Link Financial Outsourcing Limited · DRN-5602155

The complaint Mr F is complaining that Link Financial Outsourcing Limited (Link) continued to pursue him for payment towards a debt he was disputing, even though it was unenforceable at the time. What happened Mr F’s complaint centres around a car finance account taken out in his name in August 2021. The original lender (OL) sold the debt to a debt purchaser who appointed Link to service the account. Link made contact with Mr F about the account. Following this on 31 October 2024, he disputed the account saying he didn’t recognise it. He also made a request for documentation relating to the account under section 77/78 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA). This was the first of multiple requests of the same kind. In November 2024 Mr F also made a request to Link to restrict communication with him to email only. Link didn’t action the request and continued to attempt contact with Mr S through all means. In December 2024 Link sent a letter to Mr F letting him know that they had requested the relevant documentation from OL but as of yet they hadn’t received it. They explained this meant the debt was currently unenforceable but was still collectable, and that it was still acceptable for the account to be defaulted. Mr F complained to Link and as he was unhappy with the responses he received, he ultimately brought his complaint to our service. The points he raised were Link: • failed to deal with his section 77/78 request • should have stopped pursuing him for the debt when it was unenforceable • tried to enforce the debt by threatening to default the account • failed to deal with his request to communicate only by email • harassed him with their communication To resolve matters he wanted all collection activity to be stopped, a minimum of £2,000 in compensation and all adverse information removed from his credit file. Additionally, he said he would like the matter escalated to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for review of what he says are regulatory and legal violations. Our investigator upheld Mr F’s complaint in part. They awarded £100 for the service Mr F had received. Mr F disagreed and so the matter has been passed to me to decide. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable

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in the circumstances of this complaint. I realise that I’ve summarised this complaint in less detail than the parties and I’ve done so using my own words. When bringing this case Mr F has mentioned various rules set out by the regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), including CONC, PRIN and others. He has also quoted various pieces of legislation. I want to confirm that in deciding this case I have taken into account all of the relevant laws, rules and regulations as well as good industry practice. However, I may not quote from each of them directly and I may not specifically reference each one that Mr F has quoted. I’ve concentrated on what I consider to be the key issues. The rules that govern this service allow me to do so. This isn’t intended as a discourtesy to either party, but merely to reflect my informal role in deciding what a fair and reasonable outcome is. This also means I don’t think it’s necessary to get an answer, or provide my own answer, to every question raised unless it’s relevant to the crux of the complaint. Section 77/78 request There is no dispute that it took longer that the prescribed 12 days for Link to be able to provide the documents to Mr F. His first request was submitted to Link on 31 October 2024 and they weren’t able to provide the documents until May 2025. It’s accepted this rendered the debt unenforceable during the period between 12 November 2024 (the end of the prescribed period) and the time when the documents were provided to Mr F. I’ll go on in the next section to explain what this means in practice about what Link could and couldn’t do but here I want to look at their actions in dealing with Mr F’s request. Having reviewed the contact notes Link have provided I can see that the request was indeed received on Thursday 31 October 2024. On the same day Link sent Mr F an email following this explaining the details relating to the account and informing him they were requesting the information from OL. I can see the requests were all actioned on their system by Monday 4 November 2024. I can also see they chased OL for these documents on a couple of occasions. Link didn’t receive the documents from OL until 22 April 2025, these were then sent to Mr F by post. Link have explained it is their process to always send these documents by post. I don’t find this to be an unreasonable thing for them to do. Overall I’m satisfied that Link acted as I would have expected in actioning Mr F’s request and let him know about the temporarily unenforceable status of it. The delay in providing the documents was understandably frustrating for Mr F but this fell outside of Link’s control so it wouldn’t be fair for me to hold them responsible for these delays. Pursuing a debt that is unenforceable / threatening to enforce CONC 13.1.16 says : 1) Failure to comply with the provisions means that the agreement becomes unenforceable while the failure to comply persists, and the courts have no discretion to allow enforcement. (2) In such cases, a firm should in no way, either by act or omission, mislead a customer as to the enforceability of the agreement. (3) In particular, a firm should not in such cases either threaten court action or other enforcement of the debt or imply that the debt is enforceable when it is not.

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(4) The firm should, in any request for payment or communication relating to a payment (other than a statement issued in accordance with the CCA or regulations made under it which does not constitute or contain a request for payment) in such cases, make clear to the customer that although the debt remains outstanding it is unenforceable. (5) In the judgment of McGuffick -v- The Royal Bank of Scotland plc [2009] EWHC 2386 (Comm) Flaux J held in a case under section 77 of the CCA that passing details of a debt to a credit reference agency and related activities do not constitute enforcement under the CCA. He also held that steps taken with a view to enforcement, including demanding payment from a claimant, issuing a default notice, threatening legal action and the actual bringing of proceedings, are not themselves 'enforcement' under the CCA. On the other hand he confirmed that the actions listed under sections 76(1) and 87(1) of the CCA did amount to enforcement notwithstanding that some of the actions 'less obviously' amounted to enforcement. These actions are demanding earlier payment, recovering possession of goods or land, treating any right conferred on the debtor by the agreement as terminated, restricted or deferred, enforcing any security and terminating the agreement. In simple terms this means the debt is temporarily unenforceable - while the documents are unavailable - but Link as the creditor can still try to collect the debt from Mr F. They also can’t carry out enforcement action and shouldn’t threaten it. The rules explain reporting information to the credit reference agencies, demanding payment and defaulting the account don’t amount to enforcement – so Link could continue to do those things. Having said that I can’t see that Link did threaten enforcement, they did say the account was in arrears and was pre-default, but as I’ve explained this isn’t enforcement action and so they were entitled to do this. Mr F has argued that all collections activity and contact should have stopped while the debt was unenforceable, but given the rules I’ve laid out above, I don’t agree. So, I’m satisfied they were able to continue with this as long as they didn’t mislead him about the enforceability when doing so. I haven’t seen anything to suggest they did mislead him. However, the rules do say any request for payment or communication about payment should make it clear the debt remains outstanding but is unenforceable. From the communication I have seen I don’t think Link did make it clear each time the debt was unenforceable. While I do think they should have done this, I’m not persuaded this caused any detriment as Link had confirmed to him separately the debt was unenforceable until they could produce the documents. But I’ll take this into consideration when thinking about redress. Communication request / Harassment I cannot make a finding on if any contact from Link to Mr F constitutes harassment as this is a criminal offence and so is reserved for the courts. What I can consider is the frequency, level and tone of the communication to decide if it was fair and reasonable in the circumstances. From what I have seen I have no concerns about the tone of the correspondence, it was factual and professional, I also have no concerns about the level or frequency of the contact made by Link. Mr F has provided a copy of an email he says he sent to link on 11 November 2024 asking for communication to be electronic only. He says they continued to send him letters and text messages after this when he clearly wanted email only. Link say they never received the

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email. I’m not convinced they did receive the email; I say this because there is no record of it on their system as having been received and having studied the email Mr F provided, I can see the email address doesn’t spear to be inline with the other emails he sent to them. So, I can’t be satisfied they ever got the request for paperless correspondence at that time. Finally, Mr F has said that they were incorrectly reporting the account to his credit file while the account was unenforceable, and he wanted it removed. It’s true Link have a duty to report accurate information to the credit reference agencies (CRAs), however they can’t currently report to the CRAs that an account is temporarily unenforceable as there isn’t a mechanism within the current reporting systems to allow for this. And, even if there was, the CRAs don’t currently have a way of displaying this data. So, while there is an argument to say the data being displayed could be inaccurate on Mr F’s credit file, to tell Link to stop reporting the account completely would arguably be more inaccurate. This is because I’m satisfied the reporting reflects the money owed, and repayment history on the account to date which is factual information. Enforceability can only be confirmed by a court, and even if a debt is confirmed as unenforceable, this doesn’t mean Link can’t still ask for repayment or treat Mr F as owing the money. So even if I accept not reporting the account as temporarily unenforceable causes an inaccuracy I’m not persuaded this leads to any detriment to Mr F for the reasons I’ve set out. Bringing everything together, I think its clear there have been some service failings on Link’s part when handling Mr F’s account and so I think it’s fair they compensate him for those failings. I’ve thought about this holistically and I think £100 is fair in the circumstances. Putting right Link should pay Mr F £100 for the service failings. My final decision For the reasons set out above, my final decision is that I uphold Mr F’s complaint and I require Link Financial Outsourcing Limited to carry out the actions as set out under the ‘Putting things right’ section of this decision. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr F to accept or reject my decision before 24 April 2026. Amber Mortimer Ombudsman

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