I got a letter through from a debt collector last month saying I need to pay them £34.03 for an unpaid bill to Three Mobile. I got a contract with them when I turned 18, stuck in it for 18mths (although I was told it was a 12mth contract and already had a big fight over that).

I paid the first 17mths by direct debit and cancelled before the last one. The girl I called to ask to cancel said there would be substaintial charges for cancelling so I cancelled the direct debit just in case it bounced. The bill came though, just the £34 so that was fine, I called up and paid it by debit card on the phone.

But I have no proof. I don't have my bank statements from that far back and the bank say if I want to get them reprinted I have to pay for them.

It's only £34 so it's not a huge amount, I just really hate to think I have to pay it twice! I've asked if they have any proof I owe it, but they won't tell me anything, not the mbile number it was related to, the date of the original bill, only the amount. They did tell me they can rebill it but even if I prove I paid the original amount I then have to pay the new bill anyway.

Is this fair? Making me pay when they will give me no information and from so long ago the bank has to reprint the details from their archives.

If it comes down to it I'll just pay it, but I'm not working right now so I really need to save ever penny I can. The guy from the debt company was really nasty on the phone about it though, really unwilling to help at all and just threatened court action.

Any advice?

The way to look at this is to pay your bank for a copy of the 'archived' payment and learn from your mistake. When dealing with the original situation like this, you need to learn from this experience to ALWAYS keep your proofs of payment if there is a possibility of any come back. If you actually go into your bank and speak very nicely to an advisor, explaining the exact situation and the fact that you are not working at the moment they should keep your costs to a very minimum which should be less than the £34. This account information is very easily and cheaply retrieved by your bank as it will all be kept within their own historic computer storage facilities.

Send a photo copy of the payment to the debt collector and suggest that they have made a mistake and any further payment by you will only be made through the small claims court as you do NOT believe that you owe anything! Also, inform them in that letter that you are not currently working.

The debt collectors will inform whoever owns the debt now (3 mobile may have sold the debt to a debt recovery agency) and you will most probably find that is the end of the matter.

What was the outcome of this? I would be very interested to know because I am being chased for a payment after having closed my account in 2006 too. 3 continued to take money out of my account which i was able to claim back with Barclays in 2007 but now they have come up with a fictitious sum that I now apparently owe and they have also referred my "account" to a debt collection agency!

It's insane!!

They've not called me back about it and I'm going to leave it until they do. The same debt collector has called me for a few small amounts which I have denied owing and never heard from them again so I think they're just at it, thinking if it's only £20-£30 I'll just pay it to be on the safe side.

Things like I got a £20 for a DVD from LoveFilm, it was the first one we'd hired with them and if we hadn't returned it then they wouldn't have sent us another disc? Just daft!

But if they do call back I'm just going to pay it to get rid of them. I hate to give in to them but we've got another baby on the way just now and I could do without the hassle.

The same company are threatening to take us to court for unpaid insurance premiums, from a company who refused to renew our policy as they'd initially made a mistake and I was too young to insure at the time (20). But they claim we owe them another 3 months money.

I'm not giving in though! They're trying to bully money out of us we don't owe! And with enough legitimate bills through the door needing paid first they'll have the fight the money from me :-p

The thing is, I already closed the account two years ago and had to go through a lot of hassle to pay them off then (which I eventually reclaimed through Barclays) so I don't want to have to pay off the sum of £17.50 out of principle now. And just in case they try to do it again.

So I am going to call the debt collection agency tomorrow and forward copies of all previous correspondence (fortunately I kept copies of the old letters which confirmed that I had closed my account) to prove that this account was closed years ago and if that is not enough for them, I am going to get in touch with Otelo and my local Trading Standards office. And threaten to write to Watchdog.

3 are such a p*sstake! Is this how they make their money?!