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OFT refuses enquiry agent consumer credit licence

PN 134/03    21 October 2003

An enquiry agent working for agencies offering investigative services to legal and other professions has had his application for a consumer credit licence refused by the OFT.

The adjudicator refused the licence on the basis that the applicant, Mr Terence O'Connell from Kent, had been convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 4 August 2000 of acts intended to pervert the course of public justice and sentenced to two years in prison.

The adjudicator decided that she was not satisfied that the applicant was fit to hold a consumer credit licence. Accordingly, the application was refused.

Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, businesses that offer consumer credit or hire, or who introduce customers to businesses offering credit facilities, must have a consumer credit licence. The OFT has a duty to protect the interests of consumers by monitoring the fitness of applicants and licence holders.

In considering fitness, the OFT will take into account a number of factors including:

• any offence or conviction of violence or dishonesty carried out by the business or anyone involved in running the business
• failure to comply with the provisions of the Consumer Credit Act or other consumer protection legislation
• consumer complaints
• evidence of unfair business practice
• evidence of discrimination on grounds of sex, colour, race or ethnic/national origin.

Director for Consumer Regulation Enforcement, Christine Wade said: 'The applicant has committed a serious criminal offence and is unfit to provide credit to consumers.'

NOTES

1. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 requires most businesses that offer goods or services on credit or lend money or are involved in activities relating to credit or hire to be licensed by the OFT.

2. The OFT can refuse or revoke a licence if it decides that a trader is not fit to hold one.

3. It should be noted that proceedings under the Act are not the same as those of a court and the adjudicator's findings are not the same as convictions by a court. Therefore, where the adjudicator finds that an offence has been committed or a provision of the statute has been contravened, it does not mean that the person concerned has been convicted under court proceedings of that offence or of that contravention.

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