Just a brief outline regarding my experience dealing with Swift Advances regarding a excessive charges complaint of which involved Fos.

2005 I took out a regulated loan for £10000 to be paid over 5 years..

Regular monthly payments were made inline with the agreed amount, sometimes a day or so late. This triggers charges on the account of which also incur the same interest rate as the loan.

as you can see the charges are relentless.

Late 2008 i was in severe financial difficulty as i was elf employed my business was struggling. Realising the depth of debt especially with Swift following a redemption figure request i conceded that there was noway i was going to be able to repay this debt with the spiralling charges being added to the account.

2009 i lost my family home to Swift as i foolishly at the time gave up and did not fight my case in court and just assumed that no matter what i did they would take it anyway.

2012 Following media report about ppi scandal i started to look into the Swift charges and noticed i had ppi added, as i was self employed the ppi was invalid and i successfully reclaimed ppi from FSCS as the original broker had gone bust.

Then i started looking more closer to the charges added to my account following a SAR request to Swift.

Firstly i filed a complaint regarding excessive charges added to the account with Swift of which they dismissed with a Final response so i took my complaint to FOS.

After a lengthy battle it was deemed that Swift acted appropriately in managing the account "I have not seen evidence to show that swift was not transparent about the charges or that you have been treated unfairly" is whats stated from FOS in their summing up letter.

However as Swift had changed the amount they charge for some of the admin costs they agreed to refund the difference so i received a cheque for approx £900 in 2013.

So it seems that despite all the complaining we do not even FOS agree that how Swift conduct their business is unlawful or done in a manner where the consumer is set to fail from the outset.

For anyone wishing to know what the letter codes mean then here is an attached document.

Im not sure the pdf file loaded properly in previous post.

merged.pdf

In light of a recent court case would it be worth my while in submitting another complaint regarding the unfair and excessive charges?

Most definitely. No problem with repeating yourself to Swift as they hope you will go away and not challenge them.

Would FOS look at the complaint again as it would defiantly end up on their desk as we know what the response of Swift would be?

do not put your faith in the FOS they are useless in my opinion.

I complained to them in Feb 2012 about a £3500 loan taken out with Swift in 2007 that was due to end after 5 years,

however after what I thought was the 60th and final payment Swift said we still owed them £4 k due to charges.

The FOS investigated on our behalf and I purposely asked them that while they were investigating Swift would not be adding more interest or charges, they stated ''It is highly unlikely Swift will add more charges to this account while we are investigating this complaint''.

Well guess what they were totally wrong and to add salt to the wound

they took 18 months !!!! investigating my case, during this time Swift were adding £80 a month to my account.

They didn't think Swift's charges were unfair and they had added another £1500 to my account balance in the 18 month period.

If that wasn't enough they then ''lost'' all the paperwork I had sent them that I had received off Swift's over 5 years,

so please excuse me if I don't sing the praises of the FOS. Swift have had something like £7k off me for a £3500 loan taken out in 2007, I still owe about £4k which will take about another 7 years to pay off.

In light of a recent court case would it be worth my while in submitting another complaint regarding the unfair and excessive charges?

Can you link to the case CVsc or post the names please

Can I presume you refer to a Swift case?

Forget FOS, if you have all the statements, complete a CISheet (spreadsheet) and take it through small claims court.

If you dont have the statements send a sar request to swift to get them.

Your loan is under £25k so good idea to challenge:-D

Sorry about the delay,

Yes i refer to a recent Swift case where the judge deemed the charges to be unfair. It was posted in a thread in this forum but relates to another Legal site.

I cant seem to find it for now so if anyone else can link to it then that would be great.Thanks

For anyone interested in persuing a claim against Swift for unfair charges

make sure that your account has not been closed for more than 6 years

i have just been informed by a firm of solicitors that as my account was closed in 2009 then it is now "Time barred" and no court action can be brought against Swift.

This despite a case i had against Swift via FOS in 2012 from which i received a small amount of reduced charges back following a fos investigation.

Despite the odd court case where these unfair charges and the way the accrue the interest have been awarded to the claimant i dont see anyone ever having any real success against Swift as their t&c's are tighter than a ducks arse and are pretty much able to do what they want and the ultimate goal is to take your home at any cost.

It would be interesting if every complainant against Swift (myself included) undergoing a suspended possession order in court with them,

and have just been given a statement of charges) printed hard copies (redacted of course) and then presented the entire case file to the government to investigate.

Surely they would have to step in if hundreds of boxes of documents turned up on parliaments doorstep!

Out of interest has anybody been told by Swift that they will not charge them if you keep payments on the account despite having arrears.

I can't wait to tell the judge that Swift just made that statement to me over the phone

. Even though I have had ever increasing charges since taking out the loan in 2007.

I would gladly be that conduit to the government to take them down..........

Swift blemain welcome all the same issue sadly