So will I need to get a solicitor for this? Is not something I will be able to take at the small claims court?

Reply from Zinc Collections on behalf of Zin, Wescott and Vanquis: Further to our previous e mails, and after discussions between our clients and them with Westcot, I have been asked to clarify the points as follows. Whilst the account was placed with Wescot, you requested that your telephone numbers were removed. This was actioned as requested however when the account was sent on to Zinc there was a process failure and they were not advised that telephone numbers should have been removed. Wescot also requested statements on your behalf, but these were not provided as there appeared to have been some confusion at Vanquis that this was a Subject Access Request which requires payment and the request in writing directly to Vanquis Zinc should not have attempted to speak to your Manager at work to leave messages and the employee in question has been advised that this is not how the account should have been handled. Section 40 request that you previously mentioned is usually a Subject Access request, but I believe that you are referring to the removal of the phone number in this context. I hope that this answered all your questions regarding the complaint and once again apologise for the inconvenience caused. Regards xxxx

I got a reply from Zinc Recoveries today saying they are working with Vanquis and Wescot to propose a solution on behalf of all three of them. I will let you know as soon as I hear something. I think they've realised that I won't let it go and I also think reading my responses they also realised that I must have somebody behind me advising me so it looks like they are taking me seriously. We shall see

Thanks everyone, There are a few issues which if anyone could help would really appreciate it. As to why I never answered to his calls: 1. Because is my right not to speak on the phone and I have put that in writing to them, he is not mentioning the 2nd Section 40 request in his response - hmmm very convenient. 2. Because they shouldn't be calling me at work, if their employee was not trained properly not my problem 3. If as they claim asking to speak to my manager was an innocent not malicious request to just leave a message why have they not attempted to send me a letter saying we tried to contact you but not returned our calls, can you please call us? He also says that my account went to them in error. So basically my personal information has been floating around being passed from company to company? With my credit card number on it, name surname address, telephone numbers etc. Is that legal? He also says that the information was passed to them in error. Why was my telephone number on that information then since I have a written confirmation from Wescott that they have deleted my phone number from their records - this is their actual wording of their letter. If it was deleted from their records how did it re-appear on the info that was passed to Zinc? He mentions 4 times calling in my workplace this is a lie i have 4 written statements the number of calls where a lot more. Everyday, some days twice for 2 weeks. Vanquis also send me a letter saying they are investigating my complain, they have the initial responsibility to this as well, do I need to bring them into the discussions or take each one seperately? Anybody who can help with any of these really appreciated.

Reply from Zinc Recoveries: Dear Mr Xxxx * Further to our discussions and your e mail below, I have returned from our Glasgow operation and would like to update you on our investigations so far. * In my opinion your situation falls into two categories, the original section 40 notice, issued to a previous company, which lead to your account coming to ourselves in error and our compounding of the situation with calls to your place of employment. * An investigation of why your account came to us, is underway between our clients and the previous company, however I would suspect that it is down to human error around a miss keying of a closure code when your account was returned to our clients, and hence it was subsequently sent to ourselves in error. * As advised I have interviewed our Mr Xxxx who is a relatively new employee with ourselves, he has confirmed that he did ask on a couple off occasions to speak with your manager, his reasoning for this, was that he had left a number of messages for you to which*he had not received a response, and required to ensure the messages were being received,*he would not have been aware of your section 40 notice at that time. * I have advised Mr xxxx that this type of action would not be condoned by ourselves under our TCF (Treating Customer Fairly) ethos, and that he should discuss any issues like this with our training and compliance division for guidance, and they can request*guidance from our regulatory bodies. * I do have to confirm that Mr Xxxx denies leaving any message pertaining to the detail of your account, or its monitory position. * I can assure you once again, that Mr Xxxx meant no malice in his attempt to contact you only that he wished to resolve the situation amicably, the above said and as I said in my previous mail I do not believe we have handled this account properly and lessons need to be learnt for the future, which I have instructed our compliance team to work on. * I fully appreciate that you have*found this whole situation unacceptable, and I would like to look to compensate you for the errors, before I can do this may I ask you to confirm your position. * Whilst I appreciate you are under no requirement to do so, but may I confirm why you did not return any of Mr xxxxx call and explain the section 40 to him, thereby alleviating the situation. * As mentioned above I am in discussions with our clients in relation to the section 40 notice, and before any further discussion around your account can take place, could you confirm if any action has been undertaken in relation to a complaint or questions being asked of*any of our regulatory or legislative bodies, as obviously we would have to await the outcome of their investigation should there be one underway, before we could propose a solution.* * In conclusion I would once again offer you both my own and the companies sincerest apologies for the inconvenience*caused and hopefully I can offer a resolution once I hear back from you. * Kindest Regards * D J McManus..................******

Thanks PriorityOne, Will follow your suggestion tonight. One of the things I am worrying about is the fact that the minute I queried something they gave my account to another debt collection agency (or maybe it was Wescot who didn't want to deal with it can not possibly know what happened there), so effectively this might hapen again now and have to start all over again. In any case to answer your question, they are chasing me for £421 original debt £200. The problem started after a failed direct direct which i did not realise at that point, Vanquis kept requesting money from my account(i think they presented the DD that month about 5 times) and the bank deleted the DD. Neither my bank or Vanquis told me about it and then the charges just started building up. Can't remember getting a default on the account, not saying there is not one but I haven't seen it. I had the card for quite a few years but the debt is only outstanding since summer maybe or September. Sorry one more thing, been on the OFT website and it does not look that they are accepting complaints by individuals?

Have send all the statements to him and the 2 Section 40 requests. In one of the statements my colleague states that he said he was chasing money from me, in the other 2 statements my two other colleagues have stated that he demanded to speak to my manager, he accused one of my colleagues for not telling the truth (that basically I was not in a meeting) and he asked for her name along with my manager's name. In two othe statements as written by my colleagues the person on the phone has stated that he has left me a number of messages and I haven't got back to him. So he was clever enough to admit this as well. Anyway would be interesting to see what the response will be, Mr. McManus said he is going to Glasgow on Friday and will conduct the investigation himself.

Thanks everyone. Shall I wait to hear Vanquis position before say anything further to him? I send them a similar letter. Also he asked me to send him the Section 40 requests to help him in his investigation. Shall I? I also have written statements from colleagues shall send him a sample like one of the statements to show I've got further proof?

Received an email this morning from the owner of the company. He says a lot, he is very apologetic and says that he devastated about my email and that in his 30 years of experience in the industry never had to deal with a complaint of similar nature. He gave me their credit license and he is also said that he is travelling to Glasgow to personally interview the employee involved (the same person's name was quoted in every message that was left to me at work). He is also asking me to give him an indication as to what I would consider a satisfied resolution to this matter. Not sure what he means by that to be honest. Haven't replied to him yet.

Thanks I think there is an issue however on whether they even have a licence. Having google the company and its owner I came across quite a few interesting things so I am now worrying that my letter won't do anything. I don't think they care. Ultimate credit (or something like that) went into administration then one of its directors created the zinc group and directed customers from Ultimate Credit to pay their debts to Zen Group. OFT then imposed a £45,000 penalty. It also looks like the same person attempted to run a legal firm at some point threatening people to take them to court. He was operating using a dormant company with no licence to act as solicitors. I don't believe for a minute that a complaint letter will stop these people but I will give it a try.

I send a complain letter to the owner on the information you have given me and got an automatic reply back saying he will be outside of the office until the 11th of March. Is the 15th today so he must have forgotten to take his automatic reply off but is clear I think that this is an active email address that he uses. Let's see if he responds. Or if it stops the calls.

In their letter they send to me it reads: "We have been instructed in our capacity as professional credit managers, to contact you in relation to the above outstanding debt" They then go on to offer me either a lower one off payment or monthly repayments and they say contact our negoatiators etc.

Revenant and teaboy thank you so much for your quick response, I am currently drafting a letter to send to the owner, do you think I should involve Vanquis in this in any way? As the creditor and as Zinc is acting on behalf of them don't they have a responsibility for their actions as well?

Have a credit card with Vanquis and cost doubled the amount of my approved credit due to credit card charges. Written to Wescott in August who were chasing asking for a statement of all charges made to my account. I said on the letter that I would review and make an offer for repayment. I also issued them with a Section 40 notice. In response to this my account got transferred to Zinc collections. They are calling every day at my work demanding to speak to my manager claiming a serious legal matter. I issued Zinc with another Section 40 request but calls haven't stoped. They call demanding to speak to my manager and shiuting at colleagues saying they are hiding me and things like that. No response as to why my charges are so excessive either. Any advise would be really appreciated.