Just had a letter with the return address on the back of the envelope and it's from Exeter City Council letting us know we're getting housing benefit.

I'll phone them up on Monday and ask them what's going on.

I'll save you the trouble (I've added spaces to the domain name to stop it turning into a link - don't want any backlinks)

Domain name:
c o m p e n s a t i o n c l a i m s . c o . u k

Registrant:
  Paragon Ltd

Registrant type:
  UK Limited Company, (Company number: 5241653)

Registrant's address:
  PO Box 163
  Clitheroe
  Lancashire
  BB7 0DA
  United Kingdom

Registrar:
  Paragon Ltd [Tag = BLUEROCK]
  URL: http://www.bluerockdesign.com

Relevant dates:
  Registered on: 03-Dec-1998
  Renewal date:  03-Dec-2012
  Last updated:  08-Mar-2011

Registration status:
  Registered until renewal date.

Name servers:
  ns.rackspace.com
  ns2.rackspace.com

I have emailed them complaining asking to be removed from their mailing/SMS list and I was expecting an email back apologising asking for my number so they can remove it. Instead they said they don't market this way. Sent an email back asking her to explain how the woman on the phone was ready to take all my details after she confirmed that she was responding to my reply to their SMS.

Just waiting for their response.

I did actually reply "CLAIM" and I just had the woman on the phone hang up on me but not after I found out who they are.

They are a company called "Compensation Claims" and their website is dot co dot uk. I'm not typing the URL in full as not to provide a link back to them.

I've also just forwarded this onto the ICO.

Awesome stuff - greatly appreciated

Only hardware we've not managed to swap out is the router as I don't have a spare one. I'm going to replace the connectors in the box outside when I go around with some new jelly clips as the current ones do look a bit old.

Fingers crossed...

Thanks but we've already done all that, even had the router plugged directly into the test socket on the wall and the connection still drops randomly. I know it's not Windows as I've re-installed it after wiping the hard drive.

Just wanting to know what procedure we should follow to try and get something done as he's losing out on many bids on eBay (he's an avid record collector)

EDIT: Inside the property (or "on your property" as BT say) is slightly misleading as "your property" is everything AFTER the master socket. If it's the line coming in up to and including the master socket it's their responsibility. I think they word it like this to scare people into not getting engineers called out as easily to save them (BT) some cash.

Wow, 9 months later and not a single reply!

I've only just found this post again so please excuse the late update.

I wrote them a nice letter quoting the Sales of Goods Act and the Supply of Goods and Services Act and they sent someone round for a chat and to take a look. He tried to treat me like I didn't know what was going on and after more phone calls to SWW they sent the contractors round to examine the meter.

Contractors turned up, they told me they're hearing stuff like this a lot and when they dug up the meter they showed me the water and the leak - connectors on the pipe not tightened up enough. I took a photo and told SWW I took a photo of the leak.

Without an apology or letter of acknowledgement they credited us everything we had paid plus some extra.

Good result all round we think.

We're still noting the meter levels every morning in a little notepad just in case.

Hi,

A friend is with Post Office for his broadband and his line started dropping at random times for random lengths of time, often for hours.

He was using one of those cheap phone cable extension sets so to eliminate this I wired in a dedicated extension line - I used to be an installation engineer so I know what I'm doing yet he's getting exactly the same.

We've been on the phone to them several times and they've admitted they can see the line isn't synchronised when the connection drops yet they're refusing to do anything about it.

The wiring in the street was replaced by BT a couple years ago so that should be fine. I've checked the wiring inside his property (from the master socket to where the line enters his property) and the cabling looks fine.

Any help on this would be gratefully appreciated and if we have to put something in writing if someone would be kind enough to give me a basic outline of what needs to be said I'd be even more grateful.

Hi,

I've come in here through Google while searching for the text content. I did search for the number I received the message from (07591 299555) and this must be a new number they're using as nothing found.

I just spoke to a nice lady at the ICO and she told me they're aware and are currently investigating and to file a complaint.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx

If you received this as a text message you need this file:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/privacy_and_electronic/forms/pecr_complaints_form.doc

Download, fill it in and email back to: casework@ico.gsi.gov.uk

I know it does say on the website to try and contact the offending party first but I told the woman on the phone, I'm aware there are premium rate numbers starting 07 and I didn't want to risk getting sucked into one of those scams by replying to it or calling it and she said that's fine.

I'm VERY tempted to reply CLAIM and see who answers it and give them some trouble down the phone.

I did quote the text goodwill posted from the tpsonline and regardless that it says "No" to the question companies are not allowed to send you marketing messages unless you've first consented to receiving them - they are flouting the law.

...and with it not being a debt or myself not even knowing the individual concerned I'll have no way of knowing whether it's been statute barred or not.

I'm still no cleare on whether a debt that old can be chased or not - Mike thanks for your reply but I don't understand any of what you typed!

Can a debt this old still be chased?

I thought there was a deadline?

They really are nothing to do with us and will definitely do as mentioned should we receive any more mail from them.

I'm only worried about our belongings as my brother fell foul of another DCA many years ago and lost a lot of his belongings - lots of musical equipment. Someone in his band had debts, my brother's equipment was at their house and he lost everything.

I opened the letter hoping to find a phone number to contact them on so I could tell them no-one by that name lives here or has (as far as I'm aware) although I did check Google and found someone with that name living nearby but I won't let them know. I don't want to do any work for these people.

Thank-you for your swift reply.

We've lived in this cottage about 18 months now.

When we first moved in we had letters from DLC for various people (some were the previous tenants) and they stopped.

Just had a letter arrive from them for someone completely different and the amount owed is very large.

Is there any way we can get them to stop sending us letters for all these people? If anything it's just plain annoying and not wanting things to go missing for someone else's debt.

The other thing I'm wondering about is this debt dates back to 2001 - isn't there a cut-off point when debts can no longer be chased?

I sincerely hope so.

All I've heard of so far is that details of thousands of customers from Sky have been made publically available online.

From reading these emails myself it's also BT, O2, BeThere and PlusNet and I've only just started looking.

As well as names, addresses and phone numbers there's also full credit card details including the 3 digit security number on the back.

I downloaded this lot last night and have been going through it all.

I found one PDF of a scanned document containing full credit card details of one victim of ACS:Law.

So far the cases I've seen are incredible. One 69yr old gent while away on a family holiday has downloaded porn at home - according to ACS:Law. You couldn't make this all up!

It's not only Sky customers but it's also BeThere, PlusNet, O2 and more.

Oh, it's also not 350MB as everyone is saying - that's the size of the RAR file. It's actually 750MB.

I love to waste their time if I get callers like that.

Pretend to be so thick you make a plank of wood look like a computer. It's amazing how far you can actually go with them before they get bored. They're concentrated so much on your money that "hang on, is this a wind up?" doesn't enter their minds.

More time I can keep them on the phone the less chance someone has of being scammed.

That was an interesting read - thanks for posting.

The crazy thing is, I told my friend to notify her bank and change all her passwords and to arrange a time for me to go round and rebuild Windows when she had enough time but I never had a call back. She's so trusting and doesn't think anyone can be so evil!

btw keep a small whistle by your phone like the football refs use - when they call you blow it as hard as you can down the phone as long as you can

If I had a call from them I'd play dumb and play with them on the phone as long as I could.

The longer I can keep them occupied and not calling someone who might fall for their scams it would make me very happy.

(I'd also get that warm squishy feeling inside)

I know and it annoys me no end when I hear of people getting taken in for scams.

If I get called out to fix a computer most of the time I only charge for my fuel and ask for a hot drink as I can't justify the high extortionate costs charged by shops when they don't do much.

Thank-you very much - we'll get a letter written sharpish and will send it registered to the above address.

I worked for BT Yahoo! call centre in Exeter for a short while and during my training was told that if we really need to keep someone sweet on the phone every call agent was authorised to issue a months' free line rental for each call and this wasn't limited to x number a week or to any particular individual.

We live just outside of Exeter but our calls go through their exchange so I'll be passing this information onto everyone I know.

Thanks for posting.

Just had a sneaky thought - can you not put a CD together with a PDF containing information about PayPal's exploits and sell it on eBay as some sort of "survival kit" against PayPal?

Not sure how long it'd last but would be interesting to see how it goes.

Wow! First time I've ever been on a forum where incorrect posts are edited out - I held back from doing so because many other forums I visit this is frowned upon.

If you'd like to edit my post that would be great and appreciated.

OK I apologise for that about CCleaner - I've got that muddled up with something else by a similar name. I still stand by what I say about optimising RAM - If something claims to optimise memory avoid it.

As for the registry and RAM I'm full aware they're different entities and was not referring to optimising RAM but was referring to the registry cleaning side of it.