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OK I thought I would start a thread because I need a small piece of advice.
When I send a preliminary letter to Welcome for return of charges plus interest on a couple of redeemed loan accounts (1 secured - 1 unsecured) which argument can I use the Penalties or the UTCCR or both. Or should I treat this the same as the Bank and just use the UTCCR?
OK - I have received WF "Final Response to you Complaint" letter which says
"Account Number xxxxxxxx
You made each monthly contractual payment on time and in full to this account. Therefore, no fees for late payments, telephone calls or letters were applied to this account.
You have claimed for a refund of £58.59 which is listed as 'penalty fees'. When a customer settles their account early, we are entitled to make a charge in relation to the interest that would have accrued, had the loan run to its full term. The £58.59 listed represents this charge and you are therefore not entitled to claim a refund for this amount.
Account Number xxxxxxxxx
Regarding your belief that the charges are allegedly disporportionate in relation to the actual loss suffered by us, we would refer to the case Dunlop Pneumatic v New Garage [1915] AC 79, which states that a penalty would only arise: "if the sum stipulated is extravagant and unconsionable in amount in comparison with the greatest loss that could conceivably be proved to have followed from the breach."
We would be entitled to recover the full balance of the agreement if you failed to make payment to the account. Consequently any charges applied to the account cannot be disproportionate when compared to what we would be entitled to recover as a results of your breach of contract.
Further, we would refer you to the recent High Court Case between the OFT and certain banks, with a view to determining issues of legal principle in relation to the recovery of charges made under bank current account arrangements, and the applicability or otherwise of the UTCCR 1999 and other legislation to such charges, where it was stated by Justice Andrew Smith at paragraph 449 that none of the charges levied could be unenforecable, on the grounds that they are not penalties.
By signing you loan agreement, you entered into a legally binding contract to make payments to us. You will be aware that there are a number of occasions on which you did not make your contractual payments, and we feel it was not unreasonable for our staff to seek to contact you to request that you recommence your contarctual payments. I can confirm however, you have not been charged for each telephone call that it was necessary to make to you."
OK I can agree, I think, with the £58.59, this seems to be an ERC, although on their statements it clearly says "Penalty Charge".
My question is, how shall I react to this? I would prefer the court route to fos, but obviously I need to know how I should reply to this letter in my lba.
OK I am concentrating on the unsecured loan I had with WF.
I took out a loan in March 05. In December 05 I took out another loan. The first loan was settled with the second loan. This is a regular thing for WF I have read.
What I am checking is because I paid both loans off early, did I pay the correct settlement amounts. It becomes more complicated because the first loan should have been settled under the 1983 regulations and the second loan under the 2004 regulations.
Whilst I can quite easily work out what I should have settled on the first loan! applying this to the second loan and working out what I should have settled/paid is far too complicated.
For instance if the settlement figure for the first loan is wrong (and I believe it is) then this renders all the details on the second loan wrong!
Are there any experts available to assist me in calculating the details of the 2nd loan with the settlement figure included from the 1st loan?
I hope I haven't confused you all.
I have statements for both loans, plus copies of the credit agreements. Both agreements include PPI etc.
There was not any arrears on either loan!
The insurance on the 1st loan was called Lifecare 24 and was £175 added to the loan amount. This was a 60 month term Life Insurance of £17,000 (not quite sure why I needed £17,000 cover for such a small loan nor why I needed it for 60 months when the loan was for 24 months). Anyway, I guess as its a life insurance policy no rebate would have been due, although I can't for the life of me think why I would have wanted or needed this.
they are old enough
are any of the loan re-written as this will cancel out the previouse
can you post the agreements onto your thread minus personel details but leave in the figures
I have just been reading the March 05 loan documents again, and one of the insurance policies is "Lifecare24". This is a 5 year Term Life policy with a benefit of £17,000.
I have just phoned Direct Group and this policy is still inforce (surprised!) and expires in March 2010.
The Loan was for £750 over 2 years, the policy which WF sold me was for £17,000 over 5 years!!
Is it possible to mis-sell a Life Insurance with a lump sum benefit on death??
OK I thought I would just add something as I have just read andie_303 PPI thread re.WF.
When I spoke to Direct Group about these policies, she said that they would forward me all the policy documents they have on the 3 policies mentioned in post 17. This implies they do hold these documents which I think I read in Andie_303's thread they said they did not.
Fortunately, I have a number of documents from WF (Policy Schedules) which have a policy number on them beginning with "WMC" followed by 7 numbers. I quoted this policy number to DG and she found the policies straight away.
Also, it would appear that when you take a loan with WF and they lump on the insurances, you then ask WF to borrow more money and they refinance the original loan with a new loan and add more insurances, the "WMC" policy number remains the same except for a "/1" at the end. The lady at DG said these are still the same policy just additions to the main policy.
She also did say that you need to contact WF for any statement of needs documents as they don't hold copies of them!
On a separate point, although still WF, I have found some correspondence (actually a letter) from myself to WF stating that I did not want the PPI insurance on the Secured Loan I had in 2001 and requesting them to re-jig the credit agreement minus the PPI!
BobbyH
P.S. can someone move this thread to the WF section?
BobbyH V Welcome Finance
on a couple of redeemed loan accounts (1 secured - 1 unsecured) which argument can I use the Penalties or the UTCCR or both. Or should I treat this the same as the Bank and just use the UTCCR?
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