Damn... so whats the latest? Could you end up with massive costs if you lose at the HC? Conversely could you end up with a massive lump sum if you win?

??? It appears eBay have sent in the DCAs not the Government. All the Government are guilty of is allowing an automated system for people to put adverts up (that are not vetted). Also given that Ltd companies appear to be involved how much vetting do you want the government to do?

I am not sure either - hence I asked the question. If you are certain of your position then the victims can be advised to sit back and let it go to court (after they have informed the DCAs they accept not liability for this). My view on it is that they are opened to be sued by customers and they will have to sue the business to get their money back. So some liability applies IMO.

There is a word that comes up often in regulatotion - proportionality. I suggest you look into it. Unfortunatley the current govt wants less regulation and is cutting funding to the bodies that responsible for regulating these issues so things could get worse from an overall perspective. You will also find Debt collection is not a priority for certain regulators such as some TS, the complaint levels for DCA are often not even in the 5 top complained about areas.

As poster above said they may have a duty of care higher than most places but I very much doubt they will have total responsibility. Are Gumtree and eBay held liable for all the dodgy stuff posted on their websites? A contract entered into when you are a victim of a crime is totally different to your example. If its so straightforward why doesnt the victim send his crime reference number to the debt colelction people and be done with it?

Whats the minimum you would want/expect?

Of course, but that is what you would hope any DCA would do! I want to know how people who are mentally impaired should be treated any differently, if at all.

But what do you want the banks/DCAs to do about it? I am not being obtuse but if we are saying banks/DCAs should take into account medical conditions then we must have somesort of path that they should follow if the debtor be seriously ill. I am guessing stopping all DCA acitivity isn't going to be it.

Interesting topic - how should people be treated differently if they have mental issues ? What is to stop everyone claiming the same to get DCAs off their backs? The same applies from a regulators point of view. How do they know who to believe? I have heard from someone who worked in regulation of debt collection agencies that it was common for consumers to lie through their teeth and claim harassment in order to try and get the regulators to stop the DCA chasing them Therefore I daresay there will be some scepticism from the regulators as well as the DCAs. Unfotunatley I think its one of those things that is only revealed when its too late.

I doubt JobCentre will be liable for adverts placed on their website From a legal point of view can you be held liable if you are the victim of a crime?

"Letter from CrapQuest stating they did not require a Letter of Assignment, statement just a total on a pice of paper" Can you clarify? I would imagine CQ have soemsort of formal arrangement with VF to handle debt. Would they necessarily need an individual letter for each account? Presumably it could be done in bulk so they would still have permission from VF even if they didn't have an actual invidiual letter.

Most enforcement is likely to be done by the OFT by way of the Debt Collection Guidance because it is more specific than the CPUT and it is less faff taking a prosecution when the OFT have the power to hand out large fines (which is probably what they would get in a criminal prosecution - unless they were seriously bad). Under the CPUTs there must be an effect on the transactional decision (and term not heavily defined just yet as there is not much case law). But if you take an exmaple, a company writes to a debtor about a SB debt but the debtor reads an online forum and is advised to ignore them. Has any offence been comitted? I would very much doubt it because there probably hasn't been any major effect of the trasnactional decision - not one to prosecute on IMO anyway. Therefore the advice to ignore DCA in many situations is counter producitve to enforcement. Its also worth pointing out from a harassment point of view, which is a common theme I have been reading about on here, that if someone just ignores a DCAs calls and letters it is difficult to see how you can argue harassment and an affect of the transactional decision. From a Regulators point of view, and it may be mentioned in the DCG, if a DCA makes 10 phone calls to a debtor and the debtor never responds, the DCA could be within their rights to keep calling because until they are told to get lost or speak to the debtor they can keep assuming they havent made contact with the debtor.

To be fair to the OFT they are not lawmakers and for them to tell companies they are not allowed to chase SB debt would most likely be overstepping well outside of their powers. I believe for companies to be totally barred from chasing SB debt there would have to be somesort of change in primary legislation. To the distaste of most on here I imagine - DCAs are legitimate business. Therefore there is no reason why they cannot chase debts even if they are statute barred - I think the Govt will see it that way too. The issue, which is regulated by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, is whether companies are misleading consumers into thinking the company can enforce the debt in a county court when they cannot - and by chasing those debts after they have been told by the consumer that they know the debt is SB - it could amount to harassment or misleading actions. It is arguable that if a company buys a load of statute debt and then sends legal action letters out straight away they have breached the CPUTR2008 before they have even been contacted by the consumer because they would already have known the debt is SB and they could not take the consumer to court (it does all depend on the wording of the letters though).

I have had one experience (although it was someone else, I was just helping them) of the FOS and it ended positivley - they got all their money back in a case where they had been defrauded. It did take circa 6 months though. I think the main issue is that they are overwhelmed by complaints from consumers. It doesn't help that people are often advised to complain for the most spurious reasons and end up clogging the system up. The question is, if the FOS was removed where would the complaint go and does any other organisation have the capacity to deal with them? Its not cheap training people up to know about so many different areas of finance.