Question - Are some of the Debt Collection Agencies committing fraud?

[High Energy Man]

I have a question for you legal eagles, but first an outline.

 

Recently there was a case of a DCA trying to collect CC debt of £3000 escalated to £8000 by interest.

 

There never was an agreement, only an application which has never been found or presented in any form

 

A DCA tried to obtain this debt by threatening court action. The chap replied do your worst.

Court action started.

The DCA then sent him some interest summaries and a Credit card agreement between him and a company he had never heard of.

This agreement was undated and unsigned.

They threatened to send these to court unless he agreed to pay up.

 

He wrote back and asked who this company was, and where was the assignment.

They sent him an assignment signed by the - what they thought was the original creditor but on the DCA’s headed notepaper. A complete fabrication.

 

He did and said no more. He barred the phone calls from the DCA’s solicitor.

 

He went to the court to contest the case, but the DCA had withdrawn and there was no case.

 

My question is:

Has this DCA committed an offence in trying to obtain money fraudulently under the 2006 fraud act section 2 (fraud by false representation),

 

Which goes on to say:

(1)A person is in breach of this section if he—

(a)dishonestly makes a false representation, and

(b)intends, by making the representation—

(i)to make a gain for himself or another, or

(ii)to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

(2)A representation is false if—

(a)it is untrue or misleading, and

(b)the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.

(3)“Representation” means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of—

(a)the person making the representation, or

(b)any other person.

(4)A representation may be express or implied.

(5)For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention).

 

Problem:

The DCA had come to obtain information about an existing unenforceable debt.

It had no agreement, application form or any documents to show how the debt was incurred.

 

It started to pursue this chap for the debt.

It is quite obvious that the agreement was a false representation as was the assignment.

If this chap had not been on the ball he may have just paid up, but he smelled a rat.

 

Now this would appear to be a tactic used by this DCA to frighten people to pay a debt which is unenforceable,

but used deceit to make gains or tried to obtain money knowing that it had made false representation.

This DCA tried to con this chap into paying, they must use other similar tactics with other people, but are they committing an offece?

 

What do you think?

[unclebulgaria67]

Yes I think they probably have, but who is going to investigate ? This type of situation has been reported before and the Police are not interested. They see this as a mistake by the company, when if this was a private individual, they would investigate it as an attempted fraud.

 

The person concerned should make a complaint to the FOS and the FCA explaining what happened, asking them to investigate the conduct of the company concerned.

 

One of my relatives had a debt increased by about 4 times the original value, as it was passed around the DCA's. There was no reason for this and when it was pointed out to them, it was reduced back to the original amount and given back to the DCA who had made a ' mistake'. It was eventually written off and compensation paid. My guess is that some DCA staff are messing around with the debt amounts held on their systems. It was not interest and charges, because of the way the increases happened. 400 800 1600 2400. That was the series of numbers I remember, so not interest and charges, as that would produce values which were specific including pence.

 

Would not surprise me if the Solicitors found some irregularities with the DCA paperwork so could not proceed, just in case it was defended. It would be embarrassing.

[High Energy Man]

Thank you for your reply, but this was no mistake. The interest part is irrelevant. They presented him with a fraudulent agreement they stated he was party to. They then went on to increase the deception by supplying a fraudulent assignment.

He approached a solicitor to represent him and was told the fee was £2,500 for the day. The solicitor said that there was no legal aid and many people with the same problem simply pay up because they know no better and don't want a CCJ etc. The solicitor cannot claim all his expenses from the small claims court so he could not represent him unless he paid up front.

To my mind this state of affairs is appaling.

I posted this question in order to try and help people who are frightened by these tactics into paying money they should not have to pay.

Who will prosecute them? With evidence like that, they cannot bring the "mistake act" into the frame. There are many in CAG I am sure could put together a a very good case in the one I have just shown unless of course they are working for the DCAs. There must be thousnds of similar cases where people have paid up and the fraud has been committed.

Has anyone else had similar problems? If people do nothing, nothing will ever be done.

I shall help where I can, but many minds make light work.

[AndyOrch]

Welcome to CAG High Energy

 

Once you have had time to look around...in particular the Financial Legal Issues forum and the Legal Success forum you will see that the above is nothing new to our members and that we have successfully dealt and advised with this over many years.

 

We are fully aware of how the industry works and sometimes fails to comply with legislation and the relevant bodies that control Debt Collection practices.

 

Please read the following as it may be further interest to your question

 

http://www.csa-uk.com/assets/documents/factsheets/myths_and_facts_of_debt_collection.pdf

 

http://www.csa-uk.com/assets/documents/factsheets/format_and_content_of_standard_debt_collection_communication.pdf

 

Regards

 

Andy

 

Thread moved to Debt Collection Agencies

[dx100uk]

wrong word in the thread title

 

 

should be ALL not 'some'

 

 

dx

[High Energy Man]

Thank you for your reply and your direction to the Debt Collector’s Bibles.

The advice is illuminating and has compounded my view that the company was acting fraudulently.

Section 2.2 of the first link states

 

Members stating that they may take legal action as a potential consequence of non-payment must be able to support their claims that this is a viable and legitimate option available to them that, on the basis of current information, they would take if the customer does not engage. If the company cannot support such claims, then they should not threatenthis course of action.

 

The company concerned could not support their claim by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Neither could they support this:

 

2.3 In addition, before proceedings are commenced, Members must ensure that the pre-action protocol under the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, as amended, are followed. This includes providing in the letter before action information about where the customer can seek free debt advice

 

The DCA never provided such a letter.

 

3.2. Letters which refer to legal action would, in the OFT’s view, have the potential to be perceived as a threat of legal action and therefore could be an unfair and oppressive business practice.

Yes it was unfair and oppressive business.

And from the second link you supplied:

 

Credit Services Association

 

Misleading use of trading styles

1.1. The use of different trading styles by an organisation could potentially be misleading if the organisation is not clearly identified.

1.2.All business communications must state the registered name and address of the sender in accordance with the Companies Act 2006. When using trading styles, the communication must make clear that it is a trading style (eg “DCC is a trading style of Debt Collection Company Ltd”) and confirm the registered details of the company holding the trading style.

 

They failed here as well

 

Altogether you have given me even more information to show that this company was acting fraudulently.

 

Your comment

Once you have had time to look around...in particular the Financial Legal Issues forum and the Legal Success forum you will see that the above is nothing new to our members and that we have successfully dealt and advised with this over many years. We are fully aware of how the industry works and sometimes fails to comply with legislation and the relevant bodies that control Debt Collection practices.

 

If you are fully aware and have successfully dealt with these issues over the years; show me where you have taken these DCAs to task over blatant fraudulent acts? It will assist me no end.

[High Energy Man]

wrong word in the thread title

 

 

should be ALL not 'some'

 

 

dx

 

 

There must some companies that work within the correct procedures and laws, I ask them all to stand up and be challenged...

[andydd]

Alas anyone can make a fraudulent claim against an individual and then just discontinue it if/when the going gets though.

 

There are only a few remedies against this:-

 

1. To have the claimant labelled a vexatious litigant https://www.gov.uk/vexatious-litigants although this doesn't really help with one offs

 

2. To use the strike out/summary judgement process, even if a 'small' claim you could get some reasonable costs.

[High Energy Man]

Thank you Andydd, but this is to take a DCA to task because of their fraudulent behaviour.

[unclebulgaria67]

Thank you Andydd, but this is to take a DCA to task because of their fraudulent behaviour.

 

You will find that DCA's, similar to Banks are a protected species in terms of how they are viewed by Police and regulators. Many of them are owned by private equity companies with links to the Banks and the wealthy in this country and abroad.

 

Getting anyone to investigate would be difficult, even if you collected documentary evidence of a few cases like the one you mentioned earlier. If the FCA agreed to look into it, they will probably just find errors by a member of staff at the DCA and advise for some retraining to be provided.

 

There are organisations such as the Which Consumer Association who hold a role as a 'super' complainant and they can ask the regulators to look at abuses.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-complaint

[High Energy Man]

Thank you, but even the rich are not above the law once you have the people behind it. Just look at what has happened to child abuse by the rich. Many have been pulled down any many more will follow as time goes on.

Bankers are starting to feel the heavy fines hurting. They have yet to get to the real people responsible, nevertheless for them there is their karma. Many have committed suicide.

 

The same will happen to the DCAs who use fraudulent activities. It won’t be as hard as the child abuse as the documented proof is already out there in their thousands. We just need to collect the evidence.

 

Today we have Facebook, and the like. This is not a case for the FCA, this is downright fraud and a case for high court action to set a precedent. We have crowd funding that will supply the funds required.

 

There are far more people against lawbreakers than for them, especially when that lawbreaker is supposed to be assisting the law, but causes pain and suffering by fraud to those who can least afford it.

 

The banks made bad mistakes. Their worst was to cause the credit crunch of 2008. A lot of people had no option but to use their credit cards to live on and keep their businesses going. The agony and suffering the crash caused is untold. The media did not want to know.

 

The banks knew that they could never recover the majority of the credit card debts because they failed to follow the rules thinking they were the rulers of the world, so they sold them at 10p in the pound (As it gets closer to the statute barred scenario, 2p in the pound) to reckless DCAs.

 

These are parasites living at the bottom and set up by men whose way of making a living is to fleece the ones with the least resistance. Their karma will arrive in due time.

Yes - we have to have DCAs, but let’s have those that do it properly and abide by the rules.

Keep it coming.

[unclebulgaria67]

Good luck. Best way to start a campaign Is to set up a Wordpress blog and to post links to any site that allows it. But you would need to moderate it and act as a register for evidence.

 

I cannot see CAG or any other consumer forum starting or assisting with a campaign as such. They will deal with individual cases that come up. CAG has already been mentioned by someone from a DCA as their nemesis, so there must be some effective work here. I think it was in Credit Today by the the current compliance director of Lowell when she worked for the CSA. This was a few years ago.

[High Energy Man]

Thank you for that. I have people that can assist, but any help is always welcomed. You mentioned CAG was the DCA's nemesis, that is what I mean. On your own you're vunerable, but as a crowd you can become unstoppable.

 

These bad DCAs will continue until they are challenged and put down. A class action will do it.

 

They should start to improve their behavoir now as it is likely that their latest stuff might be passed to us, and they become another subject of our discontent.

 

So if you receive any made up agreements with no dates or signatures, or assignments that don't look right, let me know and I shall show you how to stop the DCA. It is not a difficult process when you know how. The problem most people have is fear, and they prey on that fear.

Keep smiling...

[dx100uk]

pers I'd concentrate on something else.

 

 

no-one not even the regulators have succeeded in taming the murky world of the DCA's.

 

 

there was an interview on radio 4 today programme many many moons ago

whereby the guy stated that about 75% of the money DCA fleece out of people

was never legally owed in the first place...

 

 

still the same..

 

 

dx

[High Energy Man]

Thanks DX But then I am not you. If you look at something and decide it won't work because someone has told you it won't, you will never try. If you are going to play a game and think you won't win, you won't. These DCAs are like any other company. I am not going to take them all on at the same time, just one at a time and only the ones that use fraudulent tactics.

You have just told me that 75% of the money DCAs collect was never legally owed in the first place and that is what I am getting at. A lot use illegal ways to defraud people into paying.

Like I said, we are not going to the regulators, we are going to the high court and follow the law to the letter. There will be enough evidence for the DPP to act in the public interest.

The law is not always right and so you have to make sure that the person fighting for you in court is the best QC there is. The rest will follow.

These DCAs are relatively small companies, and the directors know exactly what is going on, so there will be no way they will be able to wriggle out of what's coming to them by saying they never knew what was happening in their company. The fraudsters will be challenged, put out of busines and made to pay back all the monies they have gained by deception. All the paperwork will be there and as you know, the law loves paperwork. "Can you prove they issued a fraudulent agreement and assignment?"

Yes my Lord, I have them here...........