The bailiff inspector Debt collection gets a regulator

'It's like that loan shark mentality of: there's money due to us, we will get it at whatever means, and we don't care - if that means you're not able to feed yourself for the next one or two weeks, that's not our problem."

- Heather Stewart

Ada, whose car was seized over a parking fine, recounts a brush with bailiffs in research carried out by the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB) - a new agency tasked with the job of raising standards in this controversial industry.

Catherine Brown, the ECB's chair, has been swotting up for the role by joining enforcement agents -as bailiffs prefer to be known - on the doorstep. "It hasn't been universally impressive," she says.

"Some of them will go around the house knocking on all the windows and trying all the doors." One woman, Claudia, who experienced this approach, told the ECB: "That causes nothing but fright for me and I don't want to face it then."

 "It's such a sensitive and powerful thing - having someone come barging around your house," says Brown. "The fact that there is just no regulatory oversight and no independent oversight at all - it's just extraordinary."