Consumer Advocate calls on Ontario government to act to protect debt settlement clients

KITCHENER, ON, Feb. 16, 2016 /CNW/ - Consumer advocate Mark Silverthorn is calling upon the Ontario Registrar of Collection Agencies to take immediate action to protect the public from firms offering debt settlement services to Ontarians in contravention of the Ontario Collection and Debt Settlement Services Act.

In January of this year two debt settlement service providers, Saskatchewan-based Canadian Customer Debt Relief (CCDR) and Florida-based Synergy Debt Group ceased providing services creating "orphaned" debt settlement clients in Ontario.  These clients who signed debt settlement contracts and paid their fees were left high and dry by the firms' decisions to cease offering their services to their clients.

"Last year I made a formal complaint to the Ontario Government about Saskatchewan-based CCDR and a Toronto firm, Complete Debt Solutions.  Last week I made a formal complaint to the Ontario Government about two additional firms, Oakville-based Ontario Debt Law, and Windsor-based New Beginnings Debt Consulting", says Silverthorn, author of The Wolf At The Door:  What To Do When Collection Agencies Come Calling (2010), published by McClelland & Stewart.

The Ontario Registrar should act forthwith to determine whether or not Ontario Debt Law, a debt settlement law firm--owned by deputy judge Angelo Serafini--is operating as an unlicensed collection agency in contravention of the Ontario Collection and Debt Settlement Services Act. "If this law firm is operating as an unlicensed collection agency then, under the Act, the law firm's clients should be entitled to a one hundred percent refund of fees paid to the firm", says Silverthorn.

Mark Silverthorn, Founder of Comprehensive Debt Solutions, has written numerous posts over the past eight months—on LinkedIn as well as on the Mark Silverthorn Blog, www.blog.comprehensivedebtsolutions.ca – raising concerns involving the activities of debt settlement service providers which might be contravening the Ontario Collection and Debt Settlement Services Act.

SOURCE Comprehensive Debt Solutions Ltd.

Image with caption: "Comprehensive Debt Solutions (CNW Group/Comprehensive Debt Solutions Ltd.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160216_C1268_PHOTO_EN_620677.jpg

Mark Silverthorn, Founder, Comprehensive Debt Solutions Ltd., Phone: [phone], E-mail: [email protected], www.comprehensivedebtsolutions.ca, www.blog.comprehensivedebtsolutions.ca