Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
B.C. writes: I have received a demand letter from Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd, acting on behalf of Right Choice Insurance Brokers Ltd.
Are you able to help me, please?
Since you last helped me with this same matter, nothing has changed except that this letter has arrived.
I hope they stop harassing me.
Tony Hetherington replies: It is almost exactly a year since your daughter contacted me on your behalf about almost exactly the same problem. Then, Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd (DCBL), based in Runcorn in Cheshire, had been hired by a car park firm that claimed it was owed £304. DCBL’s legal arm had actually got a court judgment upholding the claim.
Wrong number: Bailiffs were silent over mix-up
However, the court action and the debt collection demands were not for you. They were addressed to a Damian Stroud, but they were all sent to your address. You did not know anyone of this name and he had never lived in your house, which had been your home for 40 years. You told DCBL the car registration on its demand letters was not yours, but they continued to drop through your letterbox.
You reported the firm to the police, but got nowhere. You also contacted the DVLA, but this was no help either.
By the time your daughter contacted me, she was concerned that you – aged 82 – were so scared of the arrival of debt collectors at your door that you were considering paying the £304 they demanded.
Worse still, the same firm was also sending demands for £349, which it claimed was owed to car insurance brokers.
I put all this to DCBL’s legal offshoot but it failed to offer any explanation or comment.
So I contacted DCBL’s client, the car park company. I gave them your full name, address, date of birth and confirmation of the number of years you appeared on the local electoral register.
And I added that in all the local records, there was nothing to show that anyone named Stroud ever lived at your address.
The upshot was that the parking firm told DCBL to cancel all its claims against your address.
And this brings us to what has just happened. DCBL has again written to Damian Stroud at your address, this time demanding £274 it says is owed to Right Choice Insurance Brokers (RCIB) of Romford in Essex.
I asked DCBL repeatedly to explain why they were causing you such obvious distress in the wake of their same bad conduct a year ago, but they offered absolutely no excuses or explanation. Bluntly, I don’t think they care as long as they get paid.
RCIB were a little better. After I gave them the necessary details, they told me: ‘This has been reviewed internally and it has been agreed that DCBL have closed their file. This should prevent Mr C from receiving any further correspondence.’
On the downside, RCIB claimed it had ‘acted in good faith’ and that Damian Stroud’s address – your address – had been confirmed by documents such as his driving licence, passport or household bills.
So I tracked down Damian Stroud. He is several decades younger than you, and he lives in a flat not far from your home. His flat number is the same as your house number, and his postcode is two digits away from your own.
So has all this been an innocent but upsetting mix-up? Or does he really have paperwork showing his name but your address? RCIB refused to say.
What I can say is that a check of court records shows a debt judgment last year for £304 in his name, but at your address. This is the £304 demanded by the car park company that brought all this to light.
I twice invited Damian Stroud to explain, but he offered no explanation or comment.
I hope this does not lead yet again to you being harassed by the DCBL debt collectors, who clearly failed to keep a record of last year’s wrong demands and threats.
Marks Art owner on the run as scam folds
Wanted man: Mark Steven Smith
Scam art investment company Marks Art Limited has been compulsorily struck off and dissolved by Companies House.
Its website is no longer live and its phone is not answered, but police still want to get their hands on its owner, Mark Steven Smith.
The Mail on Sunday has been investigating Marks Art, and tracking down its criminal owner, for the past year and a half. We first sounded the alarm in September 2023 when I visited what was said to be the company’s gallery in London, but found no pictures and no gallery. Smith then claimed that the address was a secret – ironically, blaming London’s high crime rate.
Marks Art also deceived buyers by using forged articles from the BBC and The Telegraph. The pictures it sold were vastly overpriced, and marketed with worthless promises of profits to be made at auctions which, in the event, failed to take place.
This evidence helped to convince a number of banks and card companies to refund victims’ losses.
The final nail in the coffin for Marks Art was when I reported in May that I had traced Smith, not to a secret address in London, but to a hideout in Northern Cyprus, where the UK has no extradition treaty. He is on the run from a four-year prison sentence after leaving a woman badly injured in a hit-and-run in Surrey.
His art fraud in the UK since fleeing was run by front men and sales agents, with him pulling the strings from more than 2,000 miles away.
And now it is over.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.