Wonga Fined fo using Fake Lawyer letters.

Bantex_2

bazster wrote: »

And pretending to be a solicitor is one of them?

In this case it appears to be.

If you owe someone money, does it really make much difference if a letter comes from the creditor or their solicitor? You still owe the money.

bazster

I see, so pretending to be a solicitor is a relative offence.

Bantex_2

bazster wrote: »

I see, so pretending to be a solicitor is a relative offence.

Relative to what? Not sure what you mean.

Cornucopia

IANAL, but as I understand it the "technicality" here is whether Wonga pretended to be a Solicitor (which is an offence), or a legal firm (which is not).

In reality, many large companies that deal with the public have alter-egos for the purpose of debt collection. (Even TV Licensing is simply a trade mark of the BBC).

It will be interesting to see what angle the Police investigation takes (could be: fake solicitor, fraud, loan sharking, or harassment). Wonga are obviously innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Obviously something can be against the rules of a regulator without being a criminal offence.

bazster

Bantex wrote: »

Relative to what? Not sure what you mean.

Relative to your subjective assessment of the "victim", obviously. By your logic it's fine to break the law so long as the "pretendee" is some riff-raff who owes money.

Why not just send the boys round to kneecap them? After all, GBH is only a "technicality" if the victim is scum, right?

bazster

Just heard on the Beeb, the SRA has asked the Met to investigate. Talking about technicalities such as obtaining money by deception, and blackmail.

Separately the City of London Police is looking again at whether criminal charges should be brought.

esmerobbo

Lets not forget that their excuse for the excessive interest rates is as they claim because they take high risk borrowers and some will fail to pay.

Then when they have some that maybe they should never have lent to in the first place not pay, they break the rules, if not the law to recover the loss, they have already accounted for.

Who is the riff raff?

daveyjp

The Student Loan Company are being looked at for using similarly dodgy tactics.

peter_the_piper

The funny bit is that they are to pay £50 (or somesuch) for not paying. Been cheaper to give them £50 off for paying up.

The_Deep

The whole industry is populated by riff raff Mr E, pay day loan companies, pawnshops, sell us you gold shops, betting shops.

A few years ago I had a quantity of scrap gold to sell, about 200 gm. I took it to one of these scammers, they weighed it and offered me about 30% of spot. I then took it to a bullion dealer, he weighed it, tested it, and, after about an hour, offered me 97% of spot.

Brighthouse is another company that preys on the !!!!less, charging high prices and high interest rates. The problem is that our consumer protection legislation is so weak that they get away with it. With decent consumer protection in place this board would become redundant overnight.