Everybody has a weak spot and we manipulate that
The Sunday Mail contacted Nightfox posing as a landlord who was owed £2800 by a former tenant.
We called the number linked to their office in Edinburgh’s Albany Street.
An employee who identified himself as “Dean” called our reporter back.
He said: “What we do is we get under his skin. We get in his face. We are wherever he is.
“We bring other people into play. We bring family, friends, if we have to. Because everybody has a weak spot and it’s finding a way of manipulating it.
“We go wherever we need to go. If we found out where he worked, we would turn up at work. If we found out where his family lived, we would turn up at the family’s door.”
Dean explained the firm’s debt collectors are dispatched within 24 hours of being contracted and tell debtors they have “bought” over their debt and the cash is now owed to them.
For £395 plus VAT, Dean said the company recovers the full costs plus up to 15 per cent interest and “does not stop” until the debt is recovered.
He added: “We’re not very nice. If we have to turn somebody’s life upside down a bit and make life very uncomfortable, that’s what we do. “Unless he ended up in prison or seriously ill or ended up in a foreign climate we’re not prepared to go, we don’t stop until we collect it.
“We’re not going to do this £100 a month malarkey. We don’t take payment plans but we will accept a large lump sum straight away.”
When asked how they would collect debt from a hard-up, possibly out-of-work tenant, he told us: “We’re not bothered where he gets money from.” He added: “By the time we’re finished, the £ 2800 debt would be closer to £4000.”
Dean told our reporter that the firm operated legally and recorded all interactions with on-body cameras.
He said: “We work within the law. We’re not allowed to break the law. There’s no violence. Everything is recorded.
“We have body cams on so, therefore, if the debtor accused us of threatening behaviour, then obviously we’ve got footage to prove to the police there hasn’t been anything.
“We’re not going to break the law. Don’t get me wrong – you work up to the line. “We’re within the law.”