We are writing to you because you are a private company that under the title of ‘financial services’, you carry out purchasing of debt and then pursuing this for profit in a sales fashion.
A quick online investigation reveals that you are of course a debt collection agency, and also exposes some very alarming comments from experiences from members of the public, that have felt threatened and intimidated by your company and its methods. This has presented a tale of woes.
We are fully aware that in existing laws that if you are non-compliant there are various options open to people. They could make a complaint to the trading standards department and consider informing the FCA of your actions. If appropriate they could also take this matter forward as a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and Information Commissioners Office. They could take advice from the support organisations you normally list (as you are required to do) in your letters like Money Advice Service, stepchange or debtline. They could join forces and share details online at the numerous consumer action groups.
However, we don’t believe any of this goes far enough to tackle what we have experienced as being a huge problem. If this behaviour is working within the law, then the law is needing to be changed, and this wrongful low behaviour needs exposing. This has only been compounded by recent events with the global covid pandemic, and we fear organisations like yours could actually thrive in economic hardship and this will drive people to suicide, broken homes, breakdowns, depression and homelessness. We should state and please be absolutely clear.
If you borrow money in good faith and have no means or will to pay it back there should be fair repercussion. That includes ultimate court action if required.
However, for many this is not the case, they had decent intentions before their lives were unexpectedly tuned upside down, and this only further feeds and support’s an industry that profits off the poor and hardship and I intend to tackle this at the highest level. This has to stop!
Profit in Poor (PiP Campaign) Why?
We are sickened to the core to imagine the destruction debt collection agencies cause whilst dressing up their approach as help. I (Tony McCool) have seen and experienced many illegal and immoral forms of contact and communication, and all in order to service huge profit margins and individual vultures interests. Amounts way over and above what a lazy careless lender could easily have negotiated. It’s time for this to change.
Either law needs to change or public pressure should drive change in order to highlight and expose immoral, unethical, sometimes illegal behaviour and extortion of vulnerable people. If the government doesn’t think there is a problem, then I can show only today on Linkedin staff working in the debt collection industry openly trying to purchase loan refused data and calling them “sales leads”. We heard reports of someone desperate as they were being hounded by a collection company for a debt they don't know about, claiming to be related to DWP. Looking at there website they claim to collect for HMRC, DWP and DVLA. Also for Water. delve deeper and this is a private company with two directors. Yes, a private profit driven company collecting and making money from individuals that can't afford to pay for their water! The company has 2 directors and 10 have resigned. This company has Google reviews with horrifying reports and a rating of 1 star. Many people claiming this company are scammers. Claims of bullying a grandad, a disabled person and many saying they genuinely have no idea what the debt relates to. Trust Pilot shows 91% Bad. Users calling them 'despicable company', 'con artist'. Claims they harassed a person in hospital that had a stroke with covid. Many people saying they are claiming debt for Vodafone and government agency's. Do Vodafone support this I wonder? How did this company get Vodafone's debt data? Did they sell it? What I also wonder is why is this the only industry that tolerates and sustains this level of behaviour and customer experience. If you were buying a car and the dealer had 91% bad feedback would you buy it? If a restaurant had 91% bad feedback would you book there? Why then can consumers read such horror in reviews, in a world full of fraud, then rightly refuse to pay and then face prosecution? what other industry company would ever survive like this and be backed up by law? Even worse, the very government that should protect its people seem to be somehow using them? Or at least not acting to stop them.
With Profit in Poor we will interview desperate people who fall victim, and also will publish communication and actions of debt collection agencies and the many private companies associated with the directors. We will also be reaching out to the lenders, banks and financial institutions that have marketing campaigns and straplines claiming to be people led, yet, without consideration are happy to sell off huge amounts of debt at a fraction of its value to rogue collection agencies who use awful techniques to feed off wounded humans. If this is legal, then the law needs to change.
As I have previously described, It is totally acceptable for a lender to recover loans and credit. But equally, it can be argued that a large portion of the customers they have spent years profiting from, deserve better treatment when its proven that things have gone wrong with no blame and control. People can fall into hardship through many genuine unexpected reasons, that don’t commit crime and fight to survive, but they need help.
I (Tony McCools family) am still extremely traumatised by the events and actions of companies like yours, and now I'm in fight back mode, and that includes dealing with people and organisations that seem to want to take advantage of people at their lowest ebb. Like yours.
Passive and directly threatening communication, debt’s you can't even recall make you wonder if life is worthwhile, let alone working day and night. It makes you wonder if suicide could give your family a way out of the sudden poverty. Selling everything you own including treasured family possessions and keepsakes to survive. Organisations like yours seem to thrive of this situation.
Getting support from your ‘clients’ or what I would call, victims, we will utilise calls from you, your staff or representatives including personal visits to interview your staff, so they should be aware that we encourage video recording all communication for public use. Perhaps you are proud of your services and will embrace this because you have high standards, but legally this is perfectly acceptable as you will be made aware. I have other ideas to counter other poor practice including intimidating home visits.
I am inviting your directors to be interviewed also and further details of that is below. Given some of the content online it will maybe be a good opportunity for these directors to explain the ‘positive’ impact it has economically and commercially, and explain the thoughts on the impact their private company has on people’s lives. The websites of some of these companies, like yours certainly promotes somehow making lives better, which we believe is hugely misleading.
Clear point: All actions/communications will be recorded.
Any threats of shaming, public humiliation etc are pointless and will only help with our campaign as we have nothing to hide. You can’t break people when they have already been broken. We would ask all people in this situation to tell your staff they are recording to go ahead and do that for self protection and public reporting.
Personally, I (Tony McCool) would rather be homeless than have a business profiting from peoples lowest points in their lives. Then deploying potential illegal and bullying tactics (certainly lacks a moral compass) that no doubt have a deep psychological effect and potential suicide results. Scott Tucker the American billionaire did the same and is now in jail after finally picking on the wrong person who wouldn't just roll over. I hope your directors and executives sleep well at night and enjoy the fruits of their innovative ‘hard work’. Hopefully, they have always stuck to the rules and intend to do so moving forward. One GDPR slip for example could see wealthy companies come crashing down and even worse when wealth is obtained unethically, immorally, and perhaps even illegally as criminal investigations start coming into play. This was when Scott Tucker had his door rattled, only by law enforcement that lawfully handcuff people. Not some sales commissioned bully.
Our Targets and Goals
We want to help people in trouble who are bullied by Debt collection agencies and feel helpless. They are not all bad people or crooks.
· We want to expose organisations that do not follow rules, regulations, or guidelines.
· We will create a national campaign including N.Ireland and Scotland to be replicated in hard up areas, with a view to crippling companies that target the poor for rich unrealistic profits. Arguably the lowest form of commercial enterprise.
· We will find people like me, that are willing to act within the law and do the same. Find and canvass your victims and try to reach out and supply them with the right guidance they need.
· We want to prevent stress, worry, self-harm and suicide. You and your industry must be rife with affecting this. Poor people that could not see any light. If we save one person it’s worth our energy.
· To bring in new laws to force banks and lenders to take more responsibility. To look deeper into working out and distinguishing who has genuine unexpected hardship and those that simply just don’t want to pay back on an agreement and cheat.
o To stop allowing debts to be sold around and traded at such low amounts for unscrupulous companies to then jump on it for huge profit margins. It should be a criminal offence. There has to be a better middle ground and we intend on finding it.
o Utilities, taxes etc do have to be paid, some will avoid it. I accept a reasonable collection process needs to happen and on occasion enforcement. However, Ltd company shareholders, fat cats living off extreme profits, unfairly administered because banks and lenders can’t be bothered to take responsibility is unacceptable. We will campaign for law change with MP’s, press and in social media.
o We want owners of ‘finance’ companies that profit from the poor as a side-line to their business, that also works for corporations to be negatively affected and pressured by their bigger and more influential customers. There are some legitimate finance recovery companies, but I want to ensure that you cannot then also prop up your business bullying vulnerable consumers with bad practice and moral irresponsibility.
o To put pressure on the banks to choose better methods and routes to solve debt problems, and challenge them to practice what their strapline promotes. Using social media to promote bad practice and cut the supply line off to rogue debt collectors starving them of this evil profit.
To give you a fair opportunity I am giving you guidance here on what will be asked when we interview you or your staff. I want many people to do the same and then post them on the social media channels that I am creating. Field agents will lose commissions and maybe their jobs, sorry but we think they should get a better sales job, one that isn’t so cruel to desperate vulnerable people.
Questions for your staff
· Is it concerning to know that many staff have made public criticism of the ethics and standards employers in this industry deploy? Also how it treats its own staff?
· Do you get any personal fulfilment from your job? Or is it purely commission at all costs?
· Of all the unskilled jobs available, does this choice make you feel good?
· Are your parents, your children proud?
· Do you enjoy a sense of power when you see fear and vulnerability?
· Do you ever think about the situation and devastation you are participating in?
· Have you considered that many commit suicide due to financial worries, made worse and exacerbated by companies like yours?
· Do you find people to be easily tricked into buying into misleading approaches?
· Are there particular groups that make easier targets? Older people? Single parents? Sick and vulnerable?
· Are there particular areas you visit where you get more success? Certain housing estates /demographics?
· Do you worry that one day this could be you?
· Are you happy to be in an industry set to gain huge new income opportunity as a result of the global pandemic? Where over 155,000 people died and genuine industry was crippled.
Questions for Senior Management and Directors
· Do you see yourselves as innovators? Entrepreneurial? Providing a service to society?
· We read reports of spoofing calls, using fake phone numbers. Is this a tactic you deploy?
· We have read reports of companies sending fake parcel delivery calling cards, is this something you do or have ever done?
· We have experienced companies using staff dressed up as healthcare professionals knocking on doors and leaving calling cards referring to covid health support or concerns, do you do this?
· Do you try to mask online perception of your business with multiple accounts in trust pilot and fake feedback?
· Does it bother you reading google reviews calling your business a scam, scum, reports of harassing elderly people, disabled people, in many cases for debts they don’t owe.
· Do you buy state owned debt? i.e. HMRC, DWP, DVLA.
· Do you pretend to customers that you are logging into their account by asking for DOB to sound formal, which is a lie?
· Do you use deliberate passive aggressive language in your communications?
· Do you deliberately target vulnerable people, sick or elderly?
· Are these details stored in your data?
· Do you offer to disclose to ‘clients’ (victims) the details of the data you hold and all its history?
· Do certain demographics give you a higher yield of success? Do you target accordingly?
· On a personal note, do you hope to get rich in your business? Has this line of work already accumulated considerable wealth? Do you have financial worries?
· Or is there another motivation? Some satisfaction/fulfilment?
· Do you have any personal ethical challenges in your mind about the methods?
· Do you worry about fate placing you in a similar situation?
· Do you see people as just names on a spreadsheet report with a profit potential column and not a real person?
· Do you train your staff to think this way?
· Why in companies like this do so many directors leave? Many have resigned in these businesses. Should we approach them to ask why? Were they feeling guilty?
· There are many company names associated with directors like you. Are the names created to sound intimidating or legal or create fear? Sound more legal than they actually are?
· What is the residential location of the directors of these businesses like yours? They are typically not far from poverty areas. Sometimes the route to the office takes in poverty areas. Do they locate here on purpose? Like Hyenas following the lions (banks) to feed off their scraps? Do you drive past these areas and view it as hunting grounds?
· Do you see these residents as more weak, vulnerable and perhaps more desperate, and therefore easier targets?
· When you migrate back to the suburbs do you boast wealth as an industry leader? Does your circle of personal associates understand the brutal heartache you impose on people in order to service your perceived genius? Or What we would call greed.
· Do you train your staff to try and intimidate members of the public?
· Do you train staff to use misleading tactics?
· Are you comfortable with the huge profit margins you make from the poorest people?
· Do you believe that’s innovative business and sales skill?
· Are you a proud company director? Are your families proud?
· Do you think its ethical to buy a debt for a small fraction of its value and then hike interest to perhaps double and more its original value?
· Is the business model to target the poorest as they have the least chance of good legal advice and are therefore more easily misled?
· Do you feel satisfied that you will be enjoying increased profits on the back of an international disaster with huge job losses and people losing loved ones?
· Can you provide us some maths? What is your average profit margin per person?
· How are salespeople paid and targeted?
· What is your salary and average dividend?
· Have all your businesses been a success?
· Have you ever suffered hardship?
· Have you ever had debtors commit suicide to your knowledge?
· Are you comfortable that your business performs legally all the time?
· Are you comfortable that your business performs ethically, all the time?
· Has your business ever been part of any industry or governance investigation?
· Are you CRB cleared? Are you all model lawful citizens?
· What skills, training and qualifications are required to work for your organisation to be talking to the public?
· Are all your staff CRB cleared? Do you monitor their behaviour?
I hope by giving you the comprehensive content of our current questions, that it helps you to be prepared for a meeting and video interview. Perhaps you will help us to understand the good you do (employment) that counters the destruction that underpins it.
We look forward to hearing from you, and sincerely hope you participate. If you don’t, we will be contacting you directly and naming directors that allow their companies to carry out these bad practices for their own personal financial gain.
Email us your response info@profitinpoor.co.uk
Kind Regards
ProfitinPoor Action Team
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