How to respond to, and successfully deal with, letters from Debt Collection Agents.

Debt Collection Letters addressed to “The Occupier” at a property are sent when the Debt Collectors are not at all sure which person is responsible for an alleged debt.

They will try “The Occupier” as a kind of fishing exercise to see if anyone will acknowledge ownership of the debt.
They can’t actually get a court order for repayment against ‘The Occupier’, it has to be a named person.

You can contact the Debt Collection Agency using the same method as if the letter was addressed to you by name.
That is you require that they either prove that you owe the alleged debt or stop sending demands.
See: Debt Collection Letters addressed to your name, for a previous or your current property

Debt Collection Letters addressed to a named previous occupier are being sent for a  Consumer Protection reason that is totally unconnected with you.

These are the easiest ones to deal with -
Don’t open them, on the front of the envelope write either:
“RTS - No longer at this address” (If you know that the named person did live there).
or
“RTS - Not known at this address” (If you don’t recognise the name at all).
then drop it in any post box for Return To Sender..

The reason why they are sent:
Such letters often have to be sent as a Consumer Protection measure.

Before a Debt Collector can proceed to court to get a Court Order against a person for debt they have to send demand letters to that person at their current or their ‘last known’ address, to give them a chance to make a repayment plan.
If they don’t have a current address for that person then their ‘last known address’ can be where you are now living.

Once the Debt Collection Agency has sent the required number of letters over the required time period, - remember it’s required by Consumer Protection law- then they will stop sending them and go to court to get a repayment order against the named person.
(They’ll then have a reason to search harder for them to get the money owed back).

Debt Collection Letters addressed to your name, for a previous or your current property.
(or addressed to ‘The Occupier’ at your current property):

 Email, or write to, the Debt Collectors telling them the following in your own words and adding dates etc. as necessary, keep things polite but to the point, don’t let them sidetrack you they only do it to try and confuse things:

• State that you are making an Official Complaint.
  Put that in bold, underlined, at the top of your email after the addresses, ref numbers, etc.
   
• Thank them nicely for their previous correspondence.
   
• Tell them that you do not recognise the alleged debt as being your responsibility.
   
• Tell them that you require that they show proof that the alleged debt exists and is your responsibility.
   
• Tell them that you require that all further communication must be by email or by letter and that you refuse to discuss anything on the phone, it they do ring you then inform them again and politely hang up.
  (Having everything in writing avoids “you said/no I didn’t” type arguments that can arise with phone calls).
   
• Tell them that you will not be making any payments to them at this time, that you are not their 'customer' and you will not be creating or logging into any account on their 'payment portal'.

Don’t go into unnecessary details about the alleged debt with the Debt Collection Agency.
That’s a mistake that many people make but don’t do it.

The collectors can’t do anything about investigating, reducing, or cancelling the debt - they are simply collectors.
You should just stick to the fact that you do not believe that the alleged debt is your responsibility and they need to prove that it is.
Always remember that their threats of court action are meaningless unless they do have such proof, they will need to have such proof to show to a court if they want to obtain a Debt Repayment Order.

What will/should happen then:

The collector should reply with the reason why the believe that you are responsible for the debt, or they should back off and stop sending demands.

If they do neither and just keep sending demands for repayment then complain again, this time though:

• State that you are making an Official Complaint of Harassment.
  Put that in bold, underlined, at the top of your email after the addresses, ref numbers, etc.
   
• Thank them nicely for their previous correspondence
   
• Tell them that you still do not recognise the alleged debt as your responsibility and that unless they provide proof then any further demands will be regarded as Harassment. (Allegations of Harassment can be very serious for a Debt Collection Agency).
   
• If they still will not stop but will not provide proof then make a complaint of Harassment to the FCA, it should tell you how to do that on the demand letters.
  See also: https://nationaldebtline.org/get-information/guides/harassment-by-creditors-ew/
  There is a Harassment complaint template here: https://nationaldebtline.org/get-information/sample-letters/creditor-harassment-warning/

Payment demands for a debt that was ALREADY in dispute with the supplier BEFORE the Debt Collection Agency contacted you.

This is a bit more of a special case where a supplier has instructed a Debt Collection Agency to collect an alleged debt whilst there is still an ongoing dispute about the alleged debt.
You would think that they shouldn’t be allowed to do that, but they do.

It is a variation of the general advice, but for use in that specific circumstance.
It is NOT for use if you only complained to the supplier AFTER being contacted by the Debt Collector.

Where the alleged debt was already in dispute before contact by the Debt Collector :

 Email, or write to, the Debt Collectors telling them the following in your own words and adding dates etc. as necessary, keep things polite but to the point, don’t let them sidetrack you they only do it to try and confuse things:

• State that you are making an Official Complaint of Harassment.
  Put that in bold, underlined, at the top of your email after the addresses, ref numbers, etc.
   
• Thank them nicely for their previous correspondence
   
• Tell them that the alleged debt is in dispute with the supplier.
   
• Tell them that as the alleged debt is disputed with the supplier then you require that the collectors mediately cease their collections activity until that dispute is resolved.
   
• Tell them that you require that all further communication must be by email or by letter and that you refuse to discuss anything on the phone, it they do ring you then inform them again and politely hang up.
  (Having everything in writing avoids “you said/no I didn’t” type arguments that can arise with phone calls).
   
• Tell them that you will not be making any payments to them at this time, that you are not their 'customer' and will not be creating or logging into any account on their 'payment portal'.
   
• Tell them that if they fail to cease action then you will make a complaint of Harassment to the FCA.

You can add the following if you want:
"In accordance with the FCA Handbook CONC 7.14 "Settlements, disputed and deadlocked debt" you should now suspend any and all collections activity whilst my dispute with the energy provider is still ongoing.

Don’t go into unnecessary details about the alleged debt with the Debt Colleton Agency.
That’s a mistake that many people make but don’t do it.

The collectors can’t do anything about investigating, reducing, or cancelling the debt - they are simply collectors.
You should just stick to the fact that you do not believe that the alleged debt is your responsibility and they need to prove that it is.
Always remember that their threats of court action are meaningless unless they do have such proof, they will need to have such proof to show to a court if they want to obtain a Debt Repayment Order.

What will/should happen then:

•  The collector will usually reply saying that they have checked with ‘their client’ and there is no dispute.
   
• You reply back saying you are astonished to hear that your supplier told them that, and send them proof of the dispute, eg. a copy of a dispute email from the supplier or something like that.
   
• At that point the collector should then reply saying that they have 'placed your account on hold for 30 days'.

If they come back after 30 days you simply inform them that it's still in dispute and that they should back off again.

Note for Forum members -

This advice thread will be kept closed to avoid distractions. - If you do find it open then please do not reply here.

If you have a question about Debt Collectors or  Debt Collection Letters then please post your question on the Forum.