The number of debt collection complaints referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) escalated by 50 per cent in the year to March 2015, with some agents being accused of harassment.

The annual review shows the level of complaints made by consumers about all types of financial products and services through 2014/2015. It shows big increases in complaints about debt collection, payday lending and credit broking, although the largest spike was in packaged accounts – which soared 278 per cent. Payment protection insurance (PPI) still dominates much of the ombudsman’s workload. Around two thirds of its cases in 2014/2015 were about mis-sold PPI, though these complaints dropped by around 200,000 from the previous year. While PPI cases will still take adjudicators at FOS years to work through, the nature of debt collection complaints was similar to previous years.

FOS’s review stated: “We saw a substantial increase in complaints about debt collecting this year. Disappointingly, like last year, we decided in some cases that the debt collector’s behaviour amounted to harassment. “And we again saw a number of complaints where the wrong person was being chased for a debt.”
The review also stated that the issues in debt management remained largely the same....read more here