Complaints about Amigo Loans

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The FCA (or, if this email originates from the Payment Systems Regulator Limited, the FCA on behalf of the Payment Systems Regulator Limited / the Payment Systems Regulator Limited) reserves the right to monitor all email communications for compliance with legal, regulatory and professional standards.

This email is not intended to nor should it be taken to create any legal relations or contractual relationships. This email has originated from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or the Payment Systems Regulator Limited.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is registered as a limited company in England and Wales No. 1920623. Registered office: 25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS, United Kingdom

The Payment Systems Regulator Limited is registered as a limited company in England and Wales No. 8970864. Registered office: 25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS, United Kingdom

Switchboard 020 7066 1000

Web Site http://www.fca.org.uk (FCA); http://www.psr.org.uk (the Payment Systems Regulator Limited)

Our ref:  FOI5487

Dear Rev Kennard

We refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the
“Act”) for the following information:

“Please can you tell me how many people have complained about Amigo Loans
and what action you have taken to date, and what action you are
considering taking.

Specifically complaints relating to the fact that they (admit to) delay
processing payments they receive by at least one working day, recording
the payment as having arrived at a later date than it did for the purposes
of interest calculations.

Specifically complaints relating to the inability to provide an actual
"settlement figure" that can in fact be used to settle the account with
them, even if paid immediately within minutes by irrevocable clued funds.”

Before considering your request we would like to inform you that the FCA
as an organisation does not process general complaints unless they are
complaints directly against the FCA and meet the requirements of the FCA’s
complaints scheme.  Further information is available on our website
[1]here.  Therefore, any complaint or enquiry that expresses general
dissatisfaction about a firm or individual should be referred to the
Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).  You may find it helpful to visit their
[2]website for more information in this regard.

Your request has now been considered.  However, we consider that to
respond to it in full would exceed the FCA’s statutory cost limit for
complying with freedom of information requests, as contained within the
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004, and so the exemption to disclosure in section 12 of the
Act applies.  For more information as to why this exemption applies,
please refer to the Annex below.

Lastly, the FCA has a policy of not commenting publicly on whether or not
it is investigating a particular firm/individual.  This policy is set out
in the FCA’s [3]Enforcement Guide (EG); see in particular [4]EG 6 on
Publicity.

In the event that the FCA is investigating a particular individual /
entity and formal enforcement action is subsequently taken, details of the
action will generally be published on the FCA’s website in the form of a
Final Notice and associated press announcement.  This serves to inform the
public of the action taken and the reasons for that action.

You can obtain further information regarding enforcement action from the
following places:

·             Information about those cases where we have taken
disciplinary action against individuals or firms since April 2013 may be
found on the FCA’s website [5]here.

·             Information about those cases where we have taken
disciplinary action against individuals or firms prior to April 2013 can
still be found on the FSA’s website [6]here.

·             The website of the [7]Upper Tribunal - this provides
information about the cases where our decision to take enforcement action
has been referred to the Tribunal.

Yours sincerely

Information Disclosure Team

Financial Conduct Authority

Your right to complain under the Act

If you are unhappy with the decision made in relation to your request, you
have the right to request an internal review.  If you wish to exercise
this right you should contact us within three months of the date of this
response.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you also
have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF.  Telephone: 01625 545 700.  Website: [8]www.ico.org.uk

Annex A

Section 12 (Cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit)

The Act requires us to comply with a request, unless it would be too
expensive to do so, as estimated in accordance with the Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations
2004.  The regulations provide that, for the FCA, the cost limit is £450,
i.e. 18 hours at the rate of £25 per person hour.  The regulations allow
us to take into account when estimating the cost of complying with a
request the time spent determining whether we hold the information
requested, locating and retrieving it, and extracting the information from
the relevant document(s).

As an indication of the volume of information we hold, in 2017 alone our
customer contact centre (the designated area for receiving external
enquiries) logged 122,663 contacts.  Whilst such contacts are held
centrally, we cannot say how many of them contained an expression of
dissatisfaction about a firm.  Therefore, in order to verify if any of the
information we hold falls within the scope of your request, we would have
to review each entry individually.  We conservatively estimate that it
would take us three minutes to review each case, therefore this exercise
would take well in excess of 18 hours to complete.  On that basis, we
estimate that the cost of retrieving the information you have requested
would far exceed the £450 limit.

As our policy is not to divert our resources from our regulatory functions
in order to meet requests under the Act in excess of the cost limit, we
will not carry out an exercise to identify the information you have
requested.

When we refuse a request because the appropriate limit has been exceeded,
it is our general policy to provide advice and assistance to the applicant
to indicate how the request could be refined or limited to stand a greater
chance of falling within the cost limit.  Due to the volume of information
that we have to review in relation to your request, we are unable to
suggest how your request could be refined or limited to come within the
cost limit.

You should note that, in reaching the conclusion that your request exceeds
the appropriate cost limit, we have not considered whether any other
exemptions apply.

This communication and any attachments contain information which is
confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. It is for intended
recipients only. If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy,
distribute, publish, rely on or otherwise use it without our consent. Some
of our communications may contain confidential information which it could
be a criminal offence for you to disclose or use without authority. If you
have received this email in error please notify [email address]
immediately and delete the email from your computer. Further information
on the classification and handling of FCA information can be found on the
FCA website
(http://www.fca.org.uk/site-info/legal/fc...).

The FCA (or, if this email originates from the Payment Systems Regulator
Limited, the FCA on behalf of the Payment Systems Regulator Limited / the
Payment Systems Regulator Limited) reserves the right to monitor all email
communications for compliance with legal, regulatory and professional
standards.

This email is not intended to nor should it be taken to create any legal
relations or contractual relationships. This email has originated from the
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or the Payment Systems Regulator
Limited.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is registered as a limited company
in England and Wales No. 1920623. Registered office: 25 The North
Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS, United Kingdom

The Payment Systems Regulator Limited is registered as a limited company
in England and Wales No. 8970864. Registered office: 25 The North
Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS, United Kingdom

Switchboard 020 7066 1000

Web Site http://www.fca.org.uk (FCA); http://www.psr.org.uk (the Payment
Systems Regulator Limited)

References

Visible links
1. https://www.fca.org.uk/about/complain-ab...
2. http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/
3. https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook...
4. https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook...
5. https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/sear...
6. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Library/Comm...
7. http://taxandchancery_ut.decisions.tribu...
8. http://www.ico.org.uk/