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Hi there
This is my first ever encounter with debt and a collection agency apart from one private parking charge/fine which I paid.
In March 2018 my husband was going through our accounts to tidy them up and cancel Direct Debits. He noticed a second DD to Sky and queried it with the bank. It was for an old address we hadn't lived at for eleven years. He didn't mention it he just cancelled it. He then received some monies back. I am not sure how much, because he now lives abroad. I realise he should have contacted Sky and has mucked things up for me.
Anyway I didn't find out about it until February 2019, when I got a letter from a company called Pastdue stating I owed Sky £2816.38. I was horrified called them and found out they had no record of my telephoning them to cancel the service in 2007. I am almost certain I would have written. Because no one did business by telephone back then, no apps etc. I was abroad from July 2007 and sold the house in October 2007. All of my mail went redirected through my husbands head office in London and then got sent on to us in the Middle East. I never once in eleven years received anything from Sky. The new owners did not receive any mail for me, so they say. I called Sky in Feb 2019, which is when they said no calls were logged on their system so I'm pretty sure they said I owed them the money for the box, which was packed and is somewhere in my loft, the installation and the dish. I don't know if the dish is still on the roof of the house. I wrote to them saying I definitely cancelled that subscription by mail and had received nothing from them except a debt letter. I told them about the redirection and having received mail from many other companies but not them, I knew the redirection worked, pointed out the viewing card would have been inactive for eleven years but having changed laptop twice I wasn't sure I could find the original letter. I stated I felt the charges were unfair and too much. I received a reply saying they couldn't discuss it with me as I had not met their 'data protection criteria'.
Anyway jump forward to a couple of days ago. I got a letter saying they had tried to contact me several times, which isn't really true as I put my details on my letter, and saying they have sold the debt of £2816.38 to Lowel and will no longer discuss the matter with me. I lost my job a year ago, my husband lives abroad, and I am genuinely stressed to the max. There seems to be no option but to pay the amount. Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do? I don't know whether the debit is from March 2018 to when I called them in Feb 2019, but assume it can't be as my subscription was around 36.00 when it was cancelled. I am also not totally sure what the debt is actually for.
Thanks very much if you can add any words of wisdom.
This is my first ever encounter with debt and a collection agency apart from one private parking charge/fine which I paid.
In March 2018 my husband was going through our accounts to tidy them up and cancel Direct Debits. He noticed a second DD to Sky and queried it with the bank. It was for an old address we hadn't lived at for eleven years. He didn't mention it he just cancelled it. He then received some monies back. I am not sure how much, because he now lives abroad. I realise he should have contacted Sky and has mucked things up for me.
Anyway I didn't find out about it until February 2019, when I got a letter from a company called Pastdue stating I owed Sky £2816.38. I was horrified called them and found out they had no record of my telephoning them to cancel the service in 2007. I am almost certain I would have written. Because no one did business by telephone back then, no apps etc. I was abroad from July 2007 and sold the house in October 2007. All of my mail went redirected through my husbands head office in London and then got sent on to us in the Middle East. I never once in eleven years received anything from Sky. The new owners did not receive any mail for me, so they say. I called Sky in Feb 2019, which is when they said no calls were logged on their system so I'm pretty sure they said I owed them the money for the box, which was packed and is somewhere in my loft, the installation and the dish. I don't know if the dish is still on the roof of the house. I wrote to them saying I definitely cancelled that subscription by mail and had received nothing from them except a debt letter. I told them about the redirection and having received mail from many other companies but not them, I knew the redirection worked, pointed out the viewing card would have been inactive for eleven years but having changed laptop twice I wasn't sure I could find the original letter. I stated I felt the charges were unfair and too much. I received a reply saying they couldn't discuss it with me as I had not met their 'data protection criteria'.
Anyway jump forward to a couple of days ago. I got a letter saying they had tried to contact me several times, which isn't really true as I put my details on my letter, and saying they have sold the debt of £2816.38 to Lowel and will no longer discuss the matter with me. I lost my job a year ago, my husband lives abroad, and I am genuinely stressed to the max. There seems to be no option but to pay the amount. Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do? I don't know whether the debit is from March 2018 to when I called them in Feb 2019, but assume it can't be as my subscription was around 36.00 when it was cancelled. I am also not totally sure what the debt is actually for.
Thanks very much if you can add any words of wisdom.
