Tiscali and Roxburgh Debt Collection

I wonder whether anyone in this forum can assist.

My sister used to have her broadband from Tiscali and cancelled the contract due to appallingly poor speeds. I would hazard a guess at a date of around Oct 2007 but have asked her to see if she can find the paperwork. I know for sure that she has been with BT (her idea not mine) since April 2008 as I set it all up with her and ordered on her behalf as she had no broadband connection to do so.

Out of the blue, with no previous letters, she has this morning received a letter from Roxburgh Debt Collection saying her 'debt' has been passed to them from Tiscali. I presume they really mean Talk Talk since Tiscali UK no longer exists. It has caused her great upset and stress so I have said I will see what I can do to assist. Meanwhile she is checking to see if she can find evidence of when she cancelled the contract and at what time and if possible to whom she spoke. I have also suggested she look at her bank statements to see when the last direct debit was taken.

Meanwhile does anyone know to whom she should now address her queries? Any help would be much appreciated. Do 'Tisclai/Talk Talk' personnel review this formum?

Did she cancel within the minimum contract term, and if so did she get it confirmed by Tiscali that they would let her leave without having to buy out the remainder of the contract?
Unfortunately poor performance isn't enough reason to unilaterally cancel a contract within minimum term and if she did this without Tiscali agreeing to it then they are quite within their rights to come after the money. She really needs to find something from Tiscali saying she could leave without penalty if this is the case.

Regards,
Steve

Ask them, Tiscali/TT & Roxburgh, to provide written evidence of how much she allegedly owes, for what exactly she owes it and for when she owes it.

1999: Freeserve 48K Dial-Up => 2005: Wanadoo 1 Meg BB => 2007: Orange 2 Meg BB => 2008: Orange 8 Meg BB

Even if she canceled beyond the minimum term, she would have had to give notice, typically 30 days, and pay for it. Also possibly termination fees if she ceased rather than migrated immediately. If she had cancelled her DD before these outstanding amounts had been collected, then that is one way such a debt could arise.

1999: Freeserve 48K Dial-Up => 2005: Wanadoo 1 Meg BB => 2007: Orange 2 Meg BB => 2008: Orange 8 Meg BB

In reply to a post by sjr:

Did she cancel within the minimum contract term, and if so did she get it confirmed by Tiscali that they would let her leave without having to buy out the remainder of the contract?
Unfortunately poor performance isn't enough reason to unilaterally cancel a contract within minimum term and if she did this without Tiscali agreeing to it then they are quite within their rights to come after the money. She really needs to find something from Tiscali saying she could leave without penalty if this is the case.

Regards,
Steve

As far as I know she was outside the minimum contract term. Secondly they do have to provide some sort of service to collect their fees outside of the minimum contract terms and adequate notice. But all of this I have asked her to seek out for the evidence. Thirdly surely any reputable company sends reminders before handing to debt collectors some years after the last contact has been made. So it will be interesting to see how the so called debt is broken down.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Ask them, Tiscali/TT & Roxburgh, to provide written evidence of how much she allegedly owes, for what exactly she owes it and for when she owes it.

That's sound advice, thanks. Of course finding a sensible person at Tiscali/TT might be easier said than done. I have already told her to ring Roxburgh tomorrow and explain the situation - they might also be able to give a contact at Tiscali/TT. If I lived closer it would be easier to assist but she is in Cheshire and I am in Beds

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Even if she canceled beyond the minimum term, she would have had to give notice, typically 30 days, and pay for it. Also possibly termination fees if she ceased rather than migrated immediately. If she had cancelled her DD before these outstanding amounts had been collected, then that is one way such a debt could arise.

I do fully accept the need to give 30 days notice - hence finding when the contract was actually terminated and the last payment made is essential. But the small monthly payment would not equate to the size of what they claim is owed. The service they provided was woefully inadequate to the extent of no connection at all on many occasions. Support from India was non existent in the sense of being of any use at all.

Mind you BT have had to make a number of visits including relaying cable between their pole and the cabinet so it may not all have been Tiscali's fault apart from not engaging BT properly on her behalf but I digress.

Thanks for your comments. If I can find out who is still left from the original Tiscali crowd I may be able to get somewhere.

If it's much bigger than a single monthly payment, then they probably "reactivated" her account and calculated how much she should have paid since Oct 2007 (or whenever). I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they did it through incompetence

----
Relieved to be with Be*, and not one of those other suppliers

Hi
I have today received the same request from Roxburghe for money owed to Tiscali. I contacted Roxburghe and got some obnoxious individual who tried to state that it was up to me to prove that I did not owe the debt (put him straight on that). Then spoke to Tiscali customer services who tried to say that I had the service until July 2008 when in fact they gave me a mac code to give to my current provider in April 2007, customer services stated that I had a zero balance on my account and told me to speak to collections at tiscali, this I did and again they stated that I had the service until July 2008 and again I informed them that they had provided a MAC code for April 2007 which the person eventually agreed and then said that I owed them then from April 2006 to April 2007, she then went on to say that according to their records at the time of the change over I had a zero balance. I also asked if it would be reasonable to expect that if someone owed that much then they tiscali would/should have made every effort to reclaim said monies she agreed so I asked if they had carried out such attempts to which she said no. I have since sent a letter to both parties with this and await an update

In reply to a post by eddie65:

Hi
I have today received the same request from Roxburghe for money owed to Tiscali. I contacted Roxburghe and got some obnoxious individual who tried to state that it was up to me to prove that I did not owe the debt (put him straight on that). Then spoke to Tiscali customer services who tried to say that I had the service until July 2008 when in fact they gave me a mac code to give to my current provider in April 2007, customer services stated that I had a zero balance on my account and told me to speak to collections at tiscali, this I did and again they stated that I had the service until July 2008 and again I informed them that they had provided a MAC code for April 2007 which the person eventually agreed and then said that I owed them then from April 2006 to April 2007, she then went on to say that according to their records at the time of the change over I had a zero balance. I also asked if it would be reasonable to expect that if someone owed that much then they tiscali would/should have made every effort to reclaim said monies she agreed so I asked if they had carried out such attempts to which she said no. I have since sent a letter to both parties with this and await an update

How interesting - my sister who is still very distressed despite my assurances that it will be resolved - is still searching through her paper records before she calls the various parties. Be interesting to see what response you now get. I may have to resort to contacting some people within Tiscali who I know but I really wanted to try and resolve without having to do so as the systems should work properly in the first place. My sister is a pensioner and could do without demands for large sums that she doesn't owe. She has had no communication from Tiscali since 2007 but since Roxburgh had the correct address and she has been in the same property since 1963 Tiscali have hardly tried very hard.

Yup, I got the same letter last week also claiming that I owe £113.48

I haven't had a Tiscali account for 2 years as I moved house and I had paid up my account when I moved (I wasn't bound contractually at this point). When I eventually got through to the Tiscali billing department they told me that I owed nothing, but when I called the collection depatment they say that I owe £89.98 and that if I pay it they will call the debt collectors off.

I spoke immediately to Roxburgh and told them that I would not be paying them any money as I did not owe Tiscali any money. I recieved an 'Immediate Action Required' letter from them today so they are obviously not listening to me. I will call them again tomorrow and reinforce my message.

My next move is to ask both Roxburgh and Tiscali (Talk Talk) for evidence they might have.

I will not be paying any money to anyone and my wife will deal with the debt collectors if they come to my door!

Regards

Roy

In reply to a post by roybailey:

I had paid up my account when I moved (I wasn't bound contractually at this point).

FYI: You are always bound contractually until it is terminated; tho' you may very well have gone outside your minimum term.

1999: Freeserve 48K Dial-Up => 2005: Wanadoo 1 Meg BB => 2007: Orange 2 Meg BB => 2008: Orange 8 Meg BB

Thank goodness someone else is experiencing the same problem.

In June 2006 my husband called Tiscali and cancelled our telephone and broadband service as we have just purchased a new build. Our account was checked, we were out of contracts, we owed them no money and were provided a MAC code and we moved taking our existing number with us.

BT fitted a new line in our new home and for 2 months it didn't work - we were told another telephone company had hijacked the line. We contact Tiscali to check and yes, they were on the BT telephone line and still taking money from our account. I must stress that we were a year outside of our old contract and so they couldn't hold us to it. We complained to Tiscali and they cancelled the telephone only after we threatened them for illegally hijacking the line when we were paying BT.

In Sept 2007 we received a call from a debt collection agency saying we owed £47 to Tiscali for non payment for the period Dec 2006 - June 2007. This was immediately taken up with Tiscali in writing as we had spent 2 hours holding on listening to their recorded messages. Someone eventually called us back, confirmed they debt was a fault and that we will not be contacted again. Tiscali called a few weeks later to ask why we had cancelled the service (more of a marketing call).

On Thursday last week we received a letter from another debt collection agency called S.R.J Debt collectors saying they had spent 6 months tracking us down on behalf of a client we owed money to (now £60) but gave no further information. When we called we were told that we had illegally cancelled our contract with Tiscali and owed for a 6 month period. Funny they said that we had provided no moving details when Tiscali had called us at our new house in 2007 to enquire as to why we cancelled, seperately called my husband on his mobile in response to our complaint letter and had our new address!!! We explained we were out of contract and have BT bills for that period and that were were told verbally by Tiscali it was their error. We were told to call Tiscali again.

This time (and after 50 minutes of holding for Tiscali/Talk Talk) we recorded the call with the woman's conscent. We were told that we were out of contract and owed no money as long as we could prove we have moved to another address during the period Dec 2006 - June 2007. We have sent them bills and bank statements proving that we had paid them up until Dec 2006 even though we had cancelled the contract on June 2006 and the woman agreed they actually owed us money (approx £150). All information was sent to Tiscali on Friday and we are waiting to find out what happens next.

We called the debt collectors back and spoke to a shirty sounding teenager who insisted we call him Mr Bandasar! and argued that we were in contract and to cough up. When we told him we had a recording of the Tiscali conversation confirming we owed no money he soon shut up and said our file was on hold pending further confirmation from Tiscali.

The waiting begins! I have a feeling these new claims are due to Talk Talk needing to claw back some money and so they are going through their old closed records to bully people info paying up although they dont owe them a penny!

Good luck everyone.

Don't companies have to bill customers in a timely manner, in law?
i'm quite sure if they have not made people aware of money owing within a reasonable time scale,the outstanding amounts can be wiped by the county court, should you make a counter claim in the small claims court, maybe worth your while finding out further info on this to confirm if you can or not,certainly better than engaging in conversation with some scummy debt collectors, incidentally it's nearly been 2 yrs since i migrated from tiscrapi
1,i had served my 12mths of slow speeds on their over contended congested ip stream product
2 I gave them written notice to both head office and Milton Keynes using recorded mail
3 I also involved CISAS and ofcom as i wanted compensation for all the wasted phone calls i made to their useless tech support overseas call center (which i got)
and ofcom to get a MAC code as they failed to provide this within the 5 working days time frame,
4 I also had the attention of the tiscali MD later got help from another person high in the command chain who waived 2mths of subscription as they failed to give me a refund for 1 month for when i only had dial-up speeds due to the implementation of their new traffic management software,(3 weeks of it) and the remaining month because they failed to cancel the account after the 30days notice i sent them and failed to give the mac code(2 weeks from request to generation) thats how tiscali uk operated ,
5 I still have the letters that they sent me including one that confirmed cancellation of the account with no monies owing,

fight them tooth and nail ,all the way, even if you did owe them they don't deserve to be paid

Dear All

An update on my situation as previously written on this forum. I hope that this helps others from getting very snotty debt collector letters as it appears to have done for me.

I sent the letter below to Roxburghe recorded delivery on Monday 18th Jan 2010:

"Dear Sir/Madam

I refer to your initial letter dated 4th January 2010, my subsequent telephone conversation with you (recorded on 9th Jan 2010 at 11:50hrs) and further letter from you dated 14th January 2010, regarding the account with the above reference number, which you claim is owed by myself.

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I have no knowledge of any such debt being owed by me to Tiscali and I have contacted them to dispute this alleged claim. I have asked Tiscali to provide me with any evidence that might support their alleged claim as soon as practically possible.

I am familiar with the CPUTR 2008 and the Office of Fair Trading's Guidance on debt collection, which states that it is unfair to send demands for payment to an individual when it is uncertain that they are the debtor in question.

I would also like to point out that the OFT states under the Guidance, that it is unfair to pursue third parties for payment when they are not liable AND that in not ceasing collection activity whilst investigating a reasonably queried or disputed debt that you are using deceptive/and or unfair methods.

Furthermore ignoring and/or disregarding claims that debts have been settled or are disputed and continuing to make unjustified demands for payment amounts to physical/psychological harassment.

I, therefore, request that no further contact be made concerning the above account unless you can provide evidence as to my liability for the debt in question.

I await your written confirmation that this matter is now closed. I will, otherwise, have no option but to make a formal complaint to Trading Standards and also inform the Office Of Fair Trading of your actions thus far.

I look forward to your reply at your earliest convenience.

Yours faithfully"


They sent the following reply letter back today, dated Thursday 21st Jan 2010:

"Thank You for your recent communication.

However as we are no longer acting in this matter, your correspondence has been forwarded on to our client with our request that they now attend to your communication and respond to you directly.

As there is nothing further we can do to assist you we intend to now re-file out papers"

I'm not entirely sure what the last sentence means or if the word 'out' should read 'our'?, but my letter appears to have done the trick!!

Regards

Roy

Hi all, I have had the same problem with Roxburghe/Tiscali. I have contacted Tiscali and basically it seems to be a problem with their system, ie you close your account and pay any outstanding amount, but the system decides that you still owe money despite what you have agreed over the phone with the Tiscali employee. In our case we received our Roxburghe letter 13 months after we thought we had closed the account. The second letter was sent to us dated a day after we contacted them to tell them that we disputed owing money to Tiscali - surely a breach of OFT guidelines? I have seen other posts on this or another forum suggesting that they hope people will be frightened into paying up without dispute. Another tactic they possibly have used - back dating letters; we received our letter dated 28/1/10 on 1/2/10, and the 72 hour notice 2nd letter dated 2/2/10 on 6/2/10, after the 72 hour period is up. Possibly more bullying tactics? Our mail delivery service in the UK is not that bad that they take 4 days to deliver 1st class post!

I have (hopefully!) sorted this out with Tiscali (I recorded the conversation with Tiscali's permission, for evidence) and sent a modified version of roybailey's letter to Roxburghe. On this occasion I fully intend to obtain a letter from Tiscali confirming absolutely that the account is closed, otherwise we'll probably get more demands for payment in 2011.

I think that if you get these letters, you shouldn't panic if you don't think a debt is owed, and contact Tiscali, despite what Roxburghe say in their letter about all contact having to be made through them. They do seem to try to scare you into paying, and at first I was worried, but reading these forums is very reassuring, and thanks to all those who have posted helpful advice on here!

Hi

I'm in a similar situation to everyone here.... I had Tiscali B/band and phone package back in 2005...after several disputes over being charged for calls I have never made I finished the service with them and left owing money, which I understood was being investigated due to my complaint of overcharge phone calls for the period September 2005 to April 2006. I phoned Trading Standards and despite sending them a letter (as advised) with copies of phone bills and the highlighted disputed calls and sending the letter recorded delivery I was ignored. I was then pursued by a company in Surrey Brian Carter who handled the matter for me agreed to monthly payments and finally in September 2008 I made my last payment because Tiscali had finally credited my account and it left me in a position of they owed me £10. end of matter. I didn't care they owed me £10 I was just relieved it was finally sorted.

However in December 2009 I received a letter from Roxburghe telling me I owed them £390, I called them, got no answer but a week later another letter arrived so I phoned them again they told me it was money owed to Tiscali, I explained this had been paid in 2008, they said they would make enquiries!! In the meantime I contacted Brian Carter Solicitors who provided a statement proving my payment and showing the credit from Tiscali which I sent to Roxburghe on 29th January as per their request. Since then I have been bombarded with calls/texs from Roxburghe and in the last week alone have received one text message, 4 phone calls and today a letter from their solicitors demanding payment and threatening legal action.

I have spoken to them again today and told them I sent confirmation in the post, as requested on 29th January, they deny all knowledge of receipt!! They have now requested that I send them the statement AGAIN by first class recorded delivery and 'we're guaranteed to receive it'... this time I have said for 'back up' I will also email the details so if anyone is in the same position as me send any evidence/letters to them direct making sure you quote all reference numbers and for your own peace of mind email them at letters@roxburghe.com .. hopefully this should work!!!!

I would add that I have never met/spoken to so many rude, obnoxious people as I have in the last two months dealing with this company. So much for customer friendly!!!

In reply to a post by Karosh19:

I would add that I have never met/spoken to so many rude, obnoxious people as I have in the last two months dealing with this company. So much for customer friendly!!!

That seems to be a job requirement for debt collection companies, they are the scum of the earth.