Debt Collectors - Bank 'Pretenders'

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to state that only the original creditor can place a negative marker on your credit file.

Debt collecting agencies without properly assigned debts have been marking debtors credit files and changing the date of the debt to the date they purchased the debt, defying the Statute of Limitations

- Click the link above to sign the petition.

Outlaw Debt Sale and Purchase

Here's the text of the petition. Click on the title (above) to sign it.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Outlaw Debt Sale and Purchase.

Most debt collection is now being undertaken post sale of debt. The original creditor has ceased to be a ‘client’. People are now transactions, a name and an amount.

Debt purchase is speculation. Peoples’ lives are being traded like junk in a car boot sale. These speculators then take a gamble on enforcing ‘debts’ that they paid a pittance for. Money is their engine. I am a writer with personal and professional interest in the care of the mentally ill. I have seen and experienced first-hand the methods employed by debt collection agencies and am well aware of their tactics. In my opinion (and my own experience) they are driving people to suicide. Such speculation and inhuman contempt for the welfare of others has no place in civilised society.

Downing Street Petition

Petition to Outlaw Debt Sale and Purchase

OFT Announcement - Read This!!

From here

Office of Fair Trading
Tuesday 7 April 2009 09:30
Office of Fair Trading (National)

OFT consults on financial services strategy review of unsecured consumer credit market announced

The OFT has launched a consultation on its proposed financial services strategy which sets out its approach to the sector in response to the current economic crisis. The OFT is asking interested parties to comment on its proposal to focus on two inter-related themes:

* The prioritisation, in the short term, of promoting fairness and responsibility between the credit industry and consumers, and

* advocating choice and competition to ensure that public decisions made to deal with the current crisis do not harm competition in the long term to the detriment of consumers.

The strategy also announces that the OFT is to conduct a review of the unsecured credit market. The financial crisis has led to significant changes in this market and the review will focus on the fair treatment of consumers and on ensuring that this key driver of economic growth works effectively.

John Fingleton, Chief Executive, said:

'Much of our work is already aligned with the needs of consumers, business and the economy in the current crisis but this strategy will sharpen our financial services focus over the coming year.

'With our focus on credit, we are addressing the area in which there is a real risk of short-term consumer harm while also ensuring that the sector that emerges from the current crisis is competitive and behaves fairly and responsibly towards consumers. 'Looking further forward, the financial services sector that emerges should be characterised both by effective prudential regulation and open markets. Choice and competition involving existing players and new entrants are vital to delivering growth, prosperity and a good deal for consumers. There is a risk that this could be overlooked in the re-design of financial regulations, with high costs for consumers and the economy.'

The consultation will run until 12 June 2009. A final Financial Services Plan, taking account of consultation responses, will be published in July 2009.

NOTES

1. The Financial Services Strategy consultation document can be found online at: http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/resource_base/consultations/current/financial-services/.

2. The strategy was first announced in the Pre-Budget Report in November 2008 (available on HM Treasury's website at http://hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pbr08_chapter3_190.pdf). This stated that the OFT would set out a specific Financial Services Plan, detailing how the OFT would build on its strong track record of tackling anti-competitive behaviour and consumer detriment.

3. Details of the proposed unsecured credit review can be found at http://www.oft.gov.uk/oft_at_work/markets/services/credit-sector/. The OFT is seeking the views of stakeholders on its scope by 8 May 2009 with the intention of formally launching the review in the summer.

http://www.oft.gov.uk

PUBLIC enquiries: 0845 7224499 enquiries@oft.gov.uk
OFT reports and consumer information leaflets are available free from:
OFT, PO Box 366, Hayes UB3 1XB 0800 389 3158 oft@ecgroup.co.uk

Spot the Difference!

Credit Services Association:

CSA Meets with Key Ministers
Date: 30-03-2009
Leading figures from across the UK met with a number of key ministers and MPs to discuss the issues facing the credit industry.

The results were very constructive, with a raft of media coverage helping to ensure real differences would be made in the way credit works within the UK.

Topics discussed included the proposed eradication of the edited electoral roll, the sending of notices to the former addresses of known ‘gone aways’, and ways to ensure ever greater levels of compliance within the industry.

All three of the main political parties brought forward good suggestions, which will form part of ongoing consultation and co-operation with the industry.

The delegation of credit industry representatives was championed by the CSA and met with three key politicians:

Gareth Thomas MP
Labour
Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and for International Development

John Thurso MP
Liberal Democrat
Shadow Secretary of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Eleanor Laing MP
Conservative
Shadow Minister for Justice

Whilst discussions are still ongoing, the representatives of the credit industry are optimistic that their concerns have been duly noted and have every confidence that they will be taken forward accordingly.

Tessera Website, February 2009 (saw it weeks ago):

NEWS...

CSA Meets with Key Ministers

Leading figures from across the UK met with a number of key ministers and MPs to discuss the issues facing the credit industry.

The results were very constructive, with a raft of media coverage helping to ensure real differences would be made in the way credit works within the UK.

Topics discussed included the proposed eradication of the edited electoral roll, the sending of notices to the former addresses of known ‘gone aways’, and ways to ensure ever greater levels of compliance within the industry.

All three of the main political parties brought forward good suggestions, which will form part of ongoing consultation and co-operation with the industry.

The delegation of credit industry representatives was championed by the CSA and met with three key politicians:

Gareth Thomas MP
Labour
Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and for International Development

John Thurso MP
Liberal Democrat
Shadow Secretary of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Eleanor Laing MP
Conservative
Shadow Minister for Justice

Whilst discussions are still ongoing, the representatives of the credit industry are optimistic that their concerns have been duly noted and have every confidence that they will be taken forward accordingly.

Why would the CSA present an old news story as current?
Clue - Chap in the middle of the trio.
Curiouser and curiouser, said Ali(son)...

OFT on YouTube - Please watch

The OFT have made a series of videos about Scams... Essential viewing. HERE.
Please tell everyone you know.

In case anyone wonders...

whether debt collection is 'much maligned',
Listen to You and Yours here
and remember Beryl Brazier.

Sunday Times claims to expose corrupting Experian

click the link above

The Sunday Times exposes Experian corrupting our legislative process. It seems they paid a bent peer who agreed to amend legislation in the company’s favour.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn claimed he had changed the law to help his client Experian, the credit check company. Taylor told the reporters: “I will work within the rules, but the rules are meant to be bent sometimes.” The other peers who agreed to assist our reporters for a fee were Lord Moonie, a former defence minister, and Lord Snape, a former Labour whip.

The disclosure that peers are “for hire” to help change legislation confirms persistent rumours in Westminster that lobbyists are targeting the Lords rather than the Commons, where MPs are under greater scrutiny.

Well I damn well hope my councils - Waverley and Surrey - aren’t spending my excessive council tax on these data rapists. Experian has a “Mosaic” view of the world which involves grabbing as much data as possible and then crudely lumping people into blocks, rather like a fly looking at the world through compound eyes. The danger is they flog this to Whitehall departments and local authorities which rely on this computerised kaleidoscope to make decisions that affect people’s lives. But if they’re really going to look at people’s lives they have to accept the realities and complexities this entails, and do it in a human and responsible way. Or they might reconsider the possibility, now univerally overlooked, of not prying into people’s lives in the first place.

* Posted by William Heath on 25/01/09 at 1:19pm

UK Government Is Experian

click the link above

January 25, 2009

Posted by: Glyn Moody

William Heath on the Experian scandal:

Experian has a “Mosaic” view of the world which involves grabbing as much data as possible and then crudely lumping people into blocks, rather like a fly looking at the world through compound eyes. The danger is they flog this to Whitehall departments and local authorities which rely on this computerised kaleidoscope to make decisions that affect people’s lives.

It's actually worse than that. The "mosaic" view is already deeply embedded within the UK government's mindset: that's why they keep on setting up these huge, unworkable database projects, and then propose linking them together.

It's not a matter of Labour peers allegedly being corrupted by Experian; the problem is that the UK government has gradually become Experian.

Posted by Glyn Moody at 3:02 PM

Can we all see it now?

Banks are not institutions, not guided by morals and common sense.
They are wretched beasts indeed. I don't mean that sympathetically. Wretched has quite a few definitions, but here I mean 'wretched' as in 'morally reprehensible'.
Is our entire economy based on what they did?
Did you see the show, folks? Did you watch the spectacle?
Those poor little beggar boys asking for billion pound handouts from the Government, turning into the greedy slavering monsters they always were, stomping their petulent feet as they clutched the cash:
"No! You can't have it! It's ours, all ours!!!"
Ack.

These are astonishing times.
But at least we can see these fine-sounding 'institutions' for what they are.
They're like great ships, sinking.
The last bit to sink is the name.
CAG are still going, and many others. I should be doing more, but I'm writing letters in my sleep, and that's not healthy :)

Lovely Katie at www.LadiesintheRed.co.uk still cheers me up, and some great insights into debt collection are to be had at www.coveritup.co.uk.
Keep the faith :) xx