Why Pay Unfair Debt Collection Charges?

Why Pay Unfair Debt Collection Charges?

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

We have had an issue with a company that we pay a service charge to. Their have been many issues in the past, not all of which have been resolved yet, but the current situation first, and the past situations later, needs to be resolved for a greater good as I believe that we are being treated unfairly and if such matters continue then you could be treated in the same way.

The company in question has previously added debt collection charges to our payable invoice balances as we did not pay the invoices on a timely basis. This is true, however we claimed the right to not pay the debt collection charges as the invoices were not sent to our address.

This fact has been admitted by the company who have removed all the inappropriate debt collection charges apart from one which they said will be kept on file until we sell our property at which point it will need to be paid. The fact still remains that this one debt collection charge was added for non payment of an invoice which was not sent to us.

Updated Thursday 14th August 2008:
I have written to the company’s managing director to inform them of the situation and to ask them the following questions and I have informed them that the answers will be of interest to me and you (the reader).

Why you believe that you can you request a debt collection fee when we have not received appropriate invoices nor statements to our home address?
Why you believe you keep what I will call the unfair outstanding balance of £xxx.xx on file and request it to be paid when we sell our home?
Why you have now derived an outstanding balance of £yyyy.yy (more than £xxx.xx) ?

Updated Tuesday 19th August 2008:
I received a reply from the P.A. to the Directors notifying us that the managing director is away on annual leave in his absence the company has requested a full investigation and report and will respond there after.

Patience is now required.

Updated 03 September 2008:
I’ve had a reply from a local office of the company and the correspondence simply is not appropriate. I will be writing back to the managing director soon and have now decided to make the company name public as I believe this will help others obtain and perhaps the company create a better management service.

Updated 8th September 2008:
I have written the following letter to the managing director and his personal assitant.

Dear Mr Herbert/ Mrs Jones,

I am writing further to my letter dated 14th August 2008.

We have recently had a reply from Chris Jones of CPM Birmingham in which he states that debt collection charges were placed onto our account on 31st January 2007 and 25th September 2007.

This contradicts what our solicitor has stated after their prior discussions with yourselves, in that the debt collection fees were claimed on 27 June 2007.

Can you please let me know why your company is now stating 2 dates for debt collection charges when there was only one in question?

Also, my three questions (as listed below) that were also listed in my previous letter do not seem to have been answered appropriately and hence can you please give your feedback on these.

Why you believe that you can you request a debt collection fee when we have not received appropriate invoices nor statements to our home address?
Why you believe you keep what I will call the unfair outstanding balance of £146.88 on file and request it to be paid when we sell our home?
Why you have now derived an outstanding balance of £160.28?

Your response will be greatly appreciated by ourselves and by my readers at
http://www.karavadra.net/blog/category/my-work-clients/cpm-rmg/

Thank you and sincerely,
(ME)

Updated 12th September 2008:
RMG wrote to us yesterday stating that it is our reponsibility to make a payment. How can we make a paymwent if we do not how much we need to pay and when bills have been sent to the wrong address.

In they reply they highlighted two debt collectioncharges of £146.88 each. Where have these suddenly appeared from when were discussing an incorrect balance that was previously £160.28???

You can see their letters at the following links:
cpm-rmg-2008-09-11-letter
cpm-rmg-2008-09-11-statement

Updated 1st November 2008:
RMG have now sent us a letter stating that they want a payment in full for £160.28 otherwise we may incur further charges in excess of £125.00. What happened to the 2 lots of £146.88 ???

You can see their letters at the following links:
cpm-rmg-2008-10-30-letter
cpm-rmg-2008-10-30-balance

Updated 6th November 2008:
I wrote back to RMG with the following letter and attached a copy of our Solicitors letter which clarified that Debt Collection charges were being added by CPM/RMG as we had not replied to their letters as they were sent to the wrong address even though we had sent CPM/RMG letters on many occasions to let them know of our address and before CPM/RMG sent the statements to the wrong address.

Dear Sally,
We are writing in reply to your letter dated 30th Nov 2008. You have requested a service charge balance of £160.28 which we believe is incorrect as it should be zero, but since our original letter sent about this matter in August of this year, the outstanding balance has grown from £146.88 to £160.28 for no apparent reason.

The original balance of £146.88 was a debt collection fee added as we had not paid a balance in time. Our solicitors have told us that this £146.88 was added to our balance by your debt collection agency around June 2007 (see enclosed copy of letter). However it came to light that your letters and invoices were being sent to the wrong address and hence we obviously could not get a payment to you. Our Solicitors have rightly stated that this £146.88 debt collection fee cannot be claimed.

We have written to CPM/RMG a few times about this matter requesting the removal of the balance as it is not valid; however we still get requests to pay.

We contacted our solicitor early this week about the matter and the outcome was that it seems as if we are being bullied into paying fees that we should not be paying, and threats are being made to increase the balance if we do not pay an already invalid balance.

We have been advised to report the people and companies involved to the police for bullying and threatening us for money that we do not owe. We believe this is a bit of a harsh step to take for such a simple-to-resolve matter and therefore we have been trying to contact Chris Jones at the Birmingham Office. We have left messages for him every day this week with an urgent request to call us but we have not been able to get in contact with him.

A couple of weeks ago, we also mentioned the matter to one of the directors, who is also the gardener (Mr. Picton Nathaniel Jones) and he said that he would mention the matter to Chris Jones, but we have not heard back from them.

With the hope that the appropriate person will read this letter and remove the incorrect balance, we have copied this letter to the following people involved with the Mall 2 Company from details I have from February 2008.

• CHRIS JONES (RMG) at Suite 506 Equipoint, 1506-1508 Coventry Road, Yardley, Birmingham B25 8AD.
• JOHN WILLIAM BAYLISS of 1199 Tyburn Road, Erdington, Birmingham B24 0TE.
• MICHELLE SHARON COOPER of 4 Rochford Court, Shirley, Solihull B90 4XJ.
• LOUISE DUCKER of 141 Tower Road, Erdington, Birmingham B23 6GP.
• SUSAN JEANETTE GOUCHER of 30 City View, Birmingham B23 6GP.
• PICTON NATHANIEL JONES of 18 Miniva Drive, Sutton Coldfield B76 2WT.
• VALERIE ZILPA SMITH of 1199 Tyburn Road, Birmingham B24 0TE.
• SIMONE RITA JOYCE of 89 City View, Birmingham B23 6GP.

Thank you and sincerely,

(ME AND MY WIFE)

Updated 10th November 2008:
RMG wrote back to us a few days ago and stated that the costs still stand and simply referred us back to their previous letter.

You can see their letter at the following link:
cpm-rmg-2008-11-07-letter

Updated 13th November 2008:
As RMG have decided at this point that they are not willing to remove incorrect charges from our account balance, we have written to the Directors, Secretary and the local CPM/RMG project manager with following letter:

We are writing with regards to a couple of concerns with have about The Company

We have written to CPM/RMG in Hoddesdon on a few occasions about our concerns but we have not had an appropriate reply and hence you are being sent this letter as you are involved with The Company. Your details have been supplied by Companies House records from records dating February 2008.

If you are NOT NOW involved with The Company:
Please accept our sincere apologies and we ask you to simply advise accordingly in writing within 7 days at the above address or at the email address below. Thank you.

Enclosed are copies for your reference of our recent letter to CPM/RMG and their reply to that letter.

1) INVALID ACCOUNT BALANCE:
In summary, there remains a balance on our account which our Solicitors have stated is not valid (the details are in the enclosed copied letters).

Our Solicitors a have written to George Wimpey who have advised us to create a new management company. We have also been advised to report the matter, companies and people involved to the police, appropriate consumer bodies, the press and appropriate financial ombudsman.

Before we do this we would like YOU let us know if YOU are in agreement with CPM/RMG’s decision not to remove the balance mentioned in the enclosed letters, in order that we can identify who has been involved with such decisions.

2) DENIAL OF DIRECTORSHIP:
Shilpa Karavadra who owns the property has wished to become a Director, and we have been previously told that she could not become a Director as the account balance was overdue. As per the enclosed letters, the account balance has not been paid as it is incorrect and should be zero and hence Shilpa Karavadra has NOW and has had the right FOR ABOUT ONE YEAR to become a director which is being denied for no satisfactory reason.

Hence we have sent an original application for Directorship to Mr Picton Nathaniel Jones which he was made aware of and a copy is enclosed with this letter for your attention.

Bharat Karavadra has mentioned the above matters again to Mr Picton Nathaniel Jones on Friday 7th Nov 2008 (who has previously invited Shilpa Karavadra to become a director) and he has said that he will attend to the matters.

Before any further actions are taken, we would like to know if YOU are in agreement with CPM/RMG’s decision to 1) not remove the invalid account balance and 2) TO DENY Shilpa Karavadra directorship of the Company.

IMPORTANT:
We would appreciate a reply from YOU within 7 days and if an appropriate reply is not received in such time then we can only assume that YOU ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH CPM/RMG’s DECISION.

For your information these matters are being discussed in public at the following web address:

http://www.karavadra.net/blog/category/my-work-clients/the-mall-2-erdington/

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
(ME AND MY WIFE)

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