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I had an 18 month mobile phone contract with '3 mobile' a few years back and when the 18months ended i stopped my direct debits as i realised they were still taking money from my account.

I then got a letter from a Debt collection company saying that they had taken over the debt i had with 3 mobile and i needed to pay them to prevent legal action being taken against me.

I thought this to be a bit of a con/scare tactic so rang 3 mobile to discuss.

It turned out that i needed to give them 30 days notice if wanting to end the contract (regardless of the fact the full 18 months had passed so i assumed the contract automatically ends).

But due to this i payed the Debt company the outstanding amount which turned out to be 2 months of direct debit payments (totallying £75).

This all happened midway through my new 18month contract with Vodafone.

Now i have received another letter (some 6 months later) stating the same thing but the amount they want from me is £50.

My 18 month contract with '3 mobile' ended about 20 months ago now so i am totally puzzled as to how (if at all) they feel i STILL owe them money when i was informed by them that after paying the £75 the first time would clear all outstanding debts and therefore cut all ties between myself and 3 Mobile

I emailed both the Debt company and 3 mobile explaining everything as made it clear that i believe i am totally debt free yet another letter has now come from the Debt company stating 'Final Notice'.

Part of me wants to just ignore it but i'm a tad concerned what could happen.

Your thoughts please as i suppose i will need to respond to this letter.

I'd get a statement in writing from 3 Mobile specifically stating whether or not any monies are still due to them, just to make sure.

But, having had problems with Debt Collection Agencies in the past (previous owner of my apartment didn't like paying bills or fines), they are often pretty useless at updating their records. They often send out letters automatically and they're not checked by anyone to see if a debt is actually outstanding.

If you do not owe any more money, put this in writing to the debt collection agency. Tell them to remove your name from their database, and that if they send anymore letters or anything to you regarding a debt (which doesn't exist), that you will take legal action against them for harrassment.

Their whole method of operation is to bully and scare you into paying. If you can obtain the evidence from 3 Mobile that you owe them nothing and that the debt is clear then you having nothing to worry about.

Just out of interest, which debt collection company is it?

It's a tricky situation if you don't have any confirmation in writing that the account had been finalised and closed.

I've just had a sililar issue with Orange - for Broadband. I left them 2 years ago and they 'verbally' confirmed that the account was closed and complete.
Last month I got a letter out of the blue from a debt collection ageny stating that I owed them £30+
Orange had made no attempt to ask me for the money and I'd had no letters etc etc.
I had no choice but to pay it as I couldn't prove otherwise with any paperwork.
It might not help you in your case but i'd suggst to anyone to always request confirmation of finalised accounts and keep the letter for a few years before binning it. An expensive lesson learned.

Good advice from Redline - definitely worth a shot. Good luck!

I dont mean to sound rude, but if you had read the contract properly in the first place, you would have read that the contract would not finish until you had rang them up to confirm you wanted it to end (30 days notice)

This is because if they had just cut you off after 18 months, you would be complaing about that and also because they dont want you to leave their service.

Was this the first contract phone you ever took out ???

I took my first contract out in 1996 with vodafone and even then you had to ring up and give 30 days notice if you wanted to cancel.

I do feel sorry for you though, i am with 3 now and trying to get any sense out of the Indian call centre people is a nightmare.

been there done it......

i 2 am with 3 and also had the debt letters a couple of years back, admittadly it was my fault for not paying by bills tho. i did get a final letter through and thought i better pay the bills thos o i did. recently got a new contract with them as i got a better deal when i went instore for an upgrade.

but yea u do have to give the 30 day notice to companys otherwise they'll continue ur contract until u do ring them to cancel it.

i know wat u mean about ringing 3 tho and trying to get sense out of them.... they try to totally ignore wat u say and get u to spend more money. you just have to be ferm and say no no no!!!