Greencreaper ,
If a company is chasing a bad debtor they are unlikely to give up without a satisfactory response, that’s the nature of the business. Simply throwing away the letters will not resolve the problem – these companies want their money. Also you do not state whether you are in rented accommodation or have brought the property.
There are several things you need to do:
- First: check with your local sorting office that the previous occupant is not redirecting their mail. Some people do this, for up to six months, whilst still obtaining credit references and applying for supermarket credit cards at a previous address.
- Second: open up any suspicious mail and write back to them explaining that you are the new occupant and have no contact with them. A telephone call will not suffice because these agencies require evidence to go on file. Suggest you also keep a copy for your records in case they come back later.
- Third: sign up with a credit reference agency like Experian to monitor your activities carefully; they provide an e-mail alert service that notifies you every time someone accesses your details. Assume your own mail could be mis-delivered and armed with this information someone could then try to obtain credit/ goods in your name, as I found out a neighbouring flat that was previously being rented by some dodgy Brazilians, tried to obtain an Orange phone using my details and were denied by the credit checks. However, you may think that these stores will easily pick these things up, well after being refused the first time, several weeks later an Orange phone was delivered to my home, this time using my brother’s name and despite a series of wrong answers, (giving the wrong date of birth, wrong time we had been living at my address, and contact number) this store apparently still approved this phone for dispatch. So just because a store runs a credit check does not mean that they take any notice of the result.
I only found out because this was sent to the billing address (my address) I also had other strange things suddenly appearing, but since writing to these companies and taking the Orange phone to the police nothing (touch wood) since.
Please note: some rented accommodations can be blacklisted by some credit reference agencies.