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J.W.B. writes: My plant hire business was owed £1,857 by a customer. Guardian Recovery
charged me £300 and told me a year ago it had been an easy collection and it had the
£1,857, but we would have to wait 90 days before it could be handed over.
In May, payment had still not arrived and the debt collectors then said they had to make
‘security checks’. Since then letters have been unanswered and calls have not been
returned. Guardian Recovery is based in Preston and run by Robert Logan. The company
has been operating under ‘interim permission’ from the Financial Conduct Authority.
Previously, it worked under rules set by the Office of Fair Trading, until the watchdog was
closed down in 2014.
I asked Guardian what had gone wrong and the company told me: ‘We began working for
Mr B in January 2017 and the debt we were asked to pursue was recovered in full along
with the additional costs Mr B had to pay for recovery in February 2017. This payment was
forwarded, in line with our terms and conditions, on May 12, 2017.’ The debt collectors told
me there was no record of any contact from you since then. This is odd as you kept detailed
notes. You told me you called Guardian on May 30 and you named the member of staff who
said he would raise the matter with his finance department. You called again later that day
and spoke to a different person who promised to call back within 24 hours, but did not.
On June 1, you spoke to yet another staff member who said he would ‘do an urgent email to
Felicity who deals with finance’ and she would telephone you. She did not.
On June 6, you spoke to one of the people you contacted earlier. This time he said the
delay was due to ‘security checks’ involving a credit agency, though he would give no
details ‘due to confidentiality’. You have given me a copy of a letter you sent to Guardian on
July 6, setting out all of this. I mentioned your letter to Guardian and was told: ‘We have not
got a record of this on file.’ At my request, Guardian checked its bank account and found the
cheque it says it issued last May was not cashed. It has sent you a new cheque for £1,962
and a few days ago you confirmed you had received it.
I was still a bit puzzled over Guardian’s interim status with the regulator. Was the watchdog
having trouble making up its mind about issuing a full licence?
Robert Logan is already known to me. He ran an earlier Preston-based company called
Clear Debt Solutions Limited. This went into liquidation in 2013 and the liquidator is still
working on it.
Final figures are not yet available, but in 2014 the liquidator suggested the company may
have debts of more than half a million pounds. After the liquidation, Logan transferred all the
company’s contracts and customers to his new company, Guardian Recovery.
Logan himself also ran into trouble over Clear Debt Solutions. He was prosecuted for
bombarding homes and businesses with unwanted faxes, even after being warned by the
Information Commissioner’s Office. He pleaded guilty to 13 offences and was ordered to
pay fines and costs totalling £6,274.
Is this perhaps why the regulator hesitated to give Logan’s firm a full licence for so long?
Well, two days ago this became academic. Guardian Recovery’s interim permission lapsed.
It is no longer able to carry out any activity that needs regulatory approval. I am glad you got
your £1,962 first.
I’ve been charged £119 for a £17.79 overdraft G.S. writes: Over the Christmas period I
slipped up and forgot to add funds to my account to cover my TV licence direct debit. I went
into overdraft by £17.79 and I have been charged £119 for the privilege.
By my reckoning, Lloyds would have charged me about 50p. Some difference. Lloyds Bank
now charges 1p per day for every £7 of an overdraft. Santander’s charges are based on a
flat fee of £6 per day. Santander told me: ‘The customer was in an unarranged overdraft
from December 1 to January 8 – a total of 39 days. Our unarranged overdraft fees were
charged at £6 per day and capped at £95 for the month. But as Mr S went into a second
month further fees were applied.’
Ten days ago Santander announced that in July it will remove or reduce unarranged
overdraft fees. Also it now issues free text and email alerts when an account goes into the
red without prior agreement.
It appears the big banks are moving before they are forced to do so. Last year, the Financial
Conduct Authority carried out research into overdraft fees. It described charges as a ‘key
area of concern’. Last Wednesday, it issued a statement saying it ‘remains concerned’. So
worried that it is going to publish a ‘strategic review’ later this year.
Gareth Shaw of consumer body Which? said: ‘It is unacceptable the Financial Conduct
Authority is still dragging its feet on unarranged overdraft fees while consumers continue to
be hit by these unacceptable fees.’