rgjbloke
LE
I apologise in advance for the long narrative but I have a mildly amusing situation where I get a weekly text message from Lowells, a debt agency asking me to contact them on a weekly basis.
It originates from some ten or twelve years ago when I had a phone contract, or in fact, several phone contracts with EE.
One of the contracts was for a data sim which I used in an iPad. The iPad was stolen with the sim in it. I reported it to the police etc but never heard anything back. I left the sim active for a month to see if I could track the iPad but I couldn't so I then contacted EE to deactivate the sim. It was a call centre abroad somewhere, I suspect Malaysia but that is just a guess.
I noticed after a month or two that my phone bills were increasing considerably although at first, I just put this down to being more busy. I had two phones, a business one and a personal one plus I paid for my brothers phone because at the time, we were doing a joint venture with a groundwork business. And of course I had the data sim in the iPad.
a few more months later, the bills were starting to get a bit outrageous and I noticed that I never seemed to have any data free on my other phones. In fact, at one time, the wife and I took a weeks break at Lulworth Cove and while I was there, I noticed that my data was used up and a new lot of data was due to start the following day. When I checked the following day, the data was already used up.
It was clear that something was wrong although at the time, I was scratching my head because I didn't have a clue what was wrong. I had made several phone calls to EE (always a foreign call centre) querying various things but each time, I was assured that everything was fine.
Eventually after perusing my phone contracts online extensively, I made a rather curious discovery. The stolen data sim was still being used. It wasn't just being used for data either. Phone calls were also being made on the data sim. Something that surprised me. I didn't know you could do that with a data sim. So whatever charges were incurred with that sim were being taken by EE through a standing order straight from my bank account.
I got straight onto EE (a foreign call centre again) and asked them to cancel the data sim again and look into what was going on. The woman I spoke to said she would do so and I hoped to get the matter resolved and some money returned to me. Fat chance!
Not only did I not hear anything back but it became apparent over the next month that the charges for the data sim persisted. Twice now, that data sim had been cancelled and yet, it was still being used by a thief and EE were taking the money from my bank account for it.
No matter what I said to anybody at a foreign call centre, it obviously wasn't working so I thought, I need to speak to someone at EE who wasn't just a call centre flunkey. It wasn't an easy task but I finally tracked down the head office phone number for EE in the UK.
So I called them hoping to finally get this mess sorted out. All they could say at EE head office was that I was just trying to get out of paying my phone bill. My points about the data sim being cancelled twice and yet phone calls as well as data usage still being used on the data sim didn't mean a thing to them.
So. I ended up not paying the bill!
It was only seventy quid outstanding but after all the many months of paying for a thief to communicate with the world and EE telling me I was talking nonsense, I was lying and I simply didn't want to pay, I just thought stuff them!
From then on, it was Giff Gaff all the way!
Of course it didn't rest there from EE's point of view. There was the usual final demands and threatening letters and then they posted with a credit reference agency that I had knocked them. I posted a response on the credit reference agency to their report of me not paying them. My credit did suffer for a while but I was working in a sector where cash was more commonplace than using cards so it didn't make any real difference to me and although that has now changed, my credit rating is nice and high again now.
Eventually, EE sold the "debt" to Lowell. They are a firm who specialise in buying debt cheaply and then chasing the debtor until they get their money.
So Lowell have been onto me on some quite numerous occasions now. It began with letters arriving on an almost weekly basis. They just got binned unopened. Then they started phoning me. I just briefly explained that they had been suckered because I had never owed EE any money after taking into account, the money they had taken from my bank account to pay for a thief using a stolen sim. Then it went quiet for some considerable time. Several years in fact.
Last year, Lowell it seems made a decision to start chasing up on some of their old accounts. The letters restarted and then the phone calls started happening. The letters were binned again and despite several conversations where I explained, I didn't owe money to them or anybody else, they just claimed otherwise. The last conversation seemed to be with someone who may have had some clout. A guy spoke to me and said that they would just keep on contacting me forever. I said be my guest because I found it rather amusing that their time and effort must by now be well in excess of the seventy quid "debt" they had purchased from EE all those years ago.
The phone calls then stopped. I do though continue to get every week, a text message from Lowell asking me to contact them urgently etc. The number can't be blocked because it has the name Lowell on it, not a blockable number but I did wonder if anybody would know if legally, they are committing a nuisance by leaving me permanently receiving their text messages?
Anybody have any ideas?
It originates from some ten or twelve years ago when I had a phone contract, or in fact, several phone contracts with EE.
One of the contracts was for a data sim which I used in an iPad. The iPad was stolen with the sim in it. I reported it to the police etc but never heard anything back. I left the sim active for a month to see if I could track the iPad but I couldn't so I then contacted EE to deactivate the sim. It was a call centre abroad somewhere, I suspect Malaysia but that is just a guess.
I noticed after a month or two that my phone bills were increasing considerably although at first, I just put this down to being more busy. I had two phones, a business one and a personal one plus I paid for my brothers phone because at the time, we were doing a joint venture with a groundwork business. And of course I had the data sim in the iPad.
a few more months later, the bills were starting to get a bit outrageous and I noticed that I never seemed to have any data free on my other phones. In fact, at one time, the wife and I took a weeks break at Lulworth Cove and while I was there, I noticed that my data was used up and a new lot of data was due to start the following day. When I checked the following day, the data was already used up.
It was clear that something was wrong although at the time, I was scratching my head because I didn't have a clue what was wrong. I had made several phone calls to EE (always a foreign call centre) querying various things but each time, I was assured that everything was fine.
Eventually after perusing my phone contracts online extensively, I made a rather curious discovery. The stolen data sim was still being used. It wasn't just being used for data either. Phone calls were also being made on the data sim. Something that surprised me. I didn't know you could do that with a data sim. So whatever charges were incurred with that sim were being taken by EE through a standing order straight from my bank account.
I got straight onto EE (a foreign call centre again) and asked them to cancel the data sim again and look into what was going on. The woman I spoke to said she would do so and I hoped to get the matter resolved and some money returned to me. Fat chance!
Not only did I not hear anything back but it became apparent over the next month that the charges for the data sim persisted. Twice now, that data sim had been cancelled and yet, it was still being used by a thief and EE were taking the money from my bank account for it.
No matter what I said to anybody at a foreign call centre, it obviously wasn't working so I thought, I need to speak to someone at EE who wasn't just a call centre flunkey. It wasn't an easy task but I finally tracked down the head office phone number for EE in the UK.
So I called them hoping to finally get this mess sorted out. All they could say at EE head office was that I was just trying to get out of paying my phone bill. My points about the data sim being cancelled twice and yet phone calls as well as data usage still being used on the data sim didn't mean a thing to them.
So. I ended up not paying the bill!
It was only seventy quid outstanding but after all the many months of paying for a thief to communicate with the world and EE telling me I was talking nonsense, I was lying and I simply didn't want to pay, I just thought stuff them!
From then on, it was Giff Gaff all the way!
Of course it didn't rest there from EE's point of view. There was the usual final demands and threatening letters and then they posted with a credit reference agency that I had knocked them. I posted a response on the credit reference agency to their report of me not paying them. My credit did suffer for a while but I was working in a sector where cash was more commonplace than using cards so it didn't make any real difference to me and although that has now changed, my credit rating is nice and high again now.
Eventually, EE sold the "debt" to Lowell. They are a firm who specialise in buying debt cheaply and then chasing the debtor until they get their money.
So Lowell have been onto me on some quite numerous occasions now. It began with letters arriving on an almost weekly basis. They just got binned unopened. Then they started phoning me. I just briefly explained that they had been suckered because I had never owed EE any money after taking into account, the money they had taken from my bank account to pay for a thief using a stolen sim. Then it went quiet for some considerable time. Several years in fact.
Last year, Lowell it seems made a decision to start chasing up on some of their old accounts. The letters restarted and then the phone calls started happening. The letters were binned again and despite several conversations where I explained, I didn't owe money to them or anybody else, they just claimed otherwise. The last conversation seemed to be with someone who may have had some clout. A guy spoke to me and said that they would just keep on contacting me forever. I said be my guest because I found it rather amusing that their time and effort must by now be well in excess of the seventy quid "debt" they had purchased from EE all those years ago.
The phone calls then stopped. I do though continue to get every week, a text message from Lowell asking me to contact them urgently etc. The number can't be blocked because it has the name Lowell on it, not a blockable number but I did wonder if anybody would know if legally, they are committing a nuisance by leaving me permanently receiving their text messages?
Anybody have any ideas?
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