What are my rights with Gregory Pennington?

[parnell]

I recently entered into a debt management plan and was given incorrect information with regards to why I was paying them for a fee. They basically told me that "a charity", would not do what they would do, that they could only make "token" payments to my creditors, that they could not make them agree to an arrangement "formally", and that I basically had no other choice as going with a "charity" would mean that fees and charges could be applied at any time.

I have raised a complaint with them and have requested that I am refunded for every fee I paid them as i have been conned / tricked into staying with them by giving me false information. This is really bad as companies like this are exploiting vulnerable people, people who have creditors at their doors and they are in a state of panic.

I have since learnt that the information they gave me was in fact - false and what they are doing is telling vulnerable and sometimes scared customers a whole bunch of lies to make money out of them - how is this compliant with the FSA and their governing body such as DEMSA or even the financial ombudsman?? Using scare mongering tactics to staying with them and charging them fees?? conveniently they can not find the tape of when i was given this false information in 2009 but they can for the recent time i was told this. So basically it's my word against theirs. I'm just waiting to hear what they are goign to offer me, I've requested for all the fees to be refunded to me as I was lead in under false pretences.

Does anyone know where I can get some help on this? a consumer association perhaps - I've had a look online but can't find anything??

[chay]

Hello, my name is Steve and I work for Gregory Pennington,

Thank you for the post. I’m sorry to read you feel Gregory Pennington gave you incorrect or misleading information. If you have registered a formal complaint with us we will investigate it thoroughly and respond to you in writing. If you are unhappy with our response than you can take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (in fact we will send you a leaflet on how to do this). As you say we are members of DEMSA, so you also have the right to take your complaint to DEMSA who will also investigate.

I also would like to add that we take these matters extremely seriously. All our calls our recorded (I’ve asked the team to revisit why they can’t find your call) and our advisers are spot checked frequently by our Compliance Monitoring team to ensure that the give correct information and appropriate advice.

Thank you

Steven Hewitt
Member of the team at Gregory Pennington

[adin55]

You seem to have figured this lot out but sadly too late for you. My advice to anyone with debt issues: Don't touch any company who charge to handle a debt management plan. You have to ask how and why they do business with people with debt problems (and therefore have no money!) - the answer is usually found in the fact they take all sorts of fees, some of which they don't tell you about up front. The agreements such companies enter into are either informal arrangements which have no legal basis and cannot be enforced or things such as IVA's which more often than not end up with the debtor going bankrupt.

Forget DEMSA - they have no powers and are really just the of the head of the club these companies belong to. Even the OFT have found DEMSA to be inadequate in the way they operate and a report back in 2010 by OFT found many breaches within this industry and that guidelines weren't being adhered to by many companies. DEMSA set out codes of practice for the industry, that's all. Report this matter (if you haven't already) to The Financial Ombudsman, the FSA and the Office of Fair Trading. Also, email the BBC Watchdog programme with your story.

These companies are immoral and only just within the boundary of being legal most of the time. I've worked in the financial and lending world, I've assisted many people who have fallen prey to companies like this who took advantage of their guard being dropped due to the stress of being in debt. They trade under the pretence of helping people when, in reality, they are just waiting to pick the last bit of flesh from the bones.

[devon]

Steven, don't insult our intelligence, you don't take any complaint seriously. You're only interested in screwing a lot of very vulnerable people for as much money as you can get. Can any of you really sleep at night? What goes around, comes around, hope it reaches you and your "team" very soon!