A company calling itself the IVA council is sending people in IVAs letters claiming they may have been mis-sold their arrangement. The company then outlandishly claim to guarantee all sorts of favourable outcomes for customers who default on their IVAs and go to them for help instead.

 Holders of IVAs should NOT default on them on the advice of the IVA Council. This company has a website which is a deliberate misleading clone of the Insolvency Service's official site. It strongly suggests, quite falsely, that it is a government department and makes reference to the DTI which no longer even exists, as it is now the BERR.

 Steer well clear folks. :)

 

   

 

Hi --- Good warning to anyone already on a IVA do not stop making the arranged payments to your existing plan, or if you default due to this bogus company, your creditors are then able to petition for forced bankruptcy.

The IVA Council has been set up as an independent, non-profit making body to monitor the insolvency world and to investigate mis-selling by so-called IVA factories.

The IVA Council exists to identify and assist such victims. The IVA Council feel that it is completely unreasonable that people who are in such vulnerable positions are taken advantage of by these IVA factories, and the IVA factories have retaliated by launching negative responses against us online.

We want to allow the victims of IVA mis-selling the chance to join with others in the same predicament and form class actions to attempt to re-claim some or all of their money.

let me ask you - are you recommending that people default on their IVA's and come to you instead?

 IVA Council .... 

I notice that you have posted on another forum found through Google, and if your intentions are as stated, that is very admirable.

But the following questions asked of you are still awaiting a reply, perhaps you could help convince our members of your sincerity, by answering the questions asked on that other forum.

 

What are your qualifications for being able to advise debtors as to whether they have been advised correctly, or otherwise?

How many qualified insolvency practitioners and experienced insolvency laywers have you got on your staff?

And if you are a non profit making organisation (whatever that is) how are your operations funded and by whom?

 

Also class actions are still pretty much an American thing, according to the article below the OFT are / were still undecided to let class actions go ahead in the UK ?

http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=128962&d=415&h=417&f=416

Their website is also a direct copy of the Insolvency service one - I dont have an IVA but for those that do, seek EXPERT advice before doing ANYTHING!!

 They say they are victims who are to do a test case of say 5 Claimants - interesting to see what charges will accrue if they lose!!!!

Polar:

Their website is also a direct copy of the Insolvency service one - I dont have an IVA but for those that do, seek EXPERT advice before doing ANYTHING!!

 They say they are victims who are to do a test case of say 5 Claimants - interesting to see what charges will accrue if they lose!!!!

Polar --- When I had a sniff around "read more" on their website, it stated that in any case they will not take more than three months payments from an individuals plan, what's all that about, if they are not profit making their fees certainly are not clear, hence the questions above ? 

Also no licence number from any authority, very dodgy use of the DTI logo which has now become the BERR, this site is a scam in my opinion.

its certainly charging fees - their "experts" cannot be cheap

Definitely stay away!!!!

From the IVA Council.
We are not going to give too much away as we don’t know who is asking the questions. However here are a few facts about us.
We DONT CHARGE FEES!  IF we feel that (like us) someone has been mis-sold an IVA we will put them in touch with a licensed debt adjuster to help. These people have agreed that no matter what the circumstances they will NEVER charge someone more than the equivalent of 3 months IVA payments to sort the situation out. In many cases the cost is less and in some cases nothing at all. Bear in mind that the ‘Sausage machine factories have piled people into IVAs that would have been far better suited to Bankruptcy.
We may have been wrong to ‘advise’ people to stop paying their IPs until it’s clear that they have been mis-sold. This has been rectified and all further correspondence will read differently. We are a made up of a group of victims that are incensed by some of the greedy actions of IPs We are not insolvency practitioners.
We will not stop giving people a voice and a platform to seek redress. As for ‘class action’, we have a plan, it’s being put together now and as these forums are read by people that either don’t agree or understand what we are about.
It is time that the whole country was aware of the blatant and mass mis-selling scandal that has passed through the UK like an epidemic. If these companies succeed in closing us down (which they wont!)  we will be up the next day under a different name, website and just carry on regardless.
If they have done nothing wrong then why are they so worried? (may be a guilty conscience?)
We have asked some of the people we have helped so far for their thoughts and no doubt they will start appearing g on the web soon.
The louder the IVA factories shout, the more attention they are drawing to the whole situation. GOOD! Let’s let them hang themselves.
The internet is a big place and whatever lies, miss information and accusations they make up about us, all they are really doing is putting doubt in people’s minds. Eventually people will realise that they HAVE been mis sold. If you owe money to your creditors HOW is it in you or your creditors best interest to pay £7500-£10k or more to an IP? Whatever mud they sling at us is just a smoke screen to hide that fact.
If you are an ethical IP and you are giving genuine advice and recommend an IVA to someone for whom it gives genuine benefit then carry on we are not after you. We are after the mass call centre IVA factories staffed by commission based salesmen and not insolvency practitioners with IPs who have been bought and paid for.
That our position and we WILL NOT BE SILENCED.
As to the question asked how qualified are we? We have all been ripped off by people with insolvency qualifications so we regard the ownership of an IP licence as no qualification at all!
Again, if you agree with us and not the REAL scammers visit www.ivacouncil.org.uk

You may be correct - there may be some mis selling. I make no accusations however.

However the tone and language you use make YOU sound like the cowboys

Eseentially, though you have confirmed that you are unqualified. If someone has been missold why would/should they approach people who have no formal qualifications? It hardly breeds confidence.

""It is time that the whole country was aware of the blatant and mass mis-selling scandal that has passed through the UK like an epidemic. If these companies succeed in closing us down (which they wont!)  we will be up the next day under a different name, website and just carry on regardless."" Sounds a little dodgy dont you agree!?!?!

The other question I ask is why have you said you are not for profit, yet admit that fees may be charged? Its not very transparent.

If you said that fees will be charged but you work for free then thats a different matter.

IVA Council ...

While your self help, "band of brothers" all rallying together is to be applauded in some respects, I can't help but liken it to the old, "Pirate radio stations" that used to transmit and broadcast illegally, then move on when they were near getting caught. You should advertise your site as a self help facility, rather than giving people the misguided impression that you are a part of the Insolvency service.

As your site is as near a copy to the officially licensed site as you could get, I would think that you would want complete transparency to identify your cause as a totally seperate entity, in the interests of yourselves and everyone else ?

Who do you actually recieve your funding through, or is that a top class secret ?

I am not knocking your cause, merely the way that you portray and display it .... that really needs addressing in the interests that you claim to represent.

At the moment it all comes across as very amateur and "scammy".

IVA Council

 

1. People who offer debt advice in this country are required to hold a consumer credit licence.

 

2. People who clone websites should do so only with the permission of the copyright holder. I don't think the colour  change and the removal of the Official Receiver offices map that happened on Friday, really sets you apart from the Insolvency Service's site, do you? Why was that ever on there?

 

3. You cannot guarantee - as I know you have claimed - to have people discharged from bankruptcy within 6 months, this would be case-dependant and reliant on the Official Receiver dealing with the case as well as agreement from creditors.

 

4. If you refer to passing information only to 'other government departments' you should be a government department yourself.

 

5.  The Department of Trade and Industry is now the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and has been since before you popped up, quite how you ended up using a DTI logo is a mystery.

 

Apart from these points - and a host of incorrect information on your site - I'm sure that you're honest and upstanding charity workers. IPs may be sharks but are the rats that feed off vulnerable shark victims any better, or are you in fact even worse?  

There's a new unpopular kid in town, this time they're called Alternative Credit Solutions and, like The IVA Council they're recommending people default on their IVAs, no website this time but no obvious consumer credit license either.   

If the IVA Council  are con men, why don’t they charge any fees?

If they arent why have they ripped off the insolvency service website and not even bothered to change some of the words?

 Their associates charge up to 3 months fees - they are silent on what their other experts charge!