chasing us again. As I said before there is no debt as the car was handed back in 1993 under the 50% rule so we don't owe a penny and it was at least 8 years later before we started getting chased for this (alleged)debt We went to Trading Standards again this week and the woman there was so dismissive of everything I said about what I had found out on this site. She even says it isn't statute barred as we could have missed a payment (we haven't) It is now 14 years since the car went back, and we had any contact with anybody about it. We are now back to waiting for letters and phone calls. We thought passing it to TS would put an end to it. She said some thing about the type of agreement we had which was a conditional sale agreement wasn't covered by being statute barred (if that makes sense)

This is just an update. Since my last post there has been no contact whatsoever from Ruthbridge, so it looks as thought Trading Standards has scared them off. We got in touch with DVLA and got a poor photocopy of a new owner in May 1993. Just had a letter this morning from Trading Standards to say she has written to them twice and had no reply. We know there is no way they can frighten us into paying a debt that never existed in the first place. On another note. On the website "London on line" there is a feature where you can write reviews about businesses in London. There were some very heated reviews about Ruthbridge by some people who to put it nicely hadn't been treated very well by them. There were also some which I suspect had been put up by Ruthbridge themselves as they said what a lovely company they were and how nicely they had been treated. Now the reviews on that particular listing have been disabled. (So Ruthbridge must have friends in high places) Fortunately for my own benefit I copied most of them so I knew I wasn't the only one being targetted by them.

I got a message on The bear garden forum to say they had fixed the code, so now I am officially a daisy.