Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
The book is easy to understand and clearly explains the rights
a bailiff has, and also what they cannot do when collecting debts and repossessing goods etc.
I am helping a friend to cancel PPI. She wrote to welcome finance in Feb 08 asking to cancel (it is a single premium type policy). Her loan was taken out in Oct 07 therefore she should be due a decent refund on the £3000 plus interest they have charged her but their first and "final" Letter says she had 30 days to cancel and thats it.
Am I wrong in my assumption that the FSA said they had to be cancelable?
The Invesigation by the FSA into the widespread selling of PPI have said that they expected the Nil refund of PPI on cancellation to cease and there should be a fair refund depending on how long the PPI had been paid.
I cancelled my PPI and got a substantial refund of Premium and interest from my current loan. I am however pursuing earlier loans with PPI and also the Money I had already paid for PPI on the current loan.
Do not be fobbed off with the "you had 30 days to cancel" The FSA ruling should apply to them as well. I will try and post a link so you can check out the FSA Ruling.
Thank you so much just plowing through but an interesting read.
As a result of the SAR request we know that the sales staff received £35 commission for selling my friends the loan but £230 for selling them the PPI.
They claim their staff work on a script for the PPI which they have not sent us but I suspect the commission is the reason the staff did not follow this.
My friend not only pressurised into taking the PPI (on a you won't get the loan without basis) they were also not given the paperwork such as a breakdown of the PPI costs and the demands and needs (which have since turned up with SAR).
They also provided a tick boxes breakdown of apparently what the member of staff went through with my friend which is littered with incorrect information and was clearly made up after the event and not signed by my friends! (including the most basic info of my friends age being 5 years out! plus that it says her partner is full time when in reality he is self employed!)
They were charged £3000 on a £11000 loan plus interest over 15 years which means had they taken out the PPI again every 5 years when it ran out it would cost them £9000 for a £11000 loan which is just extortionate and again was not explained to them.
Although the policy says it covers self employed people I read that in reality most make it impossible to claim and I don't know if this would be the case with them as I just don't know enough about it.
Although they denied mis selling they did refund £250 from the previous policy which was all the money not refunded upon re finance plus interest which I can't believe they would do out of the kindness of their heart!
And to top it all after receiving the breakdown of their previous finance agreement it appears they wrote off £450 overpaid due to their settlement figure and them paying themselves!!
To me this company are unbelievably bad!!
Is there a template anywhere that deals with the "you had 30 days to cancel so tough luck" response if not any suggestions on how to respond would me much appreciated!
Sorry that was quite a long letter and p.s. we have already requested an explanation for their "correction" figure of £450 after what appears to be an overpayment so we are just looking to get the PPI cancelled now.
I personally am not sure if there is a template letter for this.
You could hit them with a response that this part was unfair in line with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs 1999) in that ther 30 day term put you at a distinct disadvantage of being able to cancel the contract at any time with a certain number of days notice to them.
Not sure if this would work moderators would know more than me.
Some links to check out here it is a thread on PPI forum also follow other threads to see what you can glean from them.
My friend has so many complaints about their behaviour its outragous. They don't appear to have got anything right and have made promises that they did not keep and she did not get in writing.
To top that they have written off an overpayment that they made to themselves from the new loan and have also now supplied demands & needs & breakdown of PPI that she was never given originally.
Sorry this is a long one but this is the reply we propose to send.
Any comments would be gratefully received
(again sorry for the length but PPI is not her only complaint and they have not responded to anything except to say the PPI could only be cancelled within 30 days. They did however refund all the previous finance agreement as a goodwill gesture although they didn't agree they had mis-sold):-
Dear Sir/Madam
Acc/Ref No
We have written to you on 01/02/08, 15/02/08 & 01/03/08 but have still received no response to most of the complaints and no satisfactory response in relation to the PPI.
Although we understand that due to the quantity of complaints we have raised it may take some time to look into however I would point out that we have now been waiting almost 8 weeks for a response for some of these issues. With this in mind we can no longer accept the increasing delays by you in responding to our complaints and requests.
For your information please find listed below details of all of the outstanding issues in relation to our account.
I notified you previously that you have not supplied all of the information request under the data protection Subject access request we made however I have received no further response in relation to this. This information should have been provided to me by 19th March 2008 and you have not informed me of any difficulties in obtaining this information, therefore I feel I have no option but to take this complaint to the information commissioner’s office. Please find listed below the information we are still waiting for:-
The following documents that you have supplied are unreadable because there is a large box in the centre of the documents reading “CPC View Evaluation – in use for 1 day”:-
1) Home improvements comments sheet – Apps Number xxxxxxxxxx
2) Home Improvements check sheet B & A dated 21/04/07
3) Home Improvements Check Sheet B
4) Successful Application letter dated 13th April 2007
5) Home Improvement Calculator Tier 4
6) Customer Satisfaction Statement signed 01/05/07
7) Application form signed 15/03/07
8) Home Tier 4 acceptance document dated 23/03/07
9) Credit Sale Terms & Conditions
10) Fixed Sum loan agreement for agreement xxxxxxxx
11) Letter dated 07/05/07 re Welcome Home Improvements
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, it is just an example of some of the information I am missing.
Accordingly, I have to tell you that you have not yet complied with your obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. .
Inconsistencies and incorrect information within your paperwork:-
I have listed below details of inconsistencies and incorrect information within your paperwork which support our claim for the mis selling of PPI & Life insurance. We have received no explanation for these errors from you and therefore request you look into and respond urgently:-
Demands & needs assessment checklist is incorrect and was not gone through with us during our application. Please note that the incorrect information is as follows:-
The age listed for A is incorrect
A was not working at least 16 hours at the time of application and we informed your sales staff that she was unemployed whilst applying. You have no wages slips for A as there were none to supply which proves that your staff were fully aware that she was not employed.
B is self employed which we also informed to your sales staff and is recorded upon his wage slips, copies of which you have forwarded to us. We were also never informed how this might affect our PPI cover. Evidence of this was already forwarded to us from you in the form of the copy wage slips therefore we will not be resending this to you but would ask you to look back through your records.
We are not tenants we are home owners which is clear as this is a secured loan.
Copy of letter dated 25/10/07 which looks like it should have been completed by B's employer however the information on this form has been completed by an employee of Welcome Finance and some of the details are incorrect:-
Point 7 on this form is incorrect therefore please note that B is sub-contracted not employed. As such he is self employed and although he does usually work full time 40 hours plus overtime this is on a sub-contract basis. This information is listed on the copy payslips he provided when applying for the loan and we made it clear to your staff that B was self employed and sub contracted therefore we cannot understand how this error has occurred.
Information requested but Still not Received:-
Although we have requested the below information on several occasions we are still awaiting a response:-
A breakdown of the Correction for £470.00 made on loan agreement xxxxx on 25/10/07 as it would appear this was actually an overpayment instigated by yourself and then written off. If this is an overpayment we require a refund of this amount plus contractual interest @ 21% totalling £510.00
A settlement figure as first requested on 1st February 2008.
A copy of your complaint procedures.
Confirmation that the PPI & Life insurance has been cancelled on loan agreement xxxxxxxx and confirmation that the full amount of these will be deducted form our current agreement with you due to the mis-selling of these policies first requested on 1st February 2008. Also confirmation of the revised balance and payments to me made once the refund of the PPI & life insurance amounts plus interest have been deducted.
A refund of the charges applied to our account of £70 plus contractual interest @ 21% of £4.16 totalling £75.00.
Complaints
Please find listed below the various complaints we have forwarded to you however we are still to receive satisfactory responses:-
1) It would seem that the settlement figurefor the original agreement that your staff provided to us was incorrect and actually overpaid the original finance account by £470.00. I am therefore astonished to see that rather than forward us the overpayment you have “corrected” the difference to bring the account back to zero. This is unacceptable considering the overpayment was due to the limited information provided by Welcome Finance and this amount was calculated and deducted from the loan payment to us by you. No settlement statement was given /sent to us previously. Had I not requested a full breakdown this mistake by Welcome Finance would not have been found and therefore we would have been unreasonably deprived of this money?
I will therefore require a detailed explanation for the “correction” figure of £470.00 or a refund of this amount plus contractual interest @ 21% totalling £510.00. If it is the case that this is an overpayment caused by you we will also look to make a formal complaint in relation to this and therefore will require a copy of your complaints procedure.
2) On the 1st February 2008 I requested that all of the insurance policies for agreement xxxxxxx be cancelled immediately and a revised statement be sent to us confirming the reduction for the insurance policies and the revised monthly payment schedule. I have received no response in relation to this and therefore require you to arrange this immediate. Please note that I am aware that as the FSA has now stated ‘no refund’ terms are considered unfair I understand I will not be required to sign a revised loan agreement.
I have also written to you on 1st February informing you that I feel that we were not given the correct information when the policies were sold to us, as:-
· your salesperson implied that taking out the policy would assist my credit application.
· your salesperson did not give me full information on what the policies would and would not cover for example that the PPI insurance only covers the first 5 years of the loan term and the Personal Accident Insurance only covers the first 3 years of the loan.
· i am concerned the sales assistant that sold me the policy has no financial background and the policy was not sold in my best interests.
· having recently looked at the paperwork for my loan I have noticed that only B is fully covered by the PPI policy and A is not covered by the PPI policy when I was led to believe that all parties were equally entitled to the insurance cover.
· I am concerned that your staff were offered substantial commission for the sale of the insurance policies to us therefore encouraging the mis-selling of these products, as proven in the paperwork you have provided to us.
Unless you can satisfactorily justify to me that the policy was fair and reasonable I am requesting a full refund of all premiums, and subsequent interest on these payments, that I have paid to date for both agreements. As I believe I have been deprived of this money I also expect 8% statutory interest, the amount a court would award, to be added to each payment made and a full breakdown to be forwarded to me with the refund.
3) We would also like to complain about the information provided to us in relation to the secured loan we went to your office in Hove to sign the secured loan agreement. We were informed by a member of your staff, that we already had a finance agreement with Welcome Finance and that the company does not allowed for a secured loan and a finance agreement to be running with you at the same time. We were informed that the original finance agreement would need to be settled from the new secured loan amount of £11,000. We pointed out that the amount we required was £11,000 and that paying the finance agreement would be of no use to us and were willing to pull out of the secured loan.
We were then informed that we should complete the new loan agreement and once the first payment had gone out he would be able to arrange us a new secured loan for the greater amount. When we went to arrange this new loan we were then informed by the same member of staff that we could not have the increased loan as we did not have sufficient equity in our home. As this was less than a month after our original meeting we do not see why the original advice was given as it was clearly incorrect. We also now believe that there was no problem with continuing with the original finance agreement as well as a secured loan as we can find no detail of your company policy excluding this.
We therefore feel we have been severely mis informed by your member of staff, in a bid to get us to sign up to a secured loan agreement. We wish to make an official complaint in relation to the misinformation and would be grateful if you could forward your company procedures for this.
4) I have also asked you to refund to me the charges which you have levied on the two credit agreements totalling £70.00
I now understand that the regime of fees which you have been applying to my account in relation to late payment charges, reminder letter fees, call charges and so forth are unlawful at Common Law and contrary to consumer regulations. If you say that they are not, then will you please demonstrate this by letting me have a full breakdown of the costs to which you have been put by as a result of my breaches, in order to reassure me that your charges really do reflect your costs.
I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that I opened my account. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law.
I am frankly shocked that you have operated my account in this way as I had always reposed confidence in your integrity and expertise.
I consider that your repeated representations that your charges are fair and reasonable are deceptive and that they have deceived me into agreeing to pay them.
Your concealment of the true nature of your charges has prevented me from asserting my right until now.
If you dispute that I am entitled to a refund of these charges, I requested that you forward a copy of the terms and conditions that were in force at the time my account was opened, and any subsequent amendments to those terms and conditions. These are requested under CPR Pre-Action Protocol 4.6(c), and failure to provide them will be brought to the attention of the court, should it be necessary to commence a county court action.
Due to the lack of response in relation to the above matters I am now looking to take further action and will be reporting these complaints to the relevant regulatory body. If no satisfactory response is received from you within 14 days I will also look into commencing legal action.
Please also note that due to the distress and inconvenience caused to us by your delays and errors I am now also looking to be compensated for the time, effort and upset and would suggest that a figure of £300 would be acceptable in relation to this.
In summary our requirements from you to rectify these matters are:-
A refund of the charges applied to our two accounts of £70 plus contractual interest @ 21% of £4.16 totalling £74.16.
A refund of £478.90 plus contractual interest @ 21% totalling £519.10 for the overpayment on our account caused by you.
A full refund of the PPI & Life insurance plus interest to be deducted from our current loan agreement.
A compensation payment of £300 for the time, effort and upset your errors have caused.
A copy of your complaints procedure and responses to all of the complaints listed above.
I trust the above is clear and no further warnings will be issued.
It's Long, but it looks as if you have all points covered. I haven't seen all the relevant documents that you mention but the aim of the game is to get them to prove they have not mis-sold which they will more than likely be unable to do.
I am no legal expert so it may be worth sending a pm to a moderator to get their views.
To me it looks like Welcome can be credited with a rather large number of errors in this instance.
I believe checking out stickies that the Information Commissioners Office is inundated with complaints and Court maybe a quicker option to make progress and to make Welcome take serious note of the complaints.
Thanks alanalana I've spotted some typos too but I'll alter them on the final draft. I really think they have been awful its clear that most of their paperwork has just been filled in by them at some point as lots of basic info is wrong - they obviously didn't even check against the info they had already been given!
My friend wants to try the regulatory bodies first in the hope they can rectify before we take it to court as ideally she just wants the PPI refunded on the new account and the overpayment refunded plus some compensation for the troubles. I know we've gone in quite high on the compensation but as they charge high we thought we would too
I'm not sure what mods deal with PPI and such but hopefully one will spot my thread?
Ok think we are ready to complain to whichever regulatory body but not sure who it should be? Should be complain to FSA? OFT? fos? Any pointers we be grately appreciated.
Ok think we are ready to complain to whichever regulatory body but not sure who it should be? Should be complain to FSA? OFT? fos? Any pointers we be grately appreciated.
Hello Sparkle,
Loved the letter, you gave them both barrels:grin:
You can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate your complaint. Its free of charge, but may take some time, but I believe they are upholding 80% of complaints
I would also write to the Financial Services Authority, the Office of Fair Trading and Trading Standards with a complaint regarding the unscrupulous behaviour of Welcome . Reading around the thread they are about the worst Although these enforcement authorities will not investigate your individual complaint, they will file the complaint and when they get enough of them, they will investigate and possibly heavy fine them. So it is important for every one to complain:grin:
If any of my posts are helpful, please feel free to click my scales. All information is given as my opinion only, based on my own personal experiences. I have no legal training, but have educated myself in aspects of consumer legislation. My motto "NEVER GIVE IN, NEVER SURRENDER", THERE IS A WAR ON YOU KNOW
Thanks hellhasnofury On your advice we have raised complaints with all those you've listed above and also asked the fos to investigate - as soon as we have any response I'll update .
"oh and can you believe even though she has written several letters of complaint they rang the other day to offer them more money!
Unbelievable!!!!!"
Ref your post 8.The letter offering more money is actually a letter offering to take more money!
Unsolicted letters or calls to make that offer you just cannot refuse because the banks know your financial situation down to the last p.
They are not trying to help you out they are trying to help themselves to more bonuses and somewhere within the system this is against the Conditions of the CCA 1974.
Section 21: Interpretation of ss.140A and 140B of the 1974 Act
50.
Section 21 inserts a new section 140C after the new section 140B (inserted
into the 1974 Act by section 20). The new section 140C defines the types of
agreements that are covered by sections 140A and 140B. Any agreement that
involves the provision of credit to an individual, whether or not regulated by the 1974
Act (except as specified (see paragraph 48 above)), is covered. The sections also
cover, through the definition of “related agreement”, (related in the fact it is a top up or refinance of an earlier loan/agreement(I hate the word agreement as you are at a disadvantage from the words "hello this is your friendly customer advisor can we help you with your finances" ) the practice where the creditor enters into successive credit agreements with a debtor for the purpose, for example, of
increasing the total amount of the debt or obtaining multiple fees from the debtor for setting up each loan. (How many times has this happened to people with loans????)
Taken from this link
Have had a great result for my friend re the PPI & Welcome Finance (think the Ombudsman has told them off).
They denied mis selling but have agreed to cancel the policy and refund the 3 months paid plus have agreed they overcharged by £109 on the old finance and have given £300 compensation.
They are reducing this from the loan to reduce the current loan by £3000 which with interest (roughly guessed by me) should reduce the total to pay by just over £9000 over the 15 years!
My friend is very pleased even though she doesn't have any cash in her hand to show from this she will be receiving a reduction in the monthly payments which was ultimately what she needed
Thanks to everyone for their support (now back to my own fights lol).
Forgot to say she has accepted their offer (as its all that we wanted and a bit more) on the proviso that they recalculate the interest on the loan and confirm the new total over the period plus they confirm the new reduced payment figure!
Well done! I started to complain about my partners loan and decided before I send the letter I would have a really good rake through everything, inc. my 2 old loans and OMG. I thought the number of mistakes/rip offs etc I found would be silly to pursue and just be too complicated but you have given me hope!
If you don't mind, can I use bits and bobs from your letters etc as I am struggling to word and clarify such a long, numerous list of complaints!
From dodgy calculations, missold PPI, data protection breaches,no rebates etc etc.
Well done again : )
Dipply75
I am in no way a legal advisor and only speak from my own experiences and the helpful advice of those in the same boat!
Of course you can Dipply75. Get all the complaints down in writing to them cause even if they don't respond it will help your complaint when it gets to the Ombudsman (maybe even some compensation too!)
Welcome are really annoying me now. We requested they confirm the revised the loan and repayment figures to reflect the reduction they have offered within 14 days and as long as that was done we would accept their settlement.
Surprise Surprise no response and its been almost 4 weeks now!!! A new letter is going out on Tuesday (along with a copy and explanation letter to the Ombudsman!):-
I am extremely dissatisfied that once again my complaint is being delayed by you not responded in a timely manner. I wrote to you on 2nd May 2008 and requested a response within 14 days which I consider to be a generous time frame considering the length of time my complaint has already taken to be addressed by you.
I have still received no reply. I have enclosed a copy of my previous letter for your information and confirm that this has already been forwarded to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Once again in summary we accept the reduction you have offered on the understanding that the interest is recalculated to the end of the loan and confirmation of this with a recalculation of the total loan plus a revised monthly payment amount is forwarded to us.
We are also still waiting for a settlement figure to be supplied to us based on the reduction you have offered.
We require the loan to be recalculated and the monthly payments to be revised based on the previous offer in settlement they provided as we are unable to keep up with the high payments you are continuing to request. Because of this we are now in the situation where we are slightly behind on the payments and late payment markers are being recorded against our credit reference records. Had this matter been concluded promptly when first requested we would not now be in this position and we would therefore request that this matter be dealt with promptly and the late payment markers be removed under these circumstances along with any late payment charges you have added to this account since it has been in dispute with you.
The lack of response from you is once again causing us concern. It would appear that your customer service is severely lacking and that you have no intention to resolve complaints within a reasonable period of time. I feel that the time you have already had to deal with this complaint is more than sufficient for you to provide the information required and would point out for the future that if this information was supplied within your original offer letter this matter could have been cleared up some time ago. These delays are causing us additional upset and distress and we do not feel we are being treated fairly by you.
I would also like to point out that even though you must be aware that your loan has pushed us into negative equity now, your sales staff are still telephoning Mr B to offer further lending and have phoned on several occasions since we raised this complaint and once more after we received your last letter. I fail to see how this is “responsible lending”.
I look forward to receiving your response by 10th June 2008.
Yours sincerely
I cannot believe they are still being obstructive in relation to this matter!!! I will be glad when this is all done and dusted though and feel we are on the home stretch now. As soon as they send the revised info I will post up here then hopefully this thread will be finalised!
Welcome are taking the **** now! They claim that the only way the loan payments can be reduced is if the term of the loan is increased.
Am I missing something here. They deny mis-selling but agree to refund all the premiums plus the overpayment plus the compensation to the loan account. We tell them we accept as long as they recalculate the interest and provide new payment figures. How are we wrong?
Also if they continue to charge the same monthly rate over the same terms then the loan will end up overpaid?
I'm not willing to accept that they can continue to cash in on the outragous interest over the 15 years even though they have agreed to remove the premiums from the loan!
This is already with the Ombudsman and has been for a couple of months but they are still to look into the complaint?
I'm thinking our best recourse is to write again highlighting that we will only accept this matter as concluded once the interest has been revised based on the new lower figure and send a copy to the ombudsman for when they do feel like getting round to look into this!
Does anyone have any other advice on this matter?
I don't see how welcome can get away with it!!!!!!
"And to top it all after receiving the Breakdown of their previous finance agreement it appears they wrote off £450 overpaid due to their settlement figure and them paying themselves!!"
this is interesting as exactly the same thing happened to me but i had my day in cort several months ago and lost on all counts including the above plus PPI. i just couldn't convince the court that they would do something like this.
don't know how to link to my thread but search MCFADWMC vs Welcome and it's on here somewhere for further info.
help with PPI & Welcome
. She wrote to welcome finance in Feb 08 asking to cancel (it is a single premium type policy). Her loan was taken out in Oct 07 therefore she should be due a decent refund on the £3000 plus interest
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Sparklez30
. Reading around the thread they are about the worst
Although these enforcement authorities will not investigate your individual complaint, they will file the complaint and when they get enough of them, they will investigate and possibly heavy fine them. So it is important for every one to complain:grin:
On your advice we have raised complaints with all those you've listed above and also asked the 
