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On 24 November 2010 the OFT issued a further notice that outlined their findings and concluded that Carltons was not fit to hold a consumer credit licence and that the Licence was revoked.
The OFT’s reasons for revoking the Licence can be summarised as follows: The “Preliminary Notice” used by Carltons in its debt collection activities did not comply with the Debt Collection Guidance issued by the OFT and Carltons had refused to make it compliant.
Mr Anthony Green of Carltons had misrepresented himself in Carltons’ debt collection activities as being a solicitor and/or a lawyer in order to intimidate consumers in order to obtain payment.
Mr Green was a controller of Carltons and the OFT found him to be disingenuous, intransigent and aggressive and found that “his obstructive approach to regulation is mirrored by his behaviour towards consumers”. The OFT found that Mr. Green’s conduct was directly relevant to Carltons’ fitness.
The Tribunal formed the view that he [Mr Green] either struggled to understand why consumers could not always respond to Carltons in a logical, reasoned and confident manner or feigned a lack of understanding. He regarded a lack of complaints as definitive proof that no consumer detriment had occurred, whilst appearing to reject all examples of complaints as evidence of a misunderstanding of the relative position of creditors and debtors. Mr Green expressed his surprise that Trading Standards had any role in relation to debt collection activities. Carltons saw no need to gain access to sources of advice or information on consumer credit regulation; he would look at the OFT website, perhaps once a year, he said and otherwise read the newspapers.
Carltons did not belong to any trade associations or any other source of guidance or news on consumer credit matters. No legal advice on the legal or regulatory position relating to consumer debt collection had been sought. The Tribunal also noted Mr Green’s poor understanding of the legislation on the use, and publication on stationery, of business names, which had been raised by the OFT in connection with the format of the Preliminary Notice. This was relevant to the OFT’s concern that by omitting any details of the source of the Notice, debtors may be more likely to regard it as a Court or other official form.
Mr Green did not appear to have made any serious attempt to understand or to resolve this concern. Mr Green accepted that Carltons should have a process for resolving disputes and queries over the debt being collected, but felt that his judgement (and that of the only other person who contacted debtors) would see them through. Mr Green mentioned on more than one occasion that consumer credit work is a small part of Carltons’ debt collection work; he estimated it at 2% of the overall business. He was quite clear in stating his belief that Carltons could not operate separate systems for collecting trade and consumer debts within their small business. The response of Mr Green to the Tribunal’s concerns about the capability of Carltons and the standards that Carltons sought to apply in its debt collection work only served to confirm to the Tribunal that their concerns were well founded.
http://www.consumercreditappeals.tri...nsdecision.pdf
the man was clearly a ponce, just seeing it as a business, no regard for "duty of care" or anything else for that matter in terms of the abuse he dished out, as sadly with most of these DCA's its just that...abuse. Ive never seen a "decent" well written letter from any of them, other than the usual rubbish of what will happen to you if you dont pay...
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