Long story short I entered into a DMP in March 2012. It was with Harrington Brooks. I paid every month from conception of the plan in full without missing a payment or paying late etc. When letters from my creditors (6 credit card companies) kept coming and phonecalls saying I needed to make payments etc. I chased Harrington Brooks and was repeatedly fobbed off with a variety of excuses. Two of my debts were sold on to Aktiv Kapital (who have been very helpful in helping me to ascertain exactly what has been happening) another was passed into the management of Mercers (Barclaycard's in house company I believe). After much investigating into what was happening I discovered, to my horror that Harrington Brooks had failed to make payments as agreed with my creditors. That's not to say they didn't may ANY payments - they did - but in most instances they were less than the agreed amount and were not made within agreed timescales. So some of my creditors received nothing for weeks on end and then received a token gesture payment. Occasionally they were paid more than the agreed amount - but only after weeks of non-payment into the plan. When I found out what was happening I binned off Harrington Brooks and dealt with my creditors directly myself. Some of them will not now allow me to set up a "formal" arrangment because for the last 12 - 18 months in their eyes I have not stuck to previous agreed formal arrangments. One in particular has said that I will not now be able to set up such an agreement with them for the next 5 years. My credit rating rather than improving has deteriorated because of Harrington Brooks mis-management. As a result of all of the above I wrote to Harrington Brooks concerned making a formal complaint. They admitted they had made mistakes and offered me £150 ex gratia payment as a gesture of goodwill. I declined this and took my complaint to the financial ombudsman. An adjudicator from their service found in my favour and advised that Harrington Brooks should pay me over £3k which they have calculated to include interest and charges added to my debts, amount paid into my plan by me less the amount paid out to my creditors from the plan, a nominal amount for "distress and inconvenience suffered". It was recommended that this be settled by the third week in March. The deadline came and went and Harrington Brooks asked for - and were given - an extension in order to complete their investigations. Harrington Brooks complained that they were not able to check the facts given because I have now revoked their authority to deal with my creditors. The information given was backed up by the information the adjuicator had accumulated during her enquiries - supported by documentary evidence provided by the credit card companies and Aktiv Kaptial and Mercers. The second deadline has now passed and the FOS adjudicator is trying to contact the case handler at Harrington Brooks but that person is "unavailable". A colleague has said that they will look at my case if they can. Meanwhile the deadline has been extended again to the end of this week. I am informed that if Harrington Brooks do not agree with the adjudicators recommendations that I have the option to have my case put in front of the Ombudsman but that can take months and months - currently 6 - 9 months. So my questions (sorry for the long post!) are these: What are the alternatives to the Ombudsman? Are there any legal firms who specialise in taking on such cases? I keep reading about the "Ministry of Justice" - who are they are should I be making them aware of my case? If I did what juristriction (if any) do they have? Does the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards have any juristiction over Harrington Brooks? The FOS adjudicator has said that the Financial Conduct Authority regulates the industry - does anyone know how to go about raising an official complaint with them to have this company investigated? Since this happened to me I have googled about Harrington Brooks and found that I am not alone. There are lots and lots of other people who have had this happen to them, one of whom ended up receiving a CCJ because Harrington Brooks had not made a single payment to her creditor whilst telling her that it was all in hand. So, given that I am not an unfortunate isolated incident, how do I/we take action to see that Harrington Brooks is either prevented from trading in this way again and/or has it's licence revoked? Harrington Brooks has several different trading names and I have found a not insignificant number of threads complaining about them on this group. I have also noticed that the trend of those complaining is to pay Harrington Brooks in good faith and when the letters and phonecalls from their creditors don't stop to discover eventually - usually after 6 months or longer - that Harrington Brooks has been making no or very little payments. At this point they sack them and make other arrangements. Very few of the people affected seem to have been successful in obtaining a refund of their monies paid to Harrington Brooks whether or not they were passed on. in effect Harrington Brooks is lining their nest from this very nicely and getting away with it. How can we call a halt to this? It's scandalous and in my view nothing short of both theft and fraud.

I have joined this site to share my experience of these companies for the good of all. In January of this year i recieved a call from Fresh Start Financial asking if im in debt and needed help, i replied yes. The phone call lasted about an hour, in which time i told him all my creditors and incomings and set up a debt management plan. It was explained that the first few hundred would go to set up costs, then after that, the money would be shared out amongst creditors. After a couple of weeks of paying i hadnt heard anything from them to confirm if my creditors had agreed to the plan, so i tried to call them, it took days before someone answered, i was told ill get confirmation after i had finished paying the fee, so i carried on paying, with no contact from them, nothing in writing, no calls, nothing. 4 weeks ago i noticed that they took one payment out by card under the name fresh start then another payment in the same week by direct debit under the name harrington brooks, they continued to do this up until this week, taking over double the amount i agreed to, even though ive been complaining about it since week 2 of the blunder. after spending along time on the phone with various people who kept telling me they would phone me back i was getting disturbing mixed messages, the set up fee changed depending on who i was talking to, some people said agreements had been made with the creditors, others said contact with the creditors would be made when the set up fee was paid, i pointed out that it had now been paid, funnily enough they said they would call me back. today, after speaking to my creditors and finding that theyve had no contact from fresh finance, i decided to cancel and get my money back, guess what, they said they ll phone me back. ive spent all day on the phone chasing them, before finall speaking to a verey rude and argumentative employee who said i wont get my money back cause they ve spent alot of effort setting up the plan, i pointed out that actually they hadnt set up anything, to which there was no answer, when i mentioned complainning she was delighted in telling me they had 8 weeks to respond to a complaint. so now i want to warn the world, stay away from this company, that hides behind many names.

Hi there, I was very lucky to be able to cancel my debt management at the start of this Month. I left Harrington Brooks and sent them a Letter & Email telling them why, and also asking them to distribute the last payment debited on 30th February 2011 as previously arranged. Surprisingly, they have not done this, and by the looks of it, keep the whole last payment of £200! Is there anything I can do about this?! Any advice would be very much appreciated! Thanks in advance! Amy_J_x

Hi, I have been with Harrington Brooks Debt Management for Approxiamtly 18 months. I am now in a position to pay off all of my creditors and cancel my debt management!!! They took a payment from me yesterday (1st March 2011). I have checked their Terms & Conditions and all I have to do is give them notice in writing. I however want to make sure they still distribute the payment they took yesterday as previously arranged. I would also like no further correspondence from their company. Could anyone please help me out with a letter template or what I should say....? Thanks in advance, Amy_J_x PS: For anyone wondering... DO NOT enter a debt management plan... not with Harrington Brooks anyway! I ended up in worse debt than when I started! Even 18 Months on!!