Do NOT pay Wescot Credit Services!

A question about : Do NOT pay Wescot Credit Services!

Please note: I will be paying my outstanding debt in full and advise everyone reading this to do the same, just not how Wescot wants you to.
I am writing to all the good people out there who could be getting seriously ripped off and conned. I owe o2 UK about Ј250 for a contract on a mobile that I no longer use. I had been rather busy working and moving home and had completely forgotten about it, until a friend of my boyfriends family came round to my office with a letter addressed to his mothers house where we lived three years ago. The letter was from Wescot credit services Ltd and it said we had 14 days to pay Ј748.62 plus legal expenses of Ј135 making that a total of Ј883.62. If we don't pay up then we will have to go to court. I was a little shocked (mainly at the amount they are demanding) but not particularly upset or scared. I decided to do some research and have found out a few interesting things for those of you who may have got a letter. The original company you owe money to (whoever it may be) has actually sold the debt onto Wescot and has already received money from their insurers (which have been put in place to protect said company from people like me!) Wescot then take it upon themselves to send a letter to the person in question (me) asking for a sum of money. The person usually gets scared and fears debt collectors, attachment of earnings and court appearances so quickly rings the company and either pays the amount in full or pays in monthly instalments. Both of which is completely unnecessary. Wescot has actually made up a completely false sum of money (literally out of a hat I expect!) which isn't even close to what I know I owe and randomly sent me a red demanding letter to an address which even o2 know I don't live at now! The reason they do this is because they know they can get away with it. After all, they know you have money outstanding with said company so you don't question it when you read the letter because you already know you owe the company money. I have also found out that when people got in contact with the original company and pay them directly in full they refused to inform Wescot for some reason... maybe because they received a lot of money when Wescot bought the debt off them! So Wescot unfortunately continue to write letters (even if you've payed it) BUT if you pay the original company the amount you owe in full and get that in writing or can prove it on your bank statements (backed up with the original letters from the original company asking for the money) to cut this terribly long winded blog very short Wescot don't have a flipping leg to stand on!!! (if it comes to this) In court if you can prove that you have payed the company directly there is absolutely nothing they can do. The original company will be more then happy to do this as they would have received a grand total of three payments: 1) Their insurers 2) Wescots themselves (when the brought the debt) and 3) You! Fair deal I say. What Wescot is doing is completly legal and I'm not saying that they are 'con artists' and to ignore the letters but instead of going through them cut out the middle man and go straight to the root of the problem and I can assure you there is nothing Wescot can do. If you have any questions, feel free to ask...

Best answers:

• This happened to my dh although different supplier and different cca.We sent the mobile company the money, bought the account up to date and are continuing with the contract.
• For most people theres no need to pay Wescot or any other debt collection company. Why should you pay when most other people don’t? Here are my suggestions on how NOT to pay, based on my success in avoiding payment on 4 debts recently and being chased by Wescot Credit Services on the last 2
  - DONT respond to letters. They will send 3 or 4 over a couple of months but unless your debt is big and you own a house they will probably give up after a while. They don’t have many powers to do anything
  - DONT respond to telephone messages – these usually stoped after a couple of weeks
  - If you get chased a lot by the same company and feel harassed then complain to the OFT at
  Enquiries and Reporting Centre
  Office of Fair Trading
  Fleetbank House
  2-6 Salisbury Square
  London
  EC4Y 8JX
  This worked well for me and I didn’t hear from them again on that one!
  - If they do get hold of you deny the debt is yours and ask them to prove it. This will at least delay them a couple of weeks and may force them to write off your debt
  - If you really do want to pay something then make sure you agree a low figure like Ј10 a month and don’t pay anything straigt away. They will probably ask for proof of income and ask when you get paid, in which case ask them for a form that you can fill out and return so you have time to think about your answers. I did this and then they seemed to forget about me when I didn’t send it back!
  Does anyone have any other tips?
• The fact that the original creditor accepted the payment suggests the debt was not sold to Wescot.
  I know people love to bash big business but I don't think O2 would accept a payment of several hundred pounds knowing that they aren't entitled to it.
  When the debt is paid to Wescot they will likely get a cut of it, meaning the bad debtor has cost O2 a little bit but not as much as selling the debt at a silly price.
• The debt is not often cleared by insurers. The debt is sold for peanuts and the balance becomes a tax write off.
  The purchaser CAN chase the full outstanding balance.
  What they can't do is add any interest and charges unless the original agreement has explicit terms / clauses that this can be done in the event the debt is sold on - and they usually don't.
  Therefore, 99% of the time, if a dca has added charges and fees, they are illegal and can be challenged.........
  Edit.
  You need to clarify if the dca OWNS the debt, or is just acting on behalf of........
• This thread is 2 years old and was mostly written by 2 single time posters.
  Please let this thread die.
  Most of the original post was nonsense and will only confuse people coming here for good advice.
• Well recently I found out I owed money to o2 and then they sold it to Moorcroft, I called o2 and they didn't want to know as the debt no longer was for them... So the actually led me back to the debt collector...
• The thread that refuses to die.....
• Im glad its not dead to be honest! I've just had a letter this morning from them saying I owe Ј301.44. I called them and they said it's from Alliance and Leicester whom I used to bank with years ago and I closed the account at the time. I've asked them to send me details and they said they would update the account with me disputing this claim
• thanks for your blog. My son lived abroad for 15 months and left a small overdraft debt with a bank and they apparently continued to send him letters to his old address every month at a rate of say Ј20/month per letter + they continued to charge him for his monthly banking facility despite him NOT paying any cash into the a/c. He returned about a year ago to be told that the bank had "written off the debt and would he like to open a new account?" So he did.
  Last week Westcot attempted to contact him thro my home ph demanding about twice the possible amount owed!! I was heartened to read your blog depsite it being 3 years old. We will "tough it out"
• I have recently discovered that i have a ccj against me for a sum of Ј300 taken out by wescot, the say that i owe a company called house of stirling this amount and that they now have this debt, i cant top up my due to run out bank loan or spread the cost of my car insurance over 12 months, I have applied to the courts to get this verdict set aside due to i have no knolwedge of this nor admitted the debt is mine, due in court in july and i now live in scotland since 2004 but they had said I last made a payment in 2006 at my last known address (which is my parents house) any advice would be much accepted, I have only spoke twice to them regarding this both on the phone.
• Stop resurrecting old thread FFS.
  Start your own.