Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k custs

[PAWS]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

Anyone seen this in the Times?
£203,000,000,000,000 -That’s how much Wonga would have to pay overcharged customers if it applied its own interest rates to compensation.
Wonder if Wonga used a real solicitor for advice? I can recommend my own: Norfolk & Chance !!!!!!!

[Mr $quanda£ot]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

It's robbery, isn't it? I cannot fathom, after all that has happened in the last ten years or so, how these companies are allowed to operate!

My late grandfather was a prison officer in Finland in the 1950's. Some inmates were there for ripping people off i.e. charging more than 15% interest!

We urgently need interest rates to be capped at, say, 50%. Wonga and others wouldn't like it but this practice of ripping of the most vulnerable must stop.

[Amethyst]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...129#post446129

Wonga offering to lend money to GobbyOne declared Bankrupt April 2014.

[Amethyst]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

The compensation is a now compensation for the historic ''issue'' so it's £50 compensation for having sent dodgy threatening letters to you between 4 and 6 years ago. Any overcharges is being paid back ( up to £5 per person) and it is that part that is being given the 8% interest.

So really you could only say the £5 should be given the interest rate (which in real terms is around 250% pa rather than the weirdly calculated 5000% odd) so bit less of a headline figure of £5+250%+250%+250% ( £22.50 ) x 45000 which is £1,012,500.

Sorry (I'm probably miscalculating as think the 250% should be on each years rather than added together, but you get what I mean)

[meellis]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

Listened to Jeremy Vine today and it is apparent how they get away with things, up pops a lot of peoples feelings that people have borrowed too much that they cant afford so they deserve what they get. There were comments about people only got these letters because they were in arrears, Joe Public really doesn't understand what is really going on they just believe the spin. Reading the link from the law gazette makes you realise how the spin works, they are condemning these firms for pretending to be law firms while it is their readership (law professionals) who are making a good living finding the little clauses and details that enable these companies get away with it. Maybe the law firms need to get their morals right and not defend people who have pretended to be them, if these people pretend to be solicitors then they should be left to defend themselves.

[Captain Haddock]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

"We looked at the case 15 months ago and decided most appropriate course was for the regulator (OFT) to continue investigating" -

That was the response from City of London Police re my tweet about investigating Wonga!! I tried to explain to them that Wonga were committing an offence by impersonating solicitors and response came there none!

Funny, that

[EXC]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

Listen from 6 mins in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047c9xm

:jaw:

To FCA:

I wish to make a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

On 25 June 2014 Tracy McDermott stated on BBC Radio 5 Live that FCA did ''not have the power to impose a penalty as a punishment'' on Wonga because ''the misconduct took place before we took over regulation of this sector in April 2014'' which was previously regulated by OFT.

Clearly this raises serious questions as to whether a regulatory black hole exists whereby the Payday Loan sector or indeed any consumer credit sector taken over by FCA can rest assured that it will go unpunished for any misconduct it undertook more than two months ago.

1) Please provide me with the internal advice and briefing notes Tracy McDermott relied upon to make the above statements.

2) Please provide me with the relevant legislation underpinning that advice.

Yours
EXC

[Captain Haddock]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

A crime is a crime, even when it is inspected retrospectively. The FCA have already referred this to the police yet they choose not to investigate, instead citing an investigation 15 months ago! They're aware of recent developments so what's the problem? ?

[meellis]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

The problem is that they know that a lot of the city is up to all different practices like this, its the reason why we are in the mire, but they can't let one be done for it because all the others would have to be done as well. Instead of it bankrupting the country they will try to get some other news out there to divert attention away from it so it disappears.

[Captain Haddock]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

That's probably true. They don't deserve to exist, then.

[Captain Haddock]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

I mean, what do these guys do, with regard to investigating crime when it's right there under their nose? Flip a coin, yay or nay? The only way they can walk the streets and not investigate blatant crime is if they're bent!

Anyone remember the '80s??

[meellis]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

If you called yourself a licensed taxi driver when you weren't you would have the book thrown at you to make an example. They know you haven't got the ways and means to challenge them so it makes it worth their while. Apparently Wonga got away with a lot because of technicalities, these technicalities would have been found for them by a very expensive legal team but what would a legal bill of say £50,000 be if it enabled you to go on and make £85million. It would be classed as good business, forget the morals when you are chasing your next bonus. This attitude as left people with mortgages with underperforming endowments and no way to re-mortgage due to the tightening of mortgage rules. This attitude has left people struggling because they bought products which were designed to relieve you of money with nothing in return. This attitude as led to the country bailing them out for them to just use the funds to balance their books and carry on their fancy lifestyles. This attitude is assisted by the feeling that nobody in power can or will touch them. And this attitude is assisted by the spin out there, that the majority believe, that people have borrowed too much without considering the consequences and not that people have been lent too much with disregard to the ability to service this debt or with the sole purpose of making people fail to then relieve them of anything else they might have. The country fails to move on because instead of dealing with these problems and then helping people make afford their debts they will prefer to let these criminals get away with it and let everybody else struggle until they crash and burn.

[PAWS]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

Meellis, you hit the nail on the head. Anyone who watched Panorama last night (Phone Hacking Scandal) would think they were living in a John Le Carre Novel! This Government / Police /Financial services relationship is no different from the spider’s web highlighted in this programme.

People who owe money to Wonga will have their future blighted by a bad credit rating. They will be harassed and may wind up with long term psychological issues due to stress. Wonga will still be going from strength to strength in six years’ time and few will remember this ‘blip’ in their history. The financial penalties their debtors will pay for defaulting will be proportionately heavier than the punishment meted out to Wongaby the FCA /OFT.
To put it simply Debtors will suffer far more for defaulting than Wonga will for lying, cheating and intimidation. It is therefore less of a crime to break the law than lose your job.
Sickening.uke:

[meellis]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

What is sickening is there are bigger players than Wonga up to these dirty tricks and all you can seem to do is watch it happen. I was one of the majority until bankruptcy and I couldn't believe the things I have had my eyes opened to since. They are concerned about the effect that this has had on people at the moment because it is news and they all want to be seen as caring but they will try and hide it away soon and carry on like nothing as happened.

[PAWS]

Re: Wonga to pay redress for unfair debt collection practices – FCA - £2.6m to 45k cu

Having read genghis231’s post I just want to scream. How is it right for him to be punished and persecuted yet Wonga get to say a weak ‘sorry’and pay so much less than they can afford. How is the current system fair?
Now that Arrow are cosy –cosy with the government we can forget anyone stopping them from waving their grasping fists around.
It’s not as if Wonga will suffer from bad publicity –everyone knew they were rip off crooks but when people are in desperate financial straits and need money for an emergency what choice have they got. Then the Government and smug ‘never a lender nor borrower be’ chanters tell people they should not borrow from these sort of lenders while supporting a system that prevents the most vulnerable from getting emergency funds from anyother source.
And now I am so angry I have to have another ciggie and Wonga will be responsible if I get Emphysema…:smokin:!!!!