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Page last updated Wednesday, 10 June 2009
The Office of Fair trading, OFT, has told six debt management businesses and four cold-calling companies to stop using unsolicited and misleading calls to advertise their services or face formal enforcement action.
The action has been taken after the OFT and the Information Commissioner's Office received complaints from consumers that they had been cold-called either without prior consent or despite registering with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). The OFT also found that most of the information given to consumers was potentially misleading or inaccurate, or missed out vital facts about the purpose of the call and the identity of the caller, for example:
The businesses warned today may also have broken the law by pestering individuals who had not given their consent to be called and/or who had registered to the TPS.
Source: oft.gov.uk
Unfortunately there are companies and individuals out there giving the wrong advice - playing on the person's desperation and lack of awareness of their options.
This bad advice can cost people their livelihoods and relationships.
The debt recovery industry needs a complete overhaul with clear guidelines on how often a borrower can be contacted and by what methods. There needs to be strong legislation to penalize those lenders/debt recovery agents that break the guidelines.
What a shame the OFT cannot name the 10 businesses warned about unsolicited cold calling because of disclosure provisions under Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002, as to do so may sort out the problem!
It is very easy to register with the Telephone Preference Service, just click here for more information.
The next big story on UK consumer debt saga will be the way the debt collection industry bullies, intimidates, and often breaks the law to chase consumer debts.
More on how to deal with harassment can be found here.
How to deal with debts that are over six years old can be found here.
Johnathan James (Guest) Friday, 19 June 2009
A free market economy is great until the ruthless come in to cash out of exiting people's misery.
The problem is that they prey on the people that are most vulnerable. Perhaps some of these people deserve it, but otherwise it just seems a bit sick.
For no nonsense advice just submit the short form and Mike or one of his team will get back to you.
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