Disputed 3 mobile debt/default sold on to Lowell - **WON+COMPO+DEFAULT REMOVED BY 3**

[HildaP]

For general interest and future reference,

here is the final (successful!) e-mail correspondence between myself and Three's Executive Office.

 

 

I hope it's okay to post it here – please let me know if I need to move it elsewhere, redact differently or change the format.

 

Subject: Re: alleged (and disputed) debt, Three Mobile account no. ***********

 

Dear **********,

 

Thank you for your letter dated **********. It was certainly a present surprise to hear from a Three employee,

given that I have not received a response to previous correspondence.

 

Since I have not received responses from Three relating to correspondence sent by old fashioned letter,

and since I live in ********** and post can take up to two weeks or even more to arrive,

I have taken the liberty of replying via e-mail in the hope that this will speed things up somewhat.

 

I have also sent this e-mail to the Three Executive Office,

Three Customer Services and to Lowell Group to ensure that everyone is kept up-to-date.

I trust that whoever picks this e-mail up at Three will forward it to the appropriate colleague.

 

My current address is. ***********

Please update your records accordingly, if you have not already done so.

My previous address was: ***********.

Prior to that I lived at ***********.

I believe you also have my father's address on record: ***********.

 

My name when I opened the account was ***********.

I have since married, and my surname is now ***********.

This change in name was communicated to you in my letter dated ***********.

Please update your records accordingly.

 

The account in dispute relates to the number ***********. The account number is***********.

 

Now that you have all the details necessary to identify my account,

I would be grateful if you could address the following points:

 

a) I have not received any explanation as to why Three believes that I owe the alleged debt,

for example in the form of an explanatory invoice. In my letter dated ***********

(which was sent by recorded delivery to Three, Hutchinson 3G Ltd, PO Box 33, Glasgow, G2 9AG)

I asked for clarification on this point.

 

 

I know that this letter was received because I received a reply regarding my query about how to make a subject access request.

I did not, however, receive a reply relating to my request for an explanation/evidence of the alleged debt.

 

 

Please supply a fully itemised invoice for the alleged debt, with a full breakdown of all charges,

including details of any numbers that I am alleged to have called or texted, and/or services that I am alleged to have used.

 

b) In my letter dated ***********,

I also drew to Three's attention the fact that

i) money had been taken from my account by direct debit after the agreed date for final payment (***********) and that

ii) extra charges had been added to the monthly fee.

I also explained that it was impossible for me to have used my phone during the period when extra charges were added,

since I had moved to *********** and was therefore unable to use my mobile.

Finally, I asked for an explanation for the additional charges.

 

 

Please explain why Three did not acknowledge or investigate my concerns,

or offer any explanation as to the direct debit transactions or extra charges.

 

c) On ***********,

I received an e-mail from the debt collection agency Scotcall Ltd, stating that:

'Our client is disappointed that despite their attempts to contact you, you failed to pay or advise them of any financial problems that you may be having.'

 

 

Since I cancelled my contract with Three prior to moving abroad, I did not leave a forwarding address with Three (nor was one requested).

Nevertheless, Three did have my e-mail address, since it was passed on to Scotcall Ltd.

 

 

Please explain why, if Three needed to contact me to raise the serious issue of settling an alleged debt,

and did not have a valid postal address, no attempt was made to contact me via e-mail.

 

d) On ***********

I replied by e-mail to Scotcall, stating that I disputed the debt.

On the following day, I received a reply from Scotcall stating that: 'in view of the content of your e-mail, we will be returning this account to our client'.

FCA guidelines state that when a debt is disputed, creditors must cease collection activities and investigate further.

 

 

Please explain why Three not only failed to address the concerns in my letter dated ***********,

but further did not act on Scotcall's notification that the debt was disputed, for example by contacting me to ask for further information.

 

e) On***********,

I received a letter from Three stating that if I did not contact them within 20 days to discuss the alleged debt,

the debt would be passed on to a debt collection agency.

I replied by letter on the *********** to the address provided.

Please explain why this letter was ignored and the alleged debt sold to a third party regardless.

 

f) I have been informed by The Lowell Group that Three has placed a default marker on my account, therefore compromising my credit record.

Since Three has not provided any evidence of a debt, and the alleged debt was contested at the earliest opportunity,

such an action is in breach of the guidelines set out by the Information Commissioner.

 

 

Please remove this default marker within 28 days of the receipt of this e-mail.

If Three does not remove the default marker, I will make a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner, the Financial Omsbudsman and to Ofcom.

 

I would appreciate it if you could address each concern above in turn, by replying to this e-mail address.

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch, again via this e-mail address.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

***********

__________________________________________________________________

 

Subject: From 3

 

Hello **********

 

Thank you for your email and I’m sorry for the inconvenience and distress this matter has caused you.

 

On checking, I can see you contacted us on ********** to close your account.

Unfortunately, it seems that the advisor you spoke with didn’t completed this and your account remained open.

This led to the current balance owing and the collections activity taking place.

 

I’m sorry you haven’t received suitable replies to the previous letters you’ve sent.

You initial letter dated ************ did not pass our data protection checks,

so we sent a letter asking you to confirm certain security questions.

Once you confirmed the answers to these, we sent the subject access request details, so you could get the copies of the required bills.

 

We’ve no record of the initial debt being passed to Scotcall, so I can’t confirm

if we received the notification back from them that you were disputing the debt.

 

 

As a network provider, we do not offer credit, so any debt would not be covered by the Consumer Credit Act or FCA guidelines.

Any concerns could be raised to our ombudsman or to Ofcom, our regulator.

 

Your final letter dated ************ again did not adhere to our data protection policy

and the email you received dated ************ was in response to this.

The account was still passed to a debt collections agency, as we were not able to confirm the letter was sent by the account holder.

 

I have today arranged for the account to be cleared and for the debt to be recalled from Lowell.

This will also remove the related default from your credit file, within 28 days.

 

The final payment of £27.67 made on *********** needs to be refunded to you, as your account should’ve been closed before this was taken.

I would also like to offer a gesture of goodwill of £75, for the upset this has caused.

These payments would need to be made to a UK bank account, so please let me know the details of an account we can use.

 

I look forward to hearing from you by reply.

 

 

Thanks

 

***********

Edited February 19, 2015 by HildaP
spelling mistake :)

[dx100uk]

that's perfect

 

 

well done

this will be a great help to other readers

 

 

dx

[thunderballs]

Well, Three Mobile seems to have changed their tune since I had dealings with them - they couldn't have been less helpful in my case.

 

They must be taking note of that £250'000 fine.

[ericsbrother]

so they admit they had no reason to pass it to a DCA but did and cant explain if they then called it back or not but it appears not.

hardy a grovelling apoplogy for what they admit is their cock-up so ask yourself, does the £75 cover your costs for chasing them up over this? Has the default marker caused you any problems with credit terms or distress generally? if so it isnt enough.

However, they at least admit they are rubbish