Consumer Credit Act 2006 - Financial Ombudsman can deal with Debt Collector Disputes

[ihatedebtcollectors]

Do you all know that you can now lodge a complaint/dispute about debt collectors with the Financial Ombudsman?

 

 

Taken from their site at:-

FAQs - consumer credit complaints

 

From 6 April 2007 all businesses with a standard consumer-credit licence (issued by the Office of Fair Trading) must – by law – have in place formal complaints-handling procedures that comply with the rules. And for the first time, these businesses will also be covered, on a statutory basis, by the Financial Ombudsman Service. These changes come about as a result of new legislation – the Consumer Credit Act 2006.

The businesses affected by the new rules include:

• businesses whose main activity is lending and hiring
  
• businesses licenced for ancillary consumer-credit activities, such as debt collecting and credit brokerage and

I read it costs the company concerned £200 - £400 for each case that goes to the Ombudsman. :-P

 

If lots of people start sending their cases there then they should be whipped into shape!

[blipvert]

mmm. interesting. Can one just go straight to the ombudsman ?. I have some recordings, I'd love to go 'straight to the top' and ask the question: Please confirm this conversation complies with OFT/CPUTR guidelines.

 

These recordings have been indepentantly verified as 'being off the scale' regarding the guidelines.

[surprise]

You have to have your complaint dealt with by the relevant organisation and have a final decision from them before going to the FOS. However, if the company concerned will not respond and you cannot get a reply from them then you can go to the FOS.

[42man]

If it gets to the stage where the company you are complaining to/about and they give a final response and you still aren't happy then if you can't prosecute them for something they have done wrong (for harrassment for example) then go straight to the FOS !!!

[JP08]

Good luck! my experience was a complete waste of time, it took 8 months to get my case even looked at and then I was just told that they had accepted that the DCA was sorry and had taken £1,000 off the debt and that was more than they would have awarded me. They also suggested I take the DCA to court if I wanted to take it further this was after a year and a half of escalating to the actual ombudsman (final Descision)

The thing is they did not see any proof of this they just took their word for it. 6 months later and I still have not got that £1,000 off the debt.

 

I don't want to put you off, just letting you know of my experience with them, which got me nowhere

[blipvert]

thanks for the advice. I will give serious consideration to my next move. My current line of thinking is that this stuff is a rich vein for investigative journalism (TV and the press) in particular, how it must prey on the vulnerable.