Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
W.N. writes: My wife is 79 and I am 83. We both are registered disabled. We have lived at the same address for over 50 years.
For months, we have been plagued by Debt Recovery Plus Ltd demanding parking penalties said to relate to a Patrick McDonagh and a Jimmy McDonagh at our address.
We have no idea who these people are. We have phoned the debt collectors and emailed them, explaining that they have the wrong address, only to be met by offhand rudeness followed by them hanging up.
Tony Hetherington replies: Anyone who believes that rules governing debt collectors do not need tightening should listen to what you have to say. Debt Recovery Plus Ltd (DRPL) ‘will not take no for an answer’, you told me, adding: ‘It is clearly trying to bully us into paying with threats of court action. The thought of bailiffs on our doorstep is very distressing to us. We have never owed anyone a penny.’
Clowning around: When real world laws apply, Debt Recovery Plus Ltd couldn’t give a monkey’s
You sent me copies of some of the roughly ten demands you have received. They are all penalties for using car parks in, for example, Swindon in Wiltshire and Ilford in East London. You live in neither place, and the car licence plates shown on the demands mean nothing to you.
The demands are all along the same lines. They say you have failed to pay penalties of £170, and they threaten: ‘Now, if you don’t create a payment plan or pay in full, you are making an active choice to move to legal action.’
Of course, those threats are meant for Patrick and Jimmy McDonagh. Legally, you are in the clear. Why should you be worried? Well, something similar happened to me.
I received debt demands addressed to someone I had never met, but who lived at my home address years ago. And one night, a bailiff from a well known firm that has appeared on TV got into my front garden and stuck a large notice on my car, saying it had been immobilised following a High Court claim for thousands of pounds. The firm admitted that it had never even checked who was now living at my address, let alone whose car they were targeting. And when I spelled out the implications of libelling me, they backed down.
The same thing could happen to you. So, with your signed consent and approval, I contacted DRPL. I asked the company to explain why it continued to shower demands and threats on your address when you had emphatically denied that the alleged debtors, their cars, or their parking offences had anything to do with you.
And I contacted the company’s data protection officer Adrian Whalley, at his office in Redditch. He is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as the person responsible for safeguarding all data held by DRPL. I submitted a Subject Access Request, using your legal right to have Whalley produce all data that DRPL holds about you, so I could see whether anyone had even bothered to check up on you or your address before issuing threats.
DRPL failed to respond. And Whalley failed to respond. The company is under no obligation to say anything. Whalley is different. He and his company are legally obliged to respect a Subject Access Request, and they are allowed four weeks to do so.
I waited four weeks. Whalley stayed silent. All that happened was that you received yet another demand for £170, this time saying that Jimmy McDonagh had overstayed his welcome in a car park in Chippenham.
However, a few days ago I finally managed to speak to Whalley. DPRL has a policy of not dealing with the press, he told me. Why am I not surprised! But what about the Subject Access Request? Well, he told me pompously, only the person concerned can make such an application, or someone who acts with their authority.
Quite right, I told him. And you have the signed authority, and you have had it for more than a month. Whalley’s response: ‘I’ll see if I can find that.’
Clearly, in Whalley’s World, his firm’s demands are law. But when real world laws apply, DRPL couldn’t give a monkey’s. And that’s why I have reported him and his cronies to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Not surprisingly, online complaints about DRPL cover page after page. ‘This company is run by a bunch of clowns!’ is one of the milder comments. More seriously: ‘They’re going to put my mum in an early grave.’ This from the son of a 93-year-old targeted by DRPL. This firm has the hallmarks of a gang of chancers who issue demands like confetti, knowing that rightly or wrongly, some people will pay up. Time for regulation. Time for action. Time to hit back.
Police pension rule is legal – but crazy
G.N. writes: I reached state pension age in March.
Unfortunately, when my former employer – Suffolk Constabulary – submitted National Insurance contributions for many officers in the tax year 2006-7, HM Revenue & Customs did not record those payments.
Many of us are now falling short on our state pensions as a result.
Criminal: Nobody should lose a slice of their pension because the Government’s own records are not kept properly
Tony Hetherington replies: Suffolk Police have been completely open about this. They say: ‘The problem with HMRC not having a record of NI contributions for 2006-7 is a known problem. This has been brought about because HMRC have not imported the data supplied by the force at that time.’
I asked officials at Revenue headquarters to investigate. Nobody should lose a slice of their pension because the Government’s own records are not kept properly. The good news is that they found you paid £2,772 during that year.
The bad news is that when tax staff informed the Department for Work & Pensions, they were told this will not make a pennyworth of difference to your pension. Because you worked all your life, you notched up the 42 years of contributions that were then needed to secure your state pension.
Extra years of work and contributions have earned you no more of a pension than you already have. Legal? Yes. Ridiculous? Darned right!
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
