Vulnerability in the Energy Sector
Vulnerable customers – do we need them, or do they need us? It is clear that anyone who is vulnerable needs someone to help them. Is it as simple as offering those who are vulnerable some form of help? Or is that an oversimplification? The question being pondered by Energy…
Data sharing and vulnerable customers
In 2017 The Vulnerability Registration Service was approached by the Personal Finance Research Centre at The University of Bristol to take part in an expert interview to assist valuable research into the link between financial difficulty and mental wellbeing. The research report was published in April 2018 in an article…
VRS – News Letter July 2018
Welcome to the latest Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS) Newsletter to keep you informed about recent events and developments within the VRS and how we are helping vulnerable people to make organisations aware of their circumstances. “VRS is a new initiative to address vulnerability in an independent way but taking a…
Monzosocial Media
You may have read our recent article on the VRS website about gambling (https://www.vulnerabilityregistrationservice.co.uk/have-you-noticed-an-increased-number-of-online-gambling-adverts-during-the-world-cup/). The British gambling industry has ballooned in size over the past decade, thanks to the growth of online games and the liberalisation of gambling laws. The Gambling Act 2005, which came into force in 2007, opened…
VRS is a vehicle to help organisations
The Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS) is a vehicle to help organisations to protect vulnerable individuals should they apply for financial services or if their circumstances need highlighting when dealing with organisations with which they already have financial agreements. VRS has been developed having taken into consideration the high level of…
Some very positive news for those people interested in Vulnerability
Last week we saw the publication of the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) response to its Consumer Approach consultation which contained some very positive news for those people interested in Vulnerability. First of all, the FCA stated that it will be retaining it's original definition of a vulnerable consumer as ‘someone who, due to their…
£4 million stolen!
I was horrified to read the story of a care home owner who was recently jailed for taking more than £4 million dishonestly from his victims. These victims were elderly residents at the Barton Park Nursing Home in Southport and the fraud took place over a prolonged period of time.…
Sharing is Caring
Within the collections industry in recent years, two of the most frequently used words have been vulnerability and transparency. The former due to the fact that, not that there are more vulnerable customers, but that we are being more pro-active in identifying them and handling them as customer centric businesses…
Have you noticed an increased number of online gambling adverts during the World Cup?
Over the past few weeks it’s been amazing to watch TV and to see so many opportunities for people to bet online or by text. Enticing ads seem to imply it’s good to gamble, some ads even going as far as to make you think that it’s cool to be…
The VRS fully supports the work undertaken by the Insolvency Service in identifying companies that scammed vulnerable consumers
Their announcement last week explained the full extent of this practice as follows: Since 2016, the Insolvency Service has wound up nine health supplement companies in the public interest after they scammed people, often the elderly and vulnerable, into unnecessarily buying their products. The Insolvency Service estimates that there have…
