- 1Read
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- 4Ruling
Case 7 of 19 · Level 1
Debt collection · a credit card debt
The offer taken back
The file · about 5 minutes
The complaint
The customer fell behind on a credit card, and the card provider handed the account, with around £3,000 owing, to a debt collection firm. The firm offered to settle for £1,800, which the customer could not afford. Expecting a £1,200 insurance payout, the customer rang to ask if that would settle it, and the adviser said yes. The firm then went back on that answer, and the customer wants it to keep its word.
The firm's answer
The firm apologises, but says the adviser got it wrong and £1,200 is not enough to clear the debt. It will not settle for the lower figure.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The first offer
The debt of around £3,000 settled for £1,800.
Exhibit B · The customer's call
Asked whether £1,200 would settle the debt. The adviser said it would, and the call ended there.
Exhibit C · The firm's reply
An apology, but no settlement for £1,200.
The firm's call records
After checking with a manager, the adviser rang the customer back, apologised and corrected the answer, all inside half an hour.
How the mistake happened
The adviser was new to the role and gave the wrong answer.
A written offer to settle for £1,200
Not in the file. No written offer to settle for £1,200 is part of this case.
Uphold the complaint, or side with the firm?
The ruling
Given by the ombudsman
Not upheld
Why
The firm's records showed the mistake was put right within half an hour. Because the firm corrected it so quickly, the ombudsman did not think it fair to make it accept the lower figure. The firm accepted that its mistake had raised the customer's hopes unfairly, and the £150 it offered for that during the investigation was fair.
What the firm had to do
Nothing beyond the £150 the firm had already offered. It did not have to accept £1,200 to settle the debt.
What an adjudicator takes from this. Ask when a mistake was put right, not only whether it happened.
Rewritten in our own words from a case the ombudsman published.
Read the guide: The FOS rejected your complaint. Here's what comes next.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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