The Lowells, the Bank and the Operator

...want to make lots of money? Print it yourself. No, really. So, okay, it may be slightly illegal and-that, but as a means of making money, well, making money is pretty darn unbeatable.

Which is exactly what the directors of "Lowell Portfolio I" must have thought when the kind folks at Lloyds-the-bank and Three-the-mobile-operator gave them a pretty rubber stamp and some of their headed paper and said... "go forth and pursue our naughty customers".

You see, the Lowells, as I shall call them for now, are a debt collection agency. They buy debt, presumably for a value some way below the actual amount owed, and collect it, at full value, plus some fees. The bank and the operator are happy because they finally see some wonga and can stop worrying about chasing naughty customers, and the Lowells cash in when people eventually pay up.

Presumably, at some point in the past, deals of this nature were done between said parties, and with the might of their pen and a sprinkling of big-brand logos to sure up their case, off the Lowells went, posting lots of threatening-sounding letters to lots of naughty customers. And, sure enough, those customers paid up.

The End? Not quite...

You see, one of two things appears to have occurred since...

Scenario One - Playing the Odds
It's important that I point out this is just conjecture, an hypothesis, you understand, but quite possibly, one day, one of the Lowells felt a bit out of sorts and accidentally sent a letter to someone who didn't actually owe any money at all. In fact, it may have been to someone who never even had any dealings with the company whose rubber stamp and headed paper the Lowell in question had put to good use, claiming ￡397.10 for 'early termination fees'.

But here's the thing. The recipient was a stressed-out single mum from Manchester, or she may have been an 85 year old granny from Grimsby, who couldn't tell you if it was Tuesday or butterscotch, but in any case, the recipient was suitably intimidated and paid up. And that gave the Lowells an idea...

"What if..." they wondered... "we printed a few more of these claims and sent them out? Even if just half of the recipients pay up, that's good business". And when I say good, I mean fraudulent, deceitful, unethical and downright wrong. And more than a little illegal, surely. But the Lowells had left their conscience at the strip bar the other night and must have been thinking altogether more pragmatically... "If we get hauled up on it by anyone, we can always just say it was a genuine human error... I mean, we've seen it happen now...it could happen again?". Like, ooh, a hundred times? A thousand? Ten thousand, perhaps? But I am just hypothesising, as I said...

Scenario Two - All Mixed Up
The second hypothesis would paint the Lowells in a slightly less sinister light, and for the sake of fairness, let's assume this is what really happened. Albeit that this story, too, has no winners - other than the Lowells, of course. Let's assume the data the Lowells bought from the bank and the operator, was slightly iffy. Iffy, either due to mistakes made in processing or interpreting the data, or because unscrupulous customers had used stolen identities to rack up debts with these companies. Trouble is, I am quite sure my identity has to date never been stolen and I also don't have a name that would easily get me mixed up with someone else with the same name.

Whatever happened between the Lowells, the bank and the operator, it came to pass that, on my doormat, landed a selection of their claims. And some more. And then some. I suddenly 'owed' multiple debts to companies I never banked with or telephoned through. I contacted both Lloyds and Three and will continue to do so until this madness is put to an end. After all, it is their rubber stamp that continues to bless with its approval, what could quite conceivably be, a scam (or a cockup...) of Humongous Proportions.

The moral of the story? When handling consumer data, or entrusting others with your consumer data, stringent controls against - and repercussions for - serious errors can simply not be optional. Such measures should not just be enforced by businesses themselves, but preferably by Government too. Especially, when 'getting it wrong' puts innocent consumers through enormous stress, or, worse, when it results in them being tricked, knowingly or not, out of their hard-earned money.

You would be forgiven for wondering, when hearing tales like the one I just shared with you, why small businesses are expected to continue to hand over their annual ICO fees and diligently fill our their PCI Compliance surveys, whilst companies worth billions get away with what can only be regarded as pretty shoddy practice.

Still, my hope is that in the not-too-distant-future, the Lowells, the bank and the operator will sit down for some cold coffee and probing questions. Because, without their joint action, I fear the Lowells will simply be allowed to continue printing money...

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Any views or opinions presented in this post are solely those of the author and do not represent those of their employer.