Hi All

Just looking for a bit of advice please. I recently complained to some payday loan companies about unfair treatment and irresponsible lending. I had an email acknowledgi my complaint pretty soon after I submitted one of them. It outlined their complaints procedure and said they would send a final response within 8 weeks. A few days later I received a redress email that admitted I had been treated unfairly and that my balance as a result had been reduced to 0. Do you think this is their response to my complaint or is this just one step in their investigation into the complaint? And sorry to sound a bit dumb but what does 'balance restatement' mean?

Many thanks

C

Hi City

Welcome back to CAG. Well from looking, looks like a resolution to a complaint.

Did they email you / send you a yellow leaflet by any chance?

Can we see the response minus personal details?

Hi There

Thanks.

It's been a while!

I can't figure out how to copy it on my tablet

it doesn't say it's final resolution and I haven't been sent a yellow leaflet.

Should I email back and ask if it's a part resolution?

Will post it on Monday when I am on the laptop.

This wasn't their response to my complaint.

They are still investigating it.

I will receive the resolution in a few weeks.

Will update here when I hear from them.

Hi there,

I've had my final response and I can't figure out how to take out the personal details

but here goes:

You have made a complaint in relation to affordability checks completed prior to your loan approval.

You state there was no way you were able to afford these loans

and that you were having to borrow the next month to survive.

I have reviewed our records and can confirm that these loans were considered on the basis of the information that you supplied at the application stage.

At the time of application you confirmed you were a homeowner in full time employment earning a net monthly income of £XXXX.

We believe you received an income from this occupation that was sufficient to service the amounts you had requested.

Please be advised as a responsible lender we assessed all our applications on an individual basis

and completed our own business criteria checks,

however we had our own regulations in place which we adhered to.

Applications were only approved after the successfully met the required checks.

When an application was reviewed by underwriters,

the business conducted affordability checks based on an individual's credit score

which took into account your banking and address history.

Alongside these affordability checks the business also carried out further checks by phone with you to gather information regarding your income and employment details.

The business verified these details via telephone in order to confirm your correct details,

which enabled us to evaluate your affordability prior to your loan being approved.

At this point you confirmed your income and as a result the business deemed the loan to be affordable

and the funds were credited to you.

Please note that it wasn't a requirement under the Regulation of the OFT at the time of your application

for the business to conduct a credit check for your loan approval.

Upon application you would have been fully aware that you were making an application for a loan which was not credit checked,

this would be due to the fact that it was clearly visible on the application page and advertised a such.

We appreciate that you may have had a number of loans at the time of application and were experiencing financial difficulty, however the business was unaware of these loans and of any impending circumstances which would affect your ability to make repayments and we were not informed by you during the application stage.

Please be advised it is also a consumer's responsibility not to sign the agreement should they not be satisfied with the terms and conditions.

Additionally as part of its process CFO Lending sent a Consumer Credit agreement to you by e-mail to sign electronically.

This confirmed all the terms and conditions of your loan, with this document sent to you to ensure you were aware of the specifics of the agreement you were signing.

These documents also advised we are a Payday loan company and these loans are designed for customers who are in need of unexpected financial expenses before their next pay date, i.e. short term loan.

It is not intended to resolve finances or debts outstanding or should not be applied when you are aware of your inability to make repayments.

The next bit of the letter is about how much I loaned for,

when they didn't receive payment and when the loan fell into default,

late interest and charges were applied as per the terms and conditions of the consumer credit agreement.

Our Final Response The business understand you are dissatisfied with the affordability checks completed prior to loan approval, however we feel the checks which were carried out were sufficient to decide whether the loan was affordable to you based on the information provided to us at that time.

We also do not believe the information you supplied to be incorrect with the amounts requested not disproportionate to your income.

Please also note interest and charges were applied appropriately to your account as per the terms and conditions of your consumer credit agreement should you default.

We also feel we assisted you when we were aware you were expecting financial difficulty by setting up a suitable and affordable repayment arrangement to assist you in settling your account with CFO Lending appropriately.

Needless to say under the circumstances and in an effort to resolve your complaint with the business we will offer the following as a full and final settlement to your complaint.

I have looked further into your account and can confirm you are due redress from the business.

We have been working alongside the FCA to conduct a review and customer redress scheme has been overseen by an independent third party whose appointment was agreed by the regulator.

We can confirm your account falls under the redress area of Balance Restatement.

This comprises of all default interest and charges applied to the account to be removed from your account.

The business have also identified another area for redress for your account which is Reporting of inaccurate data to CRAs.

Redress for this are will be applied to your account by removing any default entries associated with CFO Lending from your credit file.

Your current outstanding balance is £917.27.

We will write off the remaining outstanding balance in the form of redress,

which takes into consideration payments towards this account.

This will reduce your outstanding balance to the sum of £0.00,

which in turn settles and closed your account with CFO Lending.

Please be advised the reduction in balance has already been applied to your account, with your account settled and closed.

If you are happy with this resolution to your complaint please confirm your acceptance via return.

Sorry, I tried to add paragraphs twice but they kept disappearing...

they say they didn't carry out credit checks and then they say they do.

I still have the credit agreements and it says the standard 'how we use your info' business below.

"In considering whether to enter into this Agreement, we may search your record at credit reference agencies.

They will add to their records about you, details of our search and your application and this will be seen by other organisations that make searches.

Our search of records at credit reference agencies may be linked to your spouse/partner, or other persons with whom you are linked financially.

For the purposes of any application or this Agreement you may be treated as financially linked and you will be assessed with reference to "associated records".

We may also add to your record with the credit reference agencies details of your agreement with us,

the payments you make under it and any default or failure to keep to its terms.

These records will be shared with other organisations and may be used and searched by us and them in order to:

l Consider applications for credit and credit related services such as insurance for you and any associated person;

l Trace debtors, recover debts, prevent or detect money laundering and fraud, and to manage your accounts.

It is important that you provide us with accurate information.

We may check your details with fraud prevention agencies and if you provide false or inaccurate information or we suspect fraud, this information may be recorded.

Fraud prevention agency records will be shared with other organisations to help make decisions on credit, motor, household, life and other insurance proposals or claims for you and members of your household.

Please write to us at our address stated above, or telephone us on if you require details of the credit reference agencies or any other agencies from whom we obtain, and to whom we pass, information about you.

You have a legal right to these details.

You have the right to receive a copy of the information we hold about you if you apply to us in writing. A fee will be payable".

In my original complaint I also asked them to explain what looked like a glaring anomaly on the statement they sent.

It showed a payment of £600 being made which was credited back the same day.

They haven't made any reference to that at all.

Incidentally, I didn't make a £600 payment or agree to make a £600 payment at any time with them

and it was during 2013 when I had a payment arrangement in place.

Has anyone got any ideas about what to do next please?

Thanks

Hi there.

I posted a thread here early in April but it's disappeared

I managed to post on it earlier by searching for the thread title. Can someone tell me which heading it's now under please?

Many thanks

sadly we appear to have database issues at present

can you give it till the morning?

then you'll find all your threads by clicking your username on the left

dx

thread now sorted

so they have removed the default

and set the bal to £0

what is your outstanding issue?

dx

Thanks for sorting the post out. It was a bit difficult to read.

I am happy with the balance being written off. There is nothing on my credit report to remove as these loans don't appear.

I am just wondering whether it's worth pursuing it further because the response says that they didn't have to credit check and they advertised this as a no credit check loan but further down the response it says they did. Also if they had they would have seen a number of other payday loans and defaults on my file. The balance write off was made up of charges mainly. I paid back more than twice the amount that I borrowed even without the balance write off.

If it's not worth pursuing on the basis of unaffordability that's fine. I don't really understand what balance restatement means either.

Thanks again.

C

Forgot to say. They did agree to a repayment plan but I experienced a whole load of distress from mitigate trace and collect in the process!

Should have mentioned that when writing to them.

I had a 'balance' of £920 from a £358 loan, they nabbed £658 from my bank leaving a balance of £270 (this money was put back into my bank but they didn't put it back onto the balance haha!), wrote a complaint and they offered to clear the balance plus £500 refund, and £40 for excessive communication.