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I recently came into commercial contact with a company called " UK Debt and Legal Services UK Debt & Legal Services Ltd. from Newcastle.
They are effectively a door to door dca. I was given a demonstration on how the Debt Collection agents they employ operate. I was told they got little or no information from the Bank,finance company, Utility company or whoever instructs them to collect a debt other than a name, address, phone number and amount - that's all - and the chap laughed as if to say " so what?".. I sat and played like a business buyer and said "so tell me more" - he then proudly showed me the tools they use and a gadget that looks like a fat pen.
What this company have are roaming collectors like cabs running around town right across the country.. they have with them one of those gadgets like the delivery men have which you sign or the gas man walks around with to take readings - punching in the numbers -hand held thingy.
A bank, utility company any creditor sends in an instruction electronically to this firms head office in Newcastle with those basic details above. It is immediately sent to a roaming collector onto this hand held gadget at the speed of a text. All he has is a name, client, address and amount, he then goes to the house to ask the debtor to make an arrangement to pay.. he then takes this fat pen and begins to fill in a form with the customers details and gets the customer to sign the form with this pen..."please sign here" if he can get the customer to complete the form so much the better.
The Pen has a minute camera in the tip and while the form is being filled in it is transmitting exactly what is written onto a format back in the office. Once completed the collector then uses his special mobile phone to photograph the customers property so they can see how affluent they are and that is also transmitted back to the 'customers account' so there is a photographic record as well as signature recognition. On the Laptop he had he showed me what they had back in the office. It was an identical colour copy of what I had just myself written on the form in my own handwriting. I asked him if the signature could be lifted and put onto a blue peter agreement..."yes, I suppose it could be"
This was very worrying, what protection does the customer have for being told about this photographic information being beamed about unwittingly? he didn't know... It just goes to show what lengths this industry is going to to entrap consumers and assess their ability to pay. An eye opener I can tell you and these people are all over the UK. freelancers just knocking on doors.
I would advise ANYONE who is asked to sign or write out ANYTHING to REFUSE especially using someones pen that feels fat or onto a document like this
Customers are not told about this Camera, but it is used to recognise a signature or handwriting and compared to documents the original creditor may have like an APPLICATION FORM... the trouble is that this signature is not secure and could be used to falsify documents which is happening far too frequently with DCA's trying to forge agreement documents when they don't have them any longer. TRUST NO-ONE...I cannot emphasise this enough SIGN NOTHING TO A DCA...a Letter does not need a signature to be legal.
Sarah
Yet another Cabot Fan Club Investigative success
__________________
They are effectively a door to door dca. I was given a demonstration on how the Debt Collection agents they employ operate. I was told they got little or no information from the Bank,finance company, Utility company or whoever instructs them to collect a debt other than a name, address, phone number and amount - that's all - and the chap laughed as if to say " so what?".. I sat and played like a business buyer and said "so tell me more" - he then proudly showed me the tools they use and a gadget that looks like a fat pen.
What this company have are roaming collectors like cabs running around town right across the country.. they have with them one of those gadgets like the delivery men have which you sign or the gas man walks around with to take readings - punching in the numbers -hand held thingy.
A bank, utility company any creditor sends in an instruction electronically to this firms head office in Newcastle with those basic details above. It is immediately sent to a roaming collector onto this hand held gadget at the speed of a text. All he has is a name, client, address and amount, he then goes to the house to ask the debtor to make an arrangement to pay.. he then takes this fat pen and begins to fill in a form with the customers details and gets the customer to sign the form with this pen..."please sign here" if he can get the customer to complete the form so much the better.
The Pen has a minute camera in the tip and while the form is being filled in it is transmitting exactly what is written onto a format back in the office. Once completed the collector then uses his special mobile phone to photograph the customers property so they can see how affluent they are and that is also transmitted back to the 'customers account' so there is a photographic record as well as signature recognition. On the Laptop he had he showed me what they had back in the office. It was an identical colour copy of what I had just myself written on the form in my own handwriting. I asked him if the signature could be lifted and put onto a blue peter agreement..."yes, I suppose it could be"
This was very worrying, what protection does the customer have for being told about this photographic information being beamed about unwittingly? he didn't know... It just goes to show what lengths this industry is going to to entrap consumers and assess their ability to pay. An eye opener I can tell you and these people are all over the UK. freelancers just knocking on doors.
I would advise ANYONE who is asked to sign or write out ANYTHING to REFUSE especially using someones pen that feels fat or onto a document like this
Customers are not told about this Camera, but it is used to recognise a signature or handwriting and compared to documents the original creditor may have like an APPLICATION FORM... the trouble is that this signature is not secure and could be used to falsify documents which is happening far too frequently with DCA's trying to forge agreement documents when they don't have them any longer. TRUST NO-ONE...I cannot emphasise this enough SIGN NOTHING TO A DCA...a Letter does not need a signature to be legal.
Sarah
Yet another Cabot Fan Club Investigative success
__________________
that they have just won an Award for the best technology of the year in debt Collection practices at the Credit Today Awards recently. Where do they get their Judges from? :tinysmile_cry_t:
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