On Tuesday 8th July BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary revealing some shocking facts about the true car finance scandal. This is not the scandal that will now see millions of UK consumers receive approximately £15billion in redress as a result of a new investigation by the FCA launched in January 2024 after the Financial Ombudsman Service upheld two complaints specific to incentivised commission arrangements between car finance lenders and their networks of car dealer agents/brokers.

The true scandal is that there is nothing the FCA knew as of January 2024 that they did not know in February 2016 and that they certainly did not know in March 2019 when, it is alleged by Paul Carlier, “the FCA produced what they knew to be a dishonestly limited final notice following their two year investigation of car finance and intended to protect the firms and their reputations and deprive the millions of UK consumers who they knew to have been damaged of the billions of pounds in redress that the FCA knew they were owed. I know, because I made comprehensive reports to the FCA between February 2016 and September 2016 all supported by various smoking gun evidence”

However, this is not the whole story about the true scandal. To quote Paul; “Think the Financial Onbudsman Service (FOS) is independent and objective? Think again. These car finance firms were using multiple unlawful practises and the FCA produced what they knew to be a dishonestly limited final notice in 2019 to protect those firms and to deprive the victims of redress. However, as bad as that is and was, it is the role the FOS played in that ‘cover up’ that is arguable the most despicable and the greatest betrayal of UK consumers.”

Paul escalated a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) on 16th February 2016 specific to the unlawful incentivised commission arrangements that he had discovered were being used by Black Horse with their car dealer agents/brokers and the false representations that Black Horse had made to him so as to deny his complaint. This was the same day that he first made whistleblower disclosures and expert reports to the FCA specific to this unlawful practise, and those false representations.

In Paul’s words “What followed has been 9 years of false and/or misleading representations by the FOS, personal attacks & false allegations against me by various FOS managers and senior executives in a desperate attempt to conceal their failures, dishonesty and their collusion with both Black Horse and the FCA to lie and deny in response to two complaints I escalated to them on behalf of two family members. One in February 2016 and the other in 2018.”

At this presentation Paul will reveal the various evidence he has that exposes the FOS role in this scandal. You do not want to miss this.

The timing of this presentation and exposure of the FOS role is particularly appropriate as Rachel Reeves gives her Mansion House speech the following night and UK Finance, the trade body for banks such as Lloyds who own Balck Horse, and for many of those firms involved in the car finance scandal, in their report published last week are urging her to reform the FOS. UK Finance wrote:

“We have therefore greatly welcomed the attention from the Government on reform of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), and the need to address the fact that decisions that go beyond FCA rules create legal uncertainty and see the Ombudsman acting as a quasi-regulator. Providing certainty and stability on this and other conduct-related reforms will better allow firms to innovate in the interest of consumers.”

Paul’s presentation will challenge and expose this position put forward by UK Finance. To quote Paul “My car finance journey and what I now have evidence to prove, establishes that the FOS is the precise opposite of a ‘quasi-regulator’ and is already a puppet dancing to the tune of the  FCA and the firms. And whilst this ‘puppetry’ is unknown to the public, there is no question that UK Finance and its members are well aware, but are presenting a false narrative to the Government with intent to have the Government diminish the FOS independence and powers even further.”