chandlers bailiffs??

[jadzia]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone out there had any horror stories to share about these bailiffs?,not my fave people at the mo!

[Bailiffchaser]

Well as i am mentioning in other threads goto companieshouse.co.uk and search for the company. then down load the information for £1 and write direct to the directors of the company at their house !!! trust me nobody wants the public to know where they live.

[tempest]

So Can we all have a 'How to handle the balif guide posted'

[Lorena78]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone out there had any horror stories to share about these bailiffs?,not my fave people at the mo!

 

These people are a nasty piece of work. Here's my experience with them...

 

I made an arrangement to pay a council tax debt in monthly instalments of £200. My last payment was due on 9th February but was three (yes, only three) days late in making it because of a problem with my credit card. I told them about this but as expected they couldn't care less. One day after payment they left me a voicemal while I was at work saying that they would be going to my house to remove goods the next day as I had broken the payment agreement (this was despite the fact the had received payment and I was up to date). I tried to get in touch with the bailiff with no luck. I left messages but they didn't return my calls. Today they turned up and left a note saying the'd be back tomorrow to remove goods all because I was 3 days late in making this month's payment (through no fault of my own). Out of desperation I told them today that I could pay the full outstanding balance by Wednesday next week without fail but they're having none of it and want to remove the goods tomorrow. Is this really fair treatment? Can I report them to a watchdog?

[kingdom]

This sounds like a [problem] to me, they see this as an opportunity to drum up further charges and take even more money from you.

 

Send them an SAR for a complete statement of all their charges made to you, check what is lawful then take them to court for the unlawful charge they have made against you.

 

Also complain to the council about they way they are harassing you that is against the law.

[jadzia]

Thanks for sharing Lorena78,these people are evil.

My story is similar,in the first instance they turned up and tricked my husband into letting them in,he knew he shouldnt,but they made him believe letting them in was his only option,you know how they like to scare and bully people!,anyway,he let them in,they did a very vqague walking possesion,agreed payments of £30 a week(which we couldnt afford,but as i said,hubby felt intimidated),anyway,this was to be paid by cheque because they dont accept helpful payment methods such as standing order.

We kept the payments up to date,but thought instead of sending a cheque every week,we would send one for the whole month in advance,so payments were all up to date,just easier than weekly cheques.

Then a different bailiff to the first one,turns up on our doorstep asking for my hubby,so i ask whs calling,he says im mr ****** from chandlers,im here to take possesion of goods to the value of £1879,for outstanding ct.

So i explain to him that the latest cheque has just been cashed,he says yes it has,im not here to dispute that your account is up to date,as it is in perfectly good order,unfortunately,you agreed to pay in weekly instalments,and you've been paying monthly,so you've defaulted on the agreement,and if you cant pay by tomorrow at 6am,i will come back with the police!!,we tell him theres no way we can find that kind of money(if we had money like that,we'd have been able to pay the ct in the first place!!),so he says hes prepared to accept £958 tomorrow and reinstate the agreement for the rest,then my hubby made a flippant comment about him being generous,so the bailiff gets his head firmly wedged up his backside and says fine,i'll be back tomorrow,i want the full amount,so i go after the idiot and persuade him to take the £958,he then says to call him when i have the money.

After alot of panicking(where the hell am i supposed to find nearly a grand by the morning??),i get in touch with my brother in law,who does debt management,and ask if he can help,after alot of shouting and crying to the council,who told me it was tough luck,its in the hands of the bailiffs and theres nothing they can do about it cos im not on benefits(ha,if i was on benefits,i wouldnt have to pay the bloody council tax!!),i got him to speak to them for me,he managed to get the council to agree that the bailiff should never have turned up here and we didnt have to pay him the money,and if he came back i was to tell him to bugger off!.

Anyhow,mr ****** turns up at 10 am,and i tell him to go away,the council say he has no business being here,and he replies that,yes,the council have called him off,all there is to pay today is £180,which are there charges,so my bil who is on the phone tells him to sod off we dont owe him anything,he cant charge us for a visit he shouldnt have made in the first place,so he hangs the phone up on my bil and proceeds to take a clamp out of his van to clamp my car,so i pay him the £180 cos im on my way to work,he reinstates the old agreement,but to monthly payments,and off he goes.

So,my bil has put in a complaint with chandlers and north somerset council,the bailiff is denying threatening to clamp my car(my neighbour saw him,clamp in hand!!),and when i last checked the account,chandlers had added £1300 worth of charges!,we have paid over £600 off the bill and its higher now than when it started,the council have had £109 paid to them,and chandlers are laughing all the way to the bank!!!!!.

We are currently trying to get the council to pull back whole debt to themselves,and get the charges back from chandlers(i wont hold my breath!!),i will update as things happen(or dont),and hope this helps someone somehow if i can get it sorted.

sorry for such a long thread,but this is a long drawn out story!!!,thanks for reading it anyway

[Lorena78]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience jadzia. I am at the end of my tether with this situation. As usual the council are useless and have told me to deal with them but there's is no point in me calling Chandlers again as they are a nasty piece of work and it won't solve anything. Can you believe it? All because the payment reached them three days late and I am up to date with payments. The council told me I could complain to the complaints manager at the council in writing. I have but am awaiting a reply. The bailiffs did not turn up at my doorstep yesterday as they said they would but turned up this morning, of course I did not open the door. In the space of a few days my debt has gone up from £630 to £849. Is there anything we can do to stop these people? Surely there must be. What a disgrace it is to live in a country that lets this sort of thing happen. Is not as if we've avoided paying. A friend suggected I should get in touch with my MP so I will. Any advice will be much appreciated.

[jadzia]

I know,i think its disgraceful,i am usaually quite tough,but this had me in a right state,and my husband and i ended up rowing because neither of us knew what would happen,i just think if they can do that to us,what must go through the minds of much more vulnerable people?,they need to be curbed.If I dont get any joy with the council,or if the council dont get any joy with chandlers,my mp is the next step,i will keep you posted with anything that happens,and if my bil can think of anything to help i will post later after i've spoken to him.

I wonder if it was the same bailiff,might be interesting if it was,as we have already made a complaint.

Good luck,and keep us posted,thanks again

[Lorena78]

Jadzia, the nasty piece of work who's hounding me is a Mr A. Skinner. I will keep you posted on any developments on my side. Thanks again.

[jadzia]

Sorry,not the same bloke,thats unfortunate,they obviously give them all special ****** training at chandlers!!!!

[Bailiffchaser]

Do you have a picture of him ?

[Lorena78]

Hi everyone

 

The following is a document from the Citizens Advice Bureau on bailiff regulation. It explains terminology and charges and contains other useful info.

 

Citizens Advice corporate website - Homebriefing__-_bailiff_campaign-3.doc

[Bailiffchaser]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/bailiffs/67899-mass-complaint-about-bailiffs.html

 

NAME AND SHAME HIM HERE !!!

[jadzia]

Well,an update on situation.Progress of sorts has been made,council still havent pulled back debts because they are apparantly still investigating the complaint,but they have managed to et chandlers to refund(albeit straight onto debt,but gets us that tiny bit closer,heyho!)the £180 that the bailiff bullied me into paying for non existent fees when he threatened to clamp my car!,not the ideal solution to this case,but progress is progress,however small

[Lorena78]

Update on my dealings with Chandlers:

 

The only way I could get the bailiffs off my back was to get in touch with my MP. After several letters the bailiffs accepted to reinstate my payment agreement. However, they are charging me an extra £200 on top of my existing liability for the two occasions that the bailiffs turned up on my doorstep to remove goods. They consider such charges "reasonable costs and fees." Can you believe this daylight robbery??? To remind you why they started harassing me in the first place, it was because they received payment for my February instalment three days late. Even though I was up to date and they had acknowledged payment they resorted to coming to my home to harass me so that they could try to get more money out of me. I have written to my MP to see if he can get those unfair charges of £200 taken off my liability.

[buster642]

Update on my dealings with Chandlers:

 

The only way I could get the bailiffs off my back was to get in touch with my MP. After several letters the bailiffs accepted to reinstate my payment agreement. However, they are charging me an extra £200 on top of my existing liability for the two occasions that the bailiffs turned up on my doorstep to remove goods. They consider such charges "reasonable costs and fees." Can you believe this daylight robbery??? To remind you why they started harassing me in the first place, it was because they received payment for my February instalment three days late. Even though I was up to date and they had acknowledged payment they resorted to coming to my home to harass me so that they could try to get more money out of me. I have written to my MP to see if he can get those unfair charges of £200 taken off my liability.

 

Sorry to hear both of your cases. Sound like a right nasty bunch.

 

An important thing to remember is that this has very little, if anything, to do with recovery of debt - it's all about making money.

 

Sidetracking for a moment, that's why I particularly loathe debt purchase, legal as it might be. They're not buying debt for moral recovery purposes, but simply to make money out of it.

 

Back to the point, sounds like these sharks will use every single trick possible to extract every last penny they feel they can - no matter how immoral or unreasonable it may seem.

[Rickjw68]

Lorena78, just got home to find my car clamped by Chandlers, I have taken photos of it and will complain to Lewis District Council. (ill post on here if its appropriate?)

The first thing is the car is registered to my employer the second is that is required for my employment and the third is that it is disproportionate to the amount owed. As they won’t answer the mobile phone the clamp has now been taken off!

 

 

[buster642]

 

The first thing is the car is registered to my employer

 

Having a work's lease car, I wondered how that might work. You may be the "registered keeper" of the car, but you are not the legal owner.

 

However, I am sure that you would not like the embarassment of going to your employer and saying "the cars been clamped" and so there must be a temptation to simply pay up - something that Chandler's are probably banking on.

 

While forcibly removing a wheelclamp is apparently a criminal offence, is it still an offence if the clamp was unlawfully placed on in the first place (as in your case).

[delta6370]

Was the clamp damaged in the removal? cos I always thought that if you could get the clamp off intact without damaging it then that was ok?

[Rickjw68]

The car is not LEASE - its owned outright by the company and they are the owner / registered keeper .

 

No damage to clamp - also no reply after calling the number left on the notice Sat at 6pm.

[demon_x_slash]

As long as the clamp's undamaged then it's fine. If it had been, it would have been classed as criminal damage. I'd hand the damn thing into your local police station and have rid of it.

[buster642]

As long as the clamp's undamaged then it's fine. If it had been, it would have been classed as criminal damage. I'd hand the damn thing into your local police station and have rid of it.

 

Two points:

 

How do you actually get a clamp off without damaging it - jack it up and remove the wheel ?!?!?

 

If the clamp was applied unlawfully (i.e. not being owned by the debtor), can it be forcibly removed. In the original posters case, could the company that owns the car remove it forcibly.

[demon_x_slash]

With a lot of clamps, you can deflate the tyre and slip it off. Or so I've been told.

[MRSWESTHAM]

Hi

 

I have had a horrible experience with Chandlers , I owed council tax, wrong I know but I nearly did something silly due to the bullying of these parasites.

 

I had a lady knocking on my door, I opened it and she said qite bluntly "Bailiff here to remove goods to the value of £2000". I hadnt heard of consumr forums and things so I said "What are my options?" t which she replied "Let me in now and I wont kick the door in " stupidly I let her in to make as she called it "an affordable replayment plan".

 

Well , I was earning £900 month, paying £500 rent, £120 CT and supporting a year old as a single parent. Her "affordable plan was £600 a month " after a lo of tears (fter she went n my daughters bedroom writing down her playstation and televison) she agreed to let me pay £300 ! (kind huh)

 

Some how I kept this up for 3 months but the 4th month was my daughters birthday and I rang up and said my payment would be a couple of days late as it was her birthday. The office agreed this would be no problem so imagine my surprise on the Monday the lovely bailiff lady turned up and said I had dfaulted and no I had no choice but to pay the full ammount or she would be removing all the goods listed.

 

Well I was rather dramatic (remeber I didnt know my rights etc!) I called the manage of Chandlers, an equally lovely woman in the end I said to her its no wonder you hear of people killing themselves and her response was "dont try that psyhological **** with me "! Charming!

 

My dad found me in a right state and I hd to confess all, luckily he was lovely and understanding and rang them straight away and went all grown up and dad like !! He did pay it off for me however since finding this site I have come to the conclusion that there behaviour was completely unacceptableas I have written a complaint letter and requested they give me a break down of all the charges.

 

This morning I get a letter stating that the bailiff had assured them that she had acted in a professioal manner at all times !! What do you think I should do ? Should i pursue it or shall i cut my losses and run?

[hallowitch]

MRSWESTHAM

please start your own thread this will help you and stop others who are trying to help getting confused

welcome to C.A.G.