01737237370

Had a call from James at First Credit but he called my work number surely this is illegal. Have emailed him back asking him not to call my work number and email me with the details he was calling with.  Is there anything else I can do?

I also just got a text to my mobile phone, the number of which I try and keep unpublished, offering me a discount on my £4000 debt, and details of how to make payment. Never borrowed a penny, so I'll be reporting this if I get a second text or call

I too has been plague by these unscrupulous scammers. I got a text this morning on my mobile of a refund from PPI missold something. and then lunch time I had a call from the landline asking for MR MAYOR to contact Direct something. what a bizzarre way of using other people's name to get you to return call, which I will not of course. anyone reading this just becareful and do not return any calls.......

Please let us know if you have any success of reporting this so we can all make a report as well in support of your nuisance calls. I too am at a loss and don't know how to go about as the people you make a report they too have to have your full details and then it becomes a chain, they also at the same time selling your details on. sad but true, it happens to me so often. I do not owe any debts or have mortgage etc. so how on earth do these calls start coming through? I asked myself that. it has to be someone that has your details to sell on.

Been dealing with these guys for a while. I even have a repayment agreement with them but they STILL phone every few days to try and increase what I am paying them - which I think is illegal as there are supposed to be review periods (at least 6 months and maybe once a year). Have just had another call which I ignored. Some time ago I decided to ignore their calls - and I am now working to get this number barred. My view is if they put something in writing you at least have a record of it - and if they write to you every few days a judge will see that as harassment. If they just phone you and you pick up, it's their word against yours what is said - unless you happen to record every conversation. Remember they DO do that but they're hardly going to give up the logs as evidence against their persistent and illegal harassment. My view is this organisation should be investigated for illegal activities such as harassment and then lose their licence to trade - they are SCUM!

Submit your complaints to the OFT  - and if everyone goes through the process we can get this sorted out... this is the response I've had from them so far:

Email: enquiries@oft.gsi.gov.uk

Consumer Credit Act 1974 (the Act)
Complaint Against: 1st Credit Limited
Licence No: 474343

Thank you for your email received on 19 April 2012.

I can confirm that the business you mention holds a consumer credit licence. Under the Consumer Credit Act, holders of consumer credit licences must be fit and competent to do so and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has a duty to monitor the fitness and conduct of all traders who hold such a licence.  

The OFT has issued guidance to consumer credit licence holders engaged in the debt collection industry. The guidance is intended to ensure that debt collectors treat individuals fairly. Non-compliance with this guidance will call into question the fitness of licence holders and applicants. You can view our guidance at: www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/legal/cca/debt-collection 

We have therefore recorded the details of your complaint, and we will continue to monitor 1st Credit Limited’s compliance with both the Requirements and the Debt Collection Guidance. We are therefore interested in complaints that details issues which have arisen after the Requirements were imposed. We will consider these alongside any other complaints we receive. If we do take any action against these traders we may need to contact you again in the future. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose any details about any action we may take, due to legal restrictions on the OFT relating to disclosure of information.

While we are very sorry to hear about the difficulties you have been experiencing, the OFT has no authority to become involved in individual disputes between consumers and traders so we cannot advise you directly in this matter.

How rude are these people they basically called me a liar that yes i did know why they were calling, i have made an official complaint and all they said was 'crack on you wont get very far'!! i dont even know who they are.

i got a text from them saying to call them now and that i need to make  commitment to pay this month to qualify for a dsicount of up to 50% on your account then the text carries on to say your discounted amount to pay id 2,972.82 pound and then gives me a refrence;

Hi, any debt company that offers a discount if you pay up, doesn't have a leg to stand on. Do a SAR on them, I'll betya it's not legally enforceable, bet they don't have all the paperwork to make it enforceable, Stand up for your rights.

think we all need to visit http://www.comsumeractiongroup.co.uk

and learn our rights

You rang said nothing - why and who are you?

Indeed, I'm a frequent visitor, I have learned a lot. visit www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk  people and stand up to these parasitic scum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/sep/15/moneysupplement.debt

Another letter drops through the letterbox. This one, like many of the rest, states that money is owed to the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and that unless the debt is settled within days "possible legal action may be instigated." It's one of at least 30 debt-chasing letters I've received since July last year. But none of them are aimed at me.

All the threatening letters have been addressed to two people (neither known to me) who used to live at my address - a man who owes £372.13 to NatWest Bank and a woman who owes £3,384.14 to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The letters keep coming almost weekly, varying only in their level of threat - from nicey-nicey to apocalyptic - and their shade of red and black type. The woman has had the lion's share of the letters: 17. In my time here, five different firms have been on her tail and she's had numerous "final demands", threats of court action and warnings of visits by debt collectors.

The latest epistle is dated September 3. Clearly, the Royal Bank of Scotland is still owed £3,384.14. And on the basis of this useless paper chase, I would recommend that they begin a review of their debt recovery operations, since none of the agencies they've employed seem to have bothered to establish that she no longer lives here.

Some of them claim to have actually come to my address. If they had done so, they would have quickly found out I am the current tenant, and a man - not a woman. What's more, there's an unmissable sign outside the property bearing the name and phone number of the lettings agency.

The moral of the story? It appears all too easy to escape your debt; all you have to do is switch address and count on the debt collection agencies being too stupid or lazy to make the most basic of checks.

But to rewind. When I rented the property last summer, I got into the habit of opening mail addressed to former tenants. Why? I'd found, from previous experience, that a bad credit rating can attach to an address as well as a name. It therefore seemed prudent to find out what the possible credit rating would be on my new address if I ever came to buy items on credit.

Things didn't look good from the start. Debt letters were arriving for the two former tenants as soon as I moved in. After a few months, when the letters kept coming, I decided to keep them in order to get a small insight how the debt-chasing business looks from the business end.

As of November last year, the man who owes £372.13 - let's call him Fred - was being chased by a firm of solicitors in Weybridge, Surrey. It threatened him with court proceedings after six days. But by the end of July - the last time Fred received a letter - he was still being chased, now by Equidebt Limited in Warwickshire. For a time between these dates, the debt was handled by a third agency, ScotCall Debt Collecting Services, in Glasgow.

The woman's debt story is more convoluted. Let's call her Thelma. The first letter, from Buchanan Clark and Wells, of Stratford-upon-Avon, told her she was being pursued by Thames Credit Limited and that she was on a "final notice". This meant legal proceedings would be taken against her unless payment was made immediately.

By February 2007, the pursuer was Wescot Credit Service Ltd., of Hull. Wescot was conciliatory in tone and merely reminded Thelma that her debt was unpaid and she should get in contact. The next letter from Wescot, the same month, was anything but conciliatory. This time it threatened that her case would be turned over to "a door-to-door debt collector for recovery."

In fact, over the next few months, Thelma would be specifically threatened with such visits on two other occasions. One letter even told her that "our Agent" had made "several visits" to my address and "left calling cards."

I work from home and I think I'd have been in for at least one of these "several visits." What's more, I collect the mail as soon as it arrives and it has never contained any "calling cards." Conclusion? No debt collectors turned up; these were idle threats.

By March, Thelma was being chased by Buchanan Clark and Wells for £3,864.14 and for a further £643.50 by a third agency, Credit Security, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. In fact, she received five letters from agencies in March alone. The last one came from a fourth company, a law firm called Geoffrey Parker Bourne, of Stratford-upon-Avon. More threats of "pending legal action" and "legal notification".

A further two letters arrived in April and one of these introduced a fifth name, Robinson, Way & Company Limited, of Salford, which issued a "formal demand for payment". May brought four demands; this time both Credit Security Limited and Buchanan Clark and Wells told Thelma they would accept reduced payments. In the latter case, Thelma was offered a settlement of £2,511.69 - it was willing to knock more than £1,350 off her debt. Obviously, it pays to put these people off as long as possible.

The next month two more demands arrived from Credit Security and Buchanan Clark and Wells. She was still being chased this month.

I have not printed the real names of the two debtors because I don't want to embarrass them. I have no idea who Fred and Thelma are or where they live. Indeed, I harbour slight feelings of admiration for them. They've taken the money and run, for whatever reason.

The banks presumably spend a lot of money trying to recover debts but it's clearly easy to evade the demands. If the debt collectors can't do their job properly then perhaps Fred and Thelma deserve to get away with it. The merry-go-round continues as debt collection companies sell on debts, sometimes for as little as 1p in the pound. Each time the debt is sold, it prompts another pointless round of letters. As for my credit rating: it's no problem, because I make sure I don't get into debt.

What you can do if the bailiffs threaten to call

You receive a letter from a mobile phone company reminding you that you are late with this month's payment. The only problem - you don't belong to that network provider and never have. Time passes, and you hear nothing more.

Imagine the shock when you receive a letter from a bailiff giving you just days to pay the bill (plus their charges, of course) or they will come round to confiscate your property to make good the debt.

Why did this happen, and what can you do about it? It may be sheer bad luck that you share the same, or a similar, name as someone else that leads to the problems.

When a bill-payer falls into arrears and then moves away, many debt chasers adopt "fuzzy matching". The idea is, debtors tend to stay in the same geographical area but sometimes slightly change their names - so William becomes Bill, or Eleanor becomes Ellie.

Debt firms search anything from the electoral roll to the local phone book for the name of the person, and where they find a name that matches (or is close), they will serve notice of the debt at the given address. As a result, an innocent person with a name like the absconder may be hassled for the payment. The fear of ignoring these letters is an adverse credit rating.

Contact rating agencies such as Experian, Equifax and Callcredit and tell them about the error. You have the legal right to put a notice of correction against the entry.

If you receive threatening phone calls after you have informed the collectors of the mistaken identity, tell your local trading standards - harassment is an offence.

Write - never phone - to the company threatening you. And keep a copy. For however threatening the letters, and however much they ignore your protestations, bailiffs cannot seize property for debt without firstly a county court judgment and then further legal action.

The bailiff has to prove the debt is personally owed by you, as opposed to another person with your name. If it goes this far, you may be asked to complete and return a Defence and Counterclaim.

At this stage, you should highlight the evidence as to why the debt is not yours. In such proceedings it is not normally necessary to instruct a solicitor, and even if you do, you should win your costs against the other side.

But generally a successful court dismissal will lead to the entry being voluntarily removed.
Kayode Akinola

Just had several cold calls rom this number. Rings three to four times then they drop the call. Never had a cedit card nor want one in all the 76 years of my life, plus I own a bank. My mortgage was paid off over fourty years ago. Have forwarded this number to Trading Standards as my phone number is ex-dirctory.

I have had several calls from James at First Credit wanting to talk about a debt we don't have and offering 'an easy way to settle the matter'. He constantly rings my mobile and then asks to speak to my husband. Whoever they bought thier phone list from got the information wrong but that doesn't dter James - he calls time and time again.

They are first credit they called be today asking for someone else, when I had no idea who they were after they wanted me to confirm my dob and address to which I simply replied "no" hung up the phone and added their number to my reject list.

Got a call from these people out of the blue, First credit! said they'd written to me, I said, I've had no letter, where did you write to? they said your address in Northampton, I havn't lived in Northampton since 1979! I suspected a scam so refused to go through their, so called security and she didn't seem to mind, just ended the call, so I suppose now I'm looking forward to being harassed too am I?

these  people keep calling my lane line mobile leaving messages on a daily basis just wont stop like its for a debt from 2009
i will put a complaint in to oft as had enough dont no how these bottom feeders got my number after 6 years