MSE News: NatWest and Halifax caught sending misleading debt demands

matttye

bigadaj wrote: »

So you'd want to be taken to court by a different company presumably?

No, I just don't see why they can't write to debtors as themselves.

Why hide under a different company name?

redpete

matttye wrote: »

No, I just don't see why they can't write to debtors as themselves.

Why hide under a different company name?

Maybe because they've found it is effective with some defaulters.

matttye

redpete wrote: »

Maybe because they've found it is effective with some defaulters.

I'm sure it would be effective with some defaulters if they wrote saying that they had 7 days to pay up before someone came round to break their kneecaps but that doesn't make it okay.

jonesMUFCforever

If you disregard the name on the top of these letters they all have the same legal wording as if it had come from Joe Bloggs solicitors - exactly the same!
This is just lazy journalism looking for some news in the silly summer months when everyone is either on holiday or watching the sport.

rizla_king

redpete wrote: »

Maybe because they've found it is effective with some defaulters.

Doesn't make it OK to use deceptive methods though, or methods that many people may quite understandably misconstrue.

The very obvious intent of these letters is to make people think matters have been escalated further than they have been and that legal action is imminent when it may not actually be so.

Blair Oliver and Scott for example never took anyone to court under that firms name. so claiming that their client had instructed them to start court proceedings and they were preparing papers is an out and out lie.

bigadaj

rizla_king wrote: »

Doesn't make it OK to use deceptive methods though, or methods that many people may quite understandably misconstrue.

The very obvious intent of these letters is to make people think matters have been escalated further than they have been and that legal action is imminent when it may not actually be so.

Blair Oliver and Scott for example never took anyone to court under that firms name. so claiming that their client had instructed them to start court proceedings and they were preparing papers is an out and out lie.

Of course, and it's perfectly ok to borrow money and then not pay it back, by your interpretation that's sounding a little like theft I would have thought.

rizla_king

bigadaj wrote: »

Of course, and it's perfectly ok to borrow money and then not pay it back, by your interpretation that's sounding a little like theft I would have thought.

Who said that?

It's just not OK to use recovery methods that may be misleading to the average consumer that is all.

matttye

bigadaj wrote: »

Of course, and it's perfectly ok to borrow money and then not pay it back, by your interpretation that's sounding a little like theft I would have thought.

It would only be anything like theft if you had no intention of paying it back at the time you spent it.

Nobody has said that though. Just that these companies have a duty of care to act in an open and professional manner.

As I said in this or another thread, it would be like my coming up to your house and declaring that I work for one firm, but wearing a name tag down near my waist (where you're unlikely to look) declaring that I work for another. It's misleading.

methecooldude

The Student Loans Company do this as well, I have an owed debt with them and they sent me a letter from "Smith Lawson & Company" (yea, ya think), even says at the bottom of it "Smith Lawson & Company is a trading name of the Student Loans Company Limited"... Right...

danthemoneysavingman

If ppl with trouble paying back their debt they apparently have/had every intention of paying back but now can't (for whatever reason) were to get in touch with the bank to explain and negotiate a new repayment scheme, the need for such letters would be avoided altogether. Maybe