**UPDATE** I spoke to Orange just now and the first person I talked with kept insisting that they couldn't take any payment from me if my details had been passed to NCO. I persisted (and "gently" reminded them that they aren't allowed to refuse a valid offer of payment) and after about 15 minutes, I was passed to a different department and as of the start of June I will be paying Orange. I also spoke to my bank who assured me that if Orange have taken responsibility for the payments again, that NCO could not take money from my account. The Direct Debit is cancelled, which has been double and triple checked with the bank, so hopefully I will never hear from NCO ever again. Watch this space though - knowing NCO they'll find a reason to annoy me... Thanks for the help, guys, I really appreciate it. I would've been totally clueless and stressed out without this forum!

Jasper that is a fantastic bit of information - thank you!! Not long to go until I start kicking some stupid peoples backsides...I will update this once I've contacted the bank and Orange...wish me luck, lol

I moved house and ended up with zero reception on Orange - I had to actually stand a few paces from the front door to get one bar. I called them and asked what I could do to boost the reception and got no help at all so I decided to terminate early. I had two phones on my account; one for me and one for my husband; so early termination fees and buying out both lines added up pretty quickly.

:lol:LOVE IT!!! I have a list of people to call on Monday morning - my bank is top of the list, closely followed by Orange. If Orange do still refuse, do I send a complaint to them about it; or would that go somewhere a little higher than the dancing monkeys - sorry, customer service agents?

I've checked my bank online and it's definitely showing as cancelled. I will call them on Monday to make sure they don't allow any further payments to go to NCO. Thank you! The debt was to Orange (mobile phone) and with the money I've already paid it's just over £2000. Oh bless her! I hope she managed to get some sleep Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it - I'll double check this with my bank when I talk to them.

Can I have that in writing? On a very large bat? To hit Orange with? Seriously though, what is the procedure if Orange keep refusing? I really wish I'd known that before, lol However I won't be reinstating the direct debit now. If they can cancel the DD (which they told me they did)without my being aware of it, can they reinstate it without my knowing?

Hi renegadeimp (LOVE the user name btw, brilliant!) I've tried contacting Orange before when I first realized that they had passed on my information to NCO (I'd heard such awful things about NCO that I didn't want to deal with them at all) and Orange have flatly refused to let me pay them directly. I really feel like a bit of a pillock for agreeing to pay NCO the installments to be honest; but I didn't know what else to do - I feel like I've been well and truly backed into a corner now.

Hi there! I'm hoping I've put this in the right place - apologies if I haven't but I'm a bit rattled at the moment; thanks to our lovely friends at NCO. Basically Orange decided to pass me over to NCO (without warning or informing me that they were doing so) and because I knew the debt was mine and Orange flatly refused to discuss setting up a payment plan; I thought that agreeing to pay in installments of £50 a month to someone that actually seemed reasonable was the way to go. The direct debit was set up and two months went by with the payments going through absolutely no problem. Fast forward to today and I get a phone call from the lovely NCO people regarding the "£2000+ on your account that you'll be paying off today"... My face looked a little like this for a moment while I wondered what on Earth this woman was talking about. I finally got a word in edgeways and asked her what was going on - the £50 had been taken at the beginning of the previous 2 months and I'd not been contacted at all to say it hadn't come out this month so I was a bit floored to hear that I suddenly owed over £2000. Apparently NCO has *tried* to take the £50 and it failed (I don't know how, as my account had plenty of money for them to take it...) so they decided to cancel the direct debit completely and then wait for about 3 weeks before telling me. They are now telling me that it's my fault that the payment wasn't made, it's my fault that the direct debit "had to be" cancelled and it's my fault for not checking my bank account every single day to make sure they were paid. The man I spoke to then went on to tell me: "It's your debt, it's your fault for getting into it in the first place and it's your responsibility to make sure we get our money. So don't give me excuses about being disabled; it's all on you." (I am disabled, I'm unable to leave my flat unassisted so I can't just go toddling off up the road to check my bank balance every day; which I explained to NCO...Their response was to laugh...Charming.) Anyway, when I asked why I hadn't been contacted sooner; either by phone or by a letter in the mail the man became a bit more aggressive towards me and wouldn't (or couldn't) answer me. I then asked him if the direct debit had been returned; why hadn't I been notified by my bank (I get email alerts about this type of thing) about a returned direct debit charge and he couldn't answer that either. I was then told that if I wanted to reinstate the payment plan I would have to pay £50 using my debit card and then pay another £50 by direct debit on June 1st. I do not feel at all comfortable giving them my card details and my bank has told me categorically that I should not pay them over the phone as it sounds a bit (in their words exactly) "dodgy". They also told me that the way NCO told me that the direct debit was reinstated is totally wrong - NCO have to contact the bank and ask for a new code and it's set up from there. My bank have also told me that if the direct debit was returned, I would be charged and they looked as far into the future as they could on my account and guess what...? NO upcoming charges at all. So my question now is what on earth do I do? The way that NCO have done things just seems really dodgy and very poor business practice; the way they spoke to me is just ridiculous and even my bank have said that it doesn't sound right at all. Any advice would be great as I'm a bit stumped and quite annoyed with the whole situation. Come back Orange - all is forgiven!