Telephone harassment……a point to note

[pt2537]

The recent case of Idem v Ryan makes it clear that the Court will not be sympathetic to a debtor who complains about telephone harassment where the debtor doesn’t take* the appropriate steps to protect their position.   In the Ryan matter, the debtors complained that the Claimant had contacted them unfairly, indeed the records […]


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[R0b]

Re: Telephone harassment……a point to note

Hi PT interesting post, was his just a CC decision?

Whilst I quite agree on the Court's reasoning on 1. And 3. I don't think 2. Sits quite right with me. If a person withdraws their consent and expressly states that they will only accept a certain method of communication, the fact that they don't respond to that preferred method of communication doesn't make it right for the third party to use an alternative method unless the person has agreed to do so.

[Linus]

Re: Telephone harassment……a point to note

I can see this being used by creditors as an excuse to restart telephone calls when they haven't complied with a request so for example

You write to a creditor and say send a S78 request which they don't fully deal with, 12 months on they see this judgement and use it as an excuse to start barraging you with phone calls again

Another example, you send in a complaint asking for certain proof of liability and maybe a few other things- they reply to half of the letter but not the rest so you ignore them- 12 months on they start the barrage again

I do take the point that if you ignore them or don't put it in writing they MAY be able to start calling you again although I tend to agree with Rob when he says, if you have said once in writing not to call, that should be enough

[pt2537]

Re: Telephone harassment……a point to note

I can see this being used by creditors as an excuse to restart telephone calls when they haven't complied with a request so for example

You write to a creditor and say send a S78 request which they don't fully deal with, 12 months on they see this judgement and use it as an excuse to start barraging you with phone calls again

Another example, you send in a complaint asking for certain proof of liability and maybe a few other things- they reply to half of the letter but not the rest so you ignore them- 12 months on they start the barrage again

I do take the point that if you ignore them or don't put it in writing they MAY be able to start calling you again although I tend to agree with Rob when he says, if you have said once in writing not to call, that should be enough

The point to take from this ruling is to box clever, when you start getting calls you must NOT invite the creditor to call you back period. you must, if you state all correspondence in writing, write.

Personally, the easiest way of getting around this point is to turn to the creditor and tell them simply youre not prepared to talk on the phone and no more calls will be tolerated. Secondly, write to the creditor and tell them your issues with their case.

The creditor should either stop calling and write to you or if it disagrees with your view then it should take you to Court. End of.

[mystery1]

Re: Telephone harassment……a point to note

Was there not a case, perhaps one of yours, where the judge basically said "The debtor has the right to say stop contacting me, take me to court if you want" ?

M1

[pt2537]

Re: Telephone harassment……a point to note

Was there not a case, perhaps one of yours, where the judge basically said "The debtor has the right to say stop contacting me, take me to court if you want" ?

M1

Plenty, the problem in Ryan was the requests to stop calling were limited and didnt carry much weight with them. Often the requests were qualified with we will call you back or please call us back or were just going out but call later.

This si the point, if the company had been told sod off were not talking on the phone and write to us, we may reply we may not, then that would have resolved the issue and the 200+ calls would have given an unfair relationship.