Following their order made against HFC, I made a FoIA request to the Office of Fair Trading asking for details of the “third parties” who had added collection charges to accounts.

I was aware of two firms of solicitors involved but was concerned to know if there were others, if debt recovery agents added charges and what happened to the charges when the accounts were sold to debt purchasing companies, such as Phoenix Recoveries, Link Financial and Arrow Global.

The OFT declined to comply with my request.  They confirmed that they hold the information but that there is an absolute exemption under s44(1)(a) if disclosure is prohibited under another enactment which they say is the Enterprise Act 2002 ss237, 238