email to FCA

From: JOHNSON, Jo <jo.johnson.mp@parliament.uk>
Date: 8 April 2014 at 11:47
Subject: RE: Consumer credit and consumers in vulnerable circumstances
To: “ben.tomeo

Dear Mr Tomeo,

Thank you for sending Jo a copy of your email to the Financial Conduct Authority.

He has read your comments with interest.

Kind regards,


Dan Arenson
Office of Jo Johnson MP
House of Commons, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 0207 219 4075
www.jo-johnson.com <http://www.jo-johnson.com/>
<http://twitter.com/#!/JoJohnsonMP>


From: Ben Tomeo [
Sent: 01 April 2014 10:33
To: consumer.queries@fca.org.uk
Cc: Jo Welsh; JOHNSON, Jo
Subject: Consumer credit and consumers in vulnerable circumstances

Sir/Madam,

The FCA has released details of a study into the consumer credit market (Consumer credit and consumers in vulnerable circumstances <http://fca.org.uk/your-fca/documents/research-papers/consumer-credit-consumers-vulnerable-circumstances> ). In relation to this can you please tell me if the FCA is aware of the massive fraud perpetrated against vulnerable consumers who had defaulted on their consumer credit agreements, as outlined here:

HSBC/Restons/Weightmans Fraud <http://nicholaswilson.com/>

I recently wrote to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to ask why they have failed to take any regulatory action against the solicitors who – for years – added illegal charges onto the accounts of indebted individuals before taking any steps to recover money owed to HSBC subsidiary HFC. The Director of Supervision at the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Mike Haley, responded to me and his comments can be read in the attached .pdf.

There is no question the relevant charges that were added on to indebted consumers’ accounts were in breach of consumer credit/debt recovery guidelines as clearly shown here:

OFT order against HFC Bank <http://nicholaswilson.com/the-office-of-fair-trading/order-against-hfc-bank/>

There is no question that this practice continued at least until the OFT ordered HFC to stop the practice.

All regulatory bodies up until now have not only turned a blind eye to this massive fraud, they have actively sought to discredit any person who brings the fraud to their attention. Will the FCA now take its responsibilities seriously and properly investigate this fraud and initiate a process that will lead to appropriate regulatory action being taken against the perpetrators of the fraud and a process that will result in compensation for the ‘consumers in vulnerable circumstances’ who were defrauded?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Ben Tomeo