How to stop creditor harassment

There are a number of things that you can do to reduce the amount of hassle you get from your creditors:

Screen incoming calls

Use an answerphone to screen incoming calls. If you talk to your phone provider, you may be able to set this up on your telephone line without the need to buy an answering machine.

To find out more, continue reading below.

Change your telephone number

Ultimately, the only way to guarantee that creditors will stop calling you is to change your telephone number. You are perfectly at liberty to do this if you wish.

BT also have a service called "Choose to Refuse" which might help if you are getting a lot of calls from an unpleasant creditor.  If you frequently receive unwanted or nuisance calls from a particular number, you can block that number. And if you change your mind, you can lift the block whenever you like and allow the caller to contact you again. The cost of the service is approx £4 per month per quarter.

Of course it is less easy to change a mobile number or a work number if your creditors have access to this.

Withhold your number before calling creditors

If your telephone number is not known to creditors then dial 141 before making calls to them as this will withhold your number.

Collect evidence of harassment

It is important that you collect evidence of the harassment so that you can highlight this to the creditor and other authoritative bodies such as the banking ombudsman if necessary.

Collect your evidence by simply keeping a record of all the telephone calls you receive. Note the date, time, name of the person to whom you spoke with. Record what was said and the company from which they are calling.

Write a letter of complaint to the creditor who is harassing you

Writing a letter of complaint is very easy to do.

Once you are ready to write your letter, you should use the Beat My Debt harassment letter template. This can be downloaded by clicking on the link in the related documents box below.

Important: You should amend the template letter for it to apply to either one person or to more. The text highlighted in blue can be kept in the letter or deleted. Not all the issues listed in blue text will apply so take your time and delete anything you do not need.

When you have finished, before you print the letter, change the entire text to black, read it though to make sure it makes sense.

If you are writing to a debt collecting company, you should also copy your letter to the original creditor for their information.

KEEP a copy - It is important to also keep copies of all your correspondence to and from creditors for reference purposes.

Then post the original including any evidence of harassment you have collected to the creditor recorded delivery.

Escalating your complaint

Writing to your creditor will often help to reduce the amount of contact you get from them. However, if this fails to stop the harassment, then you should report the issue to either the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) who grants Consumer Credit Licences to lenders and will have records of previous complaints against any such creditor or the banking ombudsman.

The office of fair trading can be contacted at the following address:

Office of Fair Trading

Fleetbank House
2 – 6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX

Tel No: 08457 224 499

OFT Web: see "Related Links" box above.

If you take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, you will need to repeat your reasons for complaining on a complaint form.

For more information about how to do this, click on the link in the "Related Links" box above.