High-Cost Credit and Debt Management

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Will the Minister confirm that the FCA will ensure that the companies it looks at do not participate in any of the forwarding on of contact details of vulnerable people who comprise the “suckers’ lists” that have been exposed, which deliberately target people who are very vulnerable, often with a degree of impaired mental capacity, who are entrapped because of their situation? Many of these people have failed to untick the box saying that their details can be handed on and therefore inadvertently have complied with the compiling of such lists.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Baroness has put her finger on the problem: many of these so-called cold calls are not cold calls at all. They are called warm calls in that, perhaps inadvertently, people have ticked a box on a website which has enabled that site to contact them at a later date or, even worse, to share their details with other providers. I hope that the FCA can pick up on this as it goes through the authorisation process. As I said in response to the initial Question, the FCA is reviewing the consumer credit rules in relation to cold calling at the moment and I will ensure that it takes on the very valid point that the noble Baroness has just made.