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Major banks have been caught, and now have admitted to, sending fake letters to customers trying to collect on unpaid debts. The lenders have been issuing these notices for years to tens of thousands of individuals in an effort to scare and intimidate them into repaying a wide range of debts, from mortgages to credit card bills or automobile loans.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, and other banks created their own fake debt collection companies or in house legal teams so the letters could not be as easily traced back to them. Some of the names of these companies, and that customers should be aware of, include Triton Credit Services or a solicitor known as Green & Co. By creating these “shadow” companies, this then allowed these lenders to take a more aggressive approach when dealing with customers, and all too many families received these threatening notices and were in fact fearful of repercussions if they did not pay up.

To make this even worse, even after receiving bailouts from the government several years ago, this practice still continued by the major banks. So not only were many of these lenders in effect saved by the central government funds, but they then went ahead and continued to intimidate the general public into repaying debts and they in effect threatened many of the people that paid their hard earned tax dollars to save them.

Some of these lenders, such as Santander and Barclays, have just recently acknowledge they have been doing this, however some of them have been sending letters since the mid 1980s. While there are a few banks that said they have recently stopped the practice, consumers still need to be aware of this practice and should continue to follow it.

They should stay advised not only because these letters may still be sent by some lenders or smaller companies, but also because it could lead to an investigation by Mps and there may be some future action taken on the banks that used this debt collection practice. It would not be surprising if some of these banks are made to pay compensation to recipients, as this is what Wonga had to do in the past when they were caught intimidating their customers.

The lenders or banks that sent collection letters

While the practice has mostly stopped, or should we say at least some of these lenders claim it has, the companies that have acknowledge doing this include HSBC, and they did this under the guide of the fake companies they created which were Metropolitan Collection Services, DG Solicitors, and Central Debt Recovery Unit. Other banks that have been indented by the Treasury Committee as having sent these letters include Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Barclays.

People should also be aware of payday lenders using this what amounts to illegal debt practice. In the not too distant past, Wonga was also caught following a similar practice, and they paid substantial fines to consumers for doing it. So it would not be surprising if there are other payday lenders or loan shark type companies also creating fake companies in an effort to collect from customers, so people should always be aware of any type of collection letter they receive.