A view on Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L

[nastyb]

I have been doing a bit of research on this outfit, I hope you find my observations of interest.

As you are probably aware Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L. is a company which has bought up large portfolios of accounts from the likes of Egg, & MBNA. As far as I can ascertain they operate out of Luxembourg which offers aninomity to the company owners, and a favourable tax regime (e.g. VAT at 15%, relaxed rules on corporate taxation). So we have no idea who we are dealing with which is a bit galling.

As they have no credit licence to operate in the U.K. the work has been sub-contracted to Arrow Global who have a 'panel' of DCA's to whom they parcel out accounts. The majority owner of Arrow - wait for it - is RBS Special Opportunities Fund a wholly owned subsidury of RBS, so in some cases you are being screwed by the bank you own!.

Also with three mouths to feed in the foodchain their willingness to negotiate is a minimum of 50% if you want to do a f&f, the appear totally disinterested in any amount less than this!.

A thought struck me re Britannia, if it is a foreign owned corporation to which accounts are assigned, whats the situation re customer data which MAY be being held in a foreign jurisdiction, whats the view re the data protection act?, comments please

[jon1965]

Re: A view on Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L

Well in my personal experience when my MBNA loan was assigned to Britannica it was then handled by Moorgate/Arden who are based in Solihull West Midlands and who do have a CCL. The MBNA loan was the reassigned to Arrow Global Guernsey so Britannic have no connection to it anymore.

I also believe that Moorgate/Arden are owned by Brittanica although I would appreciate some clarification on that

[Richard999]

Re: A view on Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L

I reckon they are operating in this way to gain both taxation advantages and some form of secrecy regarding their ownership etc as suggested !

I am sure the way they operate is legal if not "moral" but these sharks are out to make a profit and being legal ticks all the boxes !

They care about nothing else.........

[jon1965]

Re: A view on Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L

There's a surprise, a DCA being underhand

[nastyb]

Re: A view on Britannia Recoveries S.A.R.L

Hi folks when you receive a communication from a DCA re Britannia Recoveries it is one of the panel of DCA's that Arrow Global use, this is part of their business model as explained on their own website. They are basically a 'sub-contractor' to Britannia recoveries as this company does not have a CCA licence to operate in the UK. So it is possible that you could rerceive a communication from a DCA with any 'flavour' of participants eg Britannia Recoveries/Arrow/DCA xxxyyy. As I previously stated Britannia Recoveries is a foreign corporation, with an English sounding name, using a Luxembourg company vehicle to hide the identity of its owners and minimise its tax liability. Interestingly, Arrow also have a Guernsey operation, I wonder why?