Wonga chased debt with fake lawyers, says FCA

[Bald Bouncer]

Payday lender Wonga must pay £2.6m in compensation after sending letters from non-existent law firms to customers in arrears.

The letters threatened legal action, but the law firms were false. In some cases Wonga added fees for these letters to customers' accounts.

The City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, said 45,000 customers would be compensated.

Wonga has apologised and said the tactic ended four years ago.

An investigation found that Wonga sent letters to customers from fake law firms called "Chainey, D'Amato & Shannon" and "Barker and Lowe Legal Recoveries".

The plan was to make customers in arrears believe that their outstanding debt had been passed to a law firm, with legal action threatened if the debt was not paid.

"Wonga's misconduct was very serious because it had the effect of exacerbating an already difficult situation for customers in arrears," said Clive Adamson, director of supervision at the FCA.

"The FCA expects firms to pay particular attention to fair treatment of those who have difficulty in meeting their loan repayments."

The situation occurred between October 2008 and November 2010, and involved Wonga and other companies within its group.

Source: BBC News

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Tiny fine in the scale of the company and what the fuck is it with big business being able to buy away criminal acts, why the fuck are the police not involved and people being charged at this company this is a criminal act.

[reverend]

They're all as bent as f*ck anyway - I thought it was common practice that all folks like them had their own law arm under random important sounding names?

[Bald Bouncer]

The Fraud Act 2006

Fraud by false representation (Section 2)

• made a false representation
• dishonestly
• knowing that the representation was or might be untrue or misleading
• with intent to make a gain for himself or another, to cause loss to another or to expose another to risk of loss.
• The offence is entirely focused on the conduct of the defendant.

[JonEp]

Its also a criminal offence to pretend to be a Solicitor if your not qualified.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[BertRoot]

Thieving cunts.

[Bald Bouncer]

Its also a criminal offence to pretend to be a Solicitor if your not qualified.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 offences they should have been charged with, seems like more and more any of the public break a law they end up in court yet any big business or corporation breaks the law they are allowed to negotiate a pay off and this goes against the whole foundation of law it's shameful and shameful the people we elected to protect the people sit back and allow this to happen.

[Realist]

Yep taking the piss if you ask me.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 offences they should have been charged with, seems like more and more any of the public break a law they end up in court yet any big business or corporation breaks the law they are allowed to negotiate a pay off and this goes against the whole foundation of law it's shameful and shameful the people we elected to protect the people sit back and allow this to happen.