Suspicious Debt notice

[fionaroby]

My 80 yr old father who is currently very ill (so do not want to bother him with this) has received a debt notice from ardent credit services regarding a debt  of £9.35.  As far as i'm aware he has had pay as you go phones for as long as i remember so I am not convinced this is real.  I am also suspicious as the spelling of his name on the letter is completely wrong.   It's obviously only a small amount of money but i very much doubt it is legitimately owed so am tempted to advise my mother to ignore this, not least because they letter states that if the debt is payed vodafone may restore the service which would then leave them open to further 'debt' being accrued unwittingly.  Many thanks for any advice.

[BandOfBrothers]

If he's only ever had Payg accounts with Vodafone UK then such debt can't be accrued.

If you Google the contact details on the debt letter are they genuine.

If so then it might be worth contacting the debt collection agency to enquire to this although if they are a genuine company then they'll only speak with the person named on the letter.

Vodafone would also only liase with the account holder and or a person named as a trusted person on the account.

But again a Vodafone Payg account wouldn't accrue a debt.

This could be fraud which can be logged with Vodafone via reporting-suspected-fraud 

And a person can check their credit file to see if a default has been added by contacting experian or one of the other credit houses.

I appreciate the age of the person involved and that they are ill. I'm sorry to hear this.

Unfortunately no account access is available via here.

I can't advise you to ignore the letter as this has to be a decision made by the person or family involved.

I wish you all the best with this @fionaroby 

[Farai]

Thank you for reaching out to us @fionaroby we'd like to help get to the bottom of what's going on with the account. As @BandOfBrothers explained, we would need to speak to the account holder or an authorised contact on the account. If you’re named as an authorised contact on the account, you can give us a call on 0333 304 0191 or drop us a message via Live chat here 👉 http://vodafone.uk/2c6h5lL
If you're not on the account though, you would need to get the account holder to get in touch and add you to the account as authorised contact. This would allow you to discuss the account in much greater detail over the phone and via Live Chat 👍

[fionaroby]

Thank you Farai i have no idea what account this even refers to  - father has had a different mobile network provoder for as long as i remember, so no idea of knowing if yhere is an authorised contact... He is very ill in hospital so i certainly wont be bothering him about thiseven if he could remember which is probably unlikely.  Thanks all the same though for advice.

[hrym]

Debt collectors sometimes trawl for likely candidtates if they can't find the original debtor.   This can involve people with the same or similar names or addresses.   The details Vodafone have may not match your father at all and it may be that you have to contact the agency (ideally in a fresh message rather than a link) and tell them your father has no connection with this.

FWIW, when I added a new line to my account a few years back, it started getting debt collector calls.   I eventually responded and explained that I'd just taken on the number and that was the last I heard.   They don't want to waste time on wrong leads, so will probably (and certainly should) take you off the contact list.

[jaxxon]

It is possible that the debt notice is a mistake or a scam. Before advising your mother to ignore it, it would be best to verify the legitimacy of the debt by contacting the creditor directly. You can ask for more information about the debt, such as when and how it was incurred and for proof of the debt. It's also a good idea to check with your father to see if he remembers incurring any debts with the creditor. If the debt is legitimate, it would be best to address it as soon as possible to avoid any potential negative consequences. However, if the debt is found to be a mistake or a scam, then it would be appropriate to ignore the notice and report it to the appropriate authorities.

[donnyguy]

I did a quick google search and it does say that one of Ardent's main clients are Vodafone. 

Personally, I would contact them to see if they can help you get to the bottom of this. They may not speak to you due to GDPR but you could perhaps ask them to send the debt back to Vodafone to see if they will reach out.

Joining the dots, the fact that this outstanding debt is such a small amount, it would make me think that either some service has been set up at some point and then cancelled within a calling off period (leaving a small bill for the time it was running) or even someone has used your fathers details to open an account. 

The reason why my brain went there is that if there was a service with a minimum term that had been defaulted on, in order to get to debt collection, Vodafone would have closed the account meaning there would more than likely be early termination fees on the account which would mean they'd be chasing for more than £9.

But long reply short, I wouldn't ignore. I'd try to figure this out. 

Alternatively, how likely is your father going to be to need credit? If this is on his credit file, so be it.