How to check whether a debt collection agency is genuine

Never pay on the strength of a phone call

The first rule is simple and it defeats most fraud on its own: do not pay, and do not confirm any personal details, on a call you did not make. Say you will deal with it in writing, hang up, and use the checks below.

A genuine agency will always put the details of a debt in writing if you ask. Pressure to pay immediately, a threat of a doorstep visit today, a demand for payment by bank transfer to a personal-sounding account, or an insistence that you must not discuss it with anyone are all signs to stop.

Check the FCA register

Firms collecting consumer debt in the UK generally need Financial Conduct Authority authorisation. Search the name at register.fca.org.uk, which lists trading names as well as company names, and check three things: that the firm is there, that its permissions cover debt collection, and — this is the part people skip — that the contact details on the register match the ones on the letter you received.

Cloning a real authorised firm is a common tactic. The fraudster uses a genuine firm’s name and registration number but their own phone number and bank details. If the letter’s details differ from the register’s, ring the number on the register, never the one on the letter.

Check Companies House

Search the company name or number free at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. You are looking for whether the company exists, whether it is active, and whether the registered office matches the letterhead.

A company that has been dissolved cannot chase you for anything — it no longer exists in law. A company incorporated three weeks ago and already writing to you about a fifteen-year-old debt deserves a very hard look. And where a name is nearly but not exactly the same as a well-known firm, that near miss is usually deliberate.

Check the debt itself

Even a genuine agency can be chasing the wrong person or the wrong amount. Debts are bought and sold in large books, and records get scrambled in the process. Before paying anything, ask in writing for the name of the original creditor, the account number, the date the account was opened, the date of the last payment or acknowledgement, and a full statement of how the balance was arrived at.

For most consumer credit debts — credit cards, catalogues, personal loans, hire purchase — you can go further and require a copy of the original credit agreement. That process is set out in the guide on making a debt collector prove the debt.

It is also worth checking the age of the debt. In England and Wales an unsecured consumer debt with no contact for more than six years may be statute barred and no longer enforceable in court, and in Scotland the period is five years. There is a separate guide on when an old debt becomes statute barred — read it before you acknowledge anything, because acknowledging a debt in writing can restart the clock.

What genuine collectors are not allowed to do

• Pretend to be a court, a bailiff or a government body, or use documents designed to look like court papers.
• Tell you that bailiffs are coming when no court judgment exists.
• Threaten arrest or imprisonment for a consumer debt. Non-payment of an ordinary consumer debt is not a criminal offence.
• Discuss your debt with your employer, your neighbours or your family.
• Contact you repeatedly to the point of harassment, or refuse to deal with you in writing.

If any of that has happened, complain to the firm, then to the Financial Ombudsman Service at financial-ombudsman.org.uk, which is free. Suspected fraud goes to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040, or to Police Scotland on 101 in Scotland.

More guides on this site

• Making a debt collector prove the debt
• When an old debt becomes statute barred
• The company that owes you money has been dissolved

See all guides