I might get censored for this post ..not sure ..but here is my next letter to the OFT. This of course is my own personal opinion and belief ..the Consumer Action Group have no responsibility for its content To Mr Paul Blocksidge Consumer Credit Group Corporate Services Office of Fair Trading Fleetbank House 2-6 Salisbury Square London EC4Y 8JX Re Complaint against Swift Advances Plc & Kestrel Loans No 1 Ltd Before I present the damming documents that appertain to the way Swift Advances Plc are seen to operate and manipulate their finances and funding, I wish first to make the OFT aware of the circumstances surrounding our particular loan agreement with the afore said lender. I have previously made the OFT aware of many of the issues surrounding this agreement in 2007. I also put these issues to the Recorder in our Claim against Swift Advances in December 2008, but as usual the Courts believe that a Litigant in Person is, and I say this unreservedly, an imbecile who has no idea what he/she is talking about when in fact, there is no one who knows more about their particular case than themselves . They have spent many months sometimes 18 months and more researching and checking their facts , when the opposing solicitor/barrister spends at the most 8 or so hrs on the issues, but has something the LIP has not Court respect and credibility, of course this is not in the remit of the OFT , but is a fact that the OFT should take into consideration as this is an unfair balance and unfair position L.I.Ps to be faced with. Our Agreement. We applied initially to borrow £30.000 which on the advice of the agents of Swift Advances Promise Finance Ltd ( now dissolved) increased our borrowing to include the fees and charges that would be charged for being granted this borrowing. We therefore asked to borrow £43000 fully on the understanding that the charges and fees would be taken from the loan we applied for. That is also stated what would be done on the agreement, but this fact is altered slightly by the wording of the agreement that on first reading is missed by the vast majority of borrowers until it is too late. It was stated under oath by the witness for Swift that the interest rate on our particular agreement was shown as an APR rate to enable the borrowers (us) to understand the rate of interest we were paying and had included the one off up front payments payable at the start of the loan. He also stated that he had checked that rate and found it to be correct, ( 9.84%) of course this person holding a Bsc in Economics ………….the Recorder believed him ...I believe…….HE LIED under oath as shown by this APR calculation based on the figures of our loan to deceive and mislead the court and to gain advantage over people. Loan amount (£) 43000 Starter / admin charge (£) 3955 Monthly repayment amount (£) 616.32 Number of monthly repayments 120 Extra final charge (£) Results APR 15.4% Swift say our APR was 9.84% By deliberately not including the fees and charges in the calculator the APR that Mr White said is correct.................. . is incorrect and is misstated to make the interest rate look more attractive. Swift do this on every one of their agreements. The following is the deceptive deliberate misrepresentation of how this lender conceals exactly what they do. a) They state on their agreement we will lend you the brokers fees, the loan administration fee and Title Indemnity fee ( if any) They clearly state that they will lend these fees…it should be noted that they do not refer to them as “charges” of any description….they refer to them as being “lent” and are therefore loans, which are separate from the main loan. They then add these fees (loans to the main loan) and then calculate the APR as below Amount (£) 46955 APR (%) 9.84 Term (months) 120 Results 120 Monthly Payments of £616.36 This is exactly what our loan payments are stated to be, but our loan agreement states £43000. What happens next is that they then “deduct” the fees from the total loan and add them into the Other Financial Information Box and class them as charges for credit, but do not state that they are charges for credit. These are then added back on top of the £43000 outside the agreement, but in truth they have already been included in the interest calculations. This I submit is a misrepresentative act designed to deceive, and it does deceive all ……including the Courts. In any event as they have been included as loans in these calculations and they are in fact separate “restricted creditor debtor supplier agreements” within the meaning of the Consumer Credit Act and makes the whole agreement a “partly” regulated agreement, if I am right, which I am sure I am, all of this lenders unregulated agreements are “partly” regulated ones and should be stated as such, as the Lender themselves treat the alleged charges at inception as loans for the sole purpose of reducing the apparent stated interest rate to make it appear more attractive. Consumers are always told by various authorities and organisations to look at the APR, by misrepresenting it misleads the borrower I supply a copy of our agreement again, I have already done so previously, to support my calculations. In a nutshell they treat them as loans for their purpose and advantage and call them charges for credit when challenged about them. Swift Advances Plc----Swift 1st ----Kestrel Loans No1 Ltd ---Kestrel Loans No 2 Ltd---Kestrel Loans No 3 Ltd. All these companies are part of the Kestrel Holdings Ltd (Group) It is stated in the Five companies Annual Accounts that principle business activity of all five companies is supplying Loans and Mortgages to the domestic market secured on freehold and long term lease properties. But my investigations have shown that only two of these companies actually do in fact and reality lend to the domestic market, they are Swift Advances Plc and Swift 1st Ltd for mortgages and insurance products and Swift Advances Plc as secondary lenders The manner in the way these 5 companies operate is most irregular to the extent I believe of criminal behaviour and activity and steps are taken by them to ensure that is concealed from all. Despite many phone calls to the registered office of the Kestrel companies ( Arcadia House any attempt to contact any one of the 109 employees that are stated in their accounts to be employed by them, customers have been told there is no one in that building that works for them. Many have never heard of these companies Two of these companies buy loans from Swift 1st Ltd and Swift Advances Plc, this you will see is confirmed in their separately filed company accounts. The Chief Executive Officer of Swift Advances Plc whois also a Director of the Kestrel group of companies referred to has categorically stated along with their legal department that Swift do not securitise their loans, but attached are documents that show that both Swift Advances and Kestrel process separate accounts for the one loan agreement. The documents I refer to have been supplied by Swift by mistake they were never ever meant to surface to the fore. It will be seen from the comparison of these two documents ( I have more of the same account) that exactly one month after this loan agreement started, it was sold to Kestrel Loans No1 Ltd (my particular loan was sold exactly 2 weeks after the agreement started) It will be seen that Kestrel Loans No 1 Ltd has all the particulars of this loan and shows payments due and payments made. When you study the Swift account record you will see that it consists of all the penalty charges and other fees legal fees etc and it appears that interest is being charged at contract rate to ALL the fees. I submit that this proves beyond doubt that Swift have indeed sold the Title rights to all loans to the Kestrel Companies. They would need to do this to raise the large sums of extra funding from other Banks, and it is Swift that keep just the equity of the loan …it is in truth a reverse equity deal. Swift release Title and keep all benefits. Swift Advances have not changed the Land Registry details to the Kestrel Company involved either No 1 or No 3 depending on which one the loan has been sold to , they do not do so in order that they can produce it in Court for evidence of the right to claim possession when they do not have that legal right. I submit that the suspended possessions in the past, and the outright possession of our property have been obtained by criminal fraud, lies, deception, perjury and contempt of The Courts of law. Courts do not challenge Swift to prove they hold Title, they merely accept their word and rubber stamp the Court order for repossession as in our case, despite the evidence I produced to the contrary. Courts have three minutes on average to process repossession claim hearings, How can this be? This must be considered an act of unfair trading …….unfair trading of peoples lively hood and roof over their heads I also attach the record of payment of our account it is this record of payments that Swift send to all customers and produce as evidence in Courts. It is not a proper statement of account You will note that this is the same account as the record of payments shown as the Kestrel No1 Account record attached for your perusal and study. What I believe happens is that these record of payments are "lifted" from the Kestrel System and the heading is changed to show Swift Advances as the heading, which I believe is tampering with that account record and falsifying it to make it appear as if it is a Swift Account. Finally to my knowledge not one single Swift customer has ever received a statement of account only a record of payments, which does not show a balance of the account. It can even be see from the two record of payments that Swifts accounting system and procedures are set to show accounts to be in more arrears than they are, this is deliberately set to enable penalty arrears to be charged adding more arrears to arrears etc etc, it is set to make money. It is a further reason for customers never to be supplied with statement of accounts as it would be spotted easier To sum my allegations up. I submit and believe * Swifts witness Mr Mark White their risk manager and shareholder in the Kestrel companies lies in statements of truth and under oath in courts of law. * The directors of Swift make false deliberate misleading statements when questioned. * Their Credit Agreements are flawed. * The group is involved in Criminal, Fraudulent activities for gain at the expense of borrowers. * They abuse their position and flout every authority, rule, law and regulation in force today, whilst maintaining a façade of integrity to all official bodies. It is because of this we are to lose our home to criminals and NO-ONE will stop them. The law certainly won’t, it is I situations like this that people consider taking the law into their own hands, as the law only sponsors the rich. Yours sincerely Has now gone of recorded delivery today

Has anyone seen sparkle over the last couple of days??? No-one has offended him/her by any chance?? sparkie

HI Marky everyone, Its not a document as such but something a little more reliable admitted by Mark White and stated in our Court Judgement summary. Taken from that summary Quote "It was later stated that the cost of funds are dictated by LIBOR" and later on "The case for the Claimant is that its interest rates are not directly linked to the Bank of England base rate, the cost of funds being governed rather by LIBOR" . These statements made under oath by Mark White. Can't get any clearer than this Can we?? sparkie

HI Marky E-mail the OFT back and just correct one error Swifts interest rate is NOT connected to the Bank of England rate but to the LIBOR rate. That is something quite different. But this is a point you can make .........Most of Swifts borrowers just do not know about LIBOR and Swift do not tell you before you sign any agreement nor do their Broker agents. It is not mentioned on the agreement and it is not mentioned in their terms and conditions. This is one thing a lot of other sub prime lenders do....they make it clear on their agreements that their interest is linked to the LIBOR rate The other point is SWift have stated under oath in Courts that their cost of funding is governed SOLELY by the LIBOR rate of interest...and they state in their accounts that they borrow at a fixed capped rate as a protection against interest rate increases. So any rate of interest that goes up ...........they are not affected by it. and also the other way round i it comes down they are not affected, so in truth and fact every Swift agreement is a FIXED rate of interest. We can prove they put their rates up every month on someones agreement in any event the 3 monthly LIbor rate was fixed at the end of Nov this year to stay at 0.6775% till at least Feb next year sparkie

This is what Panorama said in 2007 ( taken off their website) We looked at the details of more than 7000 repossession hearings in the UK over the last three months, and we identified which companies were involved in seeking those repossessions. In 70% of cases the companies were either exclusively sub-prime lenders, or had sub-prime lending as a significant part of their business. We then counted out which companies were involved with the most repossession hearings and divided that figure by the size of their loans outstanding to work out which companies were suffering from the highest number of repossessions in relation to their size. Top of our list was Swift Advances which provides so called secondary charge loans, which are loans people take out in addition to their mortgages. What is interesting about this figure is that repossessions due to secondary charge companies such as Swift Advances do not appear in the six monthly repossession statistics provided by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Question? Has anyone else received confirmation from Swift that they do not securitise their loans?

I see sparkle is still logged on .............you haven't learnt much to day sparkle have you.....believe me you will learn quite a bit from N.Ireland tomorrow..........a certain unit over there has already begun investigating one of your broker/agents ( lenders are responsible for brokers actions) ..especially when they have gone into liquidation .....the ball rolls to the lender.

Please everyone send any bit of information that you have about Swift to the OFT and the way you have been treated....their extortionate penalty charges .........I have an example of a customer receiving 5 letters written to them about 1 months arrears and was charged £115 ( £23) per letter. Things such as this no matter how trivial you may think they are. Especially zeblet ......tell the OFT about your phone calls enquiring about Kestrel No 1.........and the answers you received ..one of them recorded and noted on their computer system ................they are most interested in things such as you have. It is the combination of the collective imformation that will cause serious problems for Swift that are with out doubt fully justified...........let us see how many false misleading statements they make to the OFT........ should the OFT make equiries;);) sparkie

HI apollo I was thinking of the Metropolitan London Unit. Telephone: 020 7601 2222 PO Box 36451 London EC2M 4WN Would appreciate any help and directions/advise views comments evidence that others have etc. along with signatures etc to show its not fairy tale stuff. sparkie

Can folks follow what I am saying here about Swifts interest calculations?? These figures apply to our particular agreement Loan amount (£) 43000 Starter / admin charge (£) 3955 Monthly repayment amount (£) 616.32 Number of monthly repayments 120 Extra final charge (£) Results APR 15.4% Swift say our APR is 9.84% By deliberately not including the fees and charges in the calculator the APR that Mr White said is correct................... is incorrect and is misstated to make the interest rate look more attractive. Next Calculation Loan amount (£) 43000 Starter / admin charge (£) Monthly repayment amount (£) 616.32 Number of monthly repayments 120 Extra final charge (£) Results APR 12.7% If you leave the fees out of the calculation you will see the APR is still incorrect. If the monthly repayments are calculated at these two APR’s they would be severely increased. This is the one Swift use ( No charges for credit Just one total loan amount) The fees and charges are treated as loans for the calculation of interest ....then they change their category to Charges for cred...........................it unlawfull Amount (£) 46955 APR (%) 9.84 Term (months) 120 Results 120 Monthly Payments of £616.36 Total amount repaid £73,963.20 Total interest paid £27,008.20 This is what our agreement said at the start of the loan, the Barrister soon got his head round this Summary This calculation is the one used by Swift advances and I submit that this proves that the fees and charges are treated as loans by Swift not as charges for credit,....................... which the First calculation shows the APR as it should be if they were charges for credit and treated as such in the APR calculation This means as I tried to argue in Court that our agreement is a multiple agreement within the meaning of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and is a partly regulated agreement. It consists of 1 Loan which is an unregulated unrestricted use agreement, and 3 loans restricted use which are linked transaction falling into sections 11 and 18 of the Consumer Credit Act and should be set out as per the Consumer Credit Agreement Regulations 1983 amended 2004 in force 31st May 2005. This is the only way the Act and Regulations can be used and applied The agreement itself refers to them as loans by saying ……….“we agree to lend you The repayment of these 3 loans totalled together should be shown as per below Amount (£) 3955 APR (%) 9.84 Term (months) 120 Results 120 Monthly Payments of £51.92 Total amount repaid £6,230.40 Total interest paid £2,275.40 On top of all this there is no such thing as charges for credit on an unregulated agreement .this term and use of it only applies to regulated agreements. Just think of what this will mean to Swift if I am ( the Barrister is successful in these submissions. sparkie

HI everyone, Will post just a little of what was discussed at my meeting with the Barrister First..................... Due to time frame limit he will concentrate on drafting the application for permission to appeal, and the grounds for requesting that permission. Second ...He is of the opinion that our SDAR has not been fully complied even to this date.....I am to list the Documents I believe are missing. He will get them or Swift are in trouble before its starts. Third ...He will be obtaining the full transcripts of the court hearings and judgement summaries....especially the full hearing of the one on 3rd Dec He wants to know exactly what was said in court by the Swift Barrister and exactly what Judge Newman said. Fourth ...All other issues are put on the back burner until appeal has been granted. In the mean time he wants me to gather together All documents letters, Court orders etc from the beginning to date. He is aware of Swift that is all he said on this matter but implied more than he said. So its to the grindstone.....The main one he is interested in is the account (ours) that is being run run by Kestrel that matches the one I presented him with today. I posted about this morning. He will be requesting this from Swift/Kestrel He said in the mean time if I believe in all I told him ( which I do)....he advised sending all the information to the Economics Crime Unit for their view .......and advised that this will not interfere with the civil action so thats what I'm going to do. sparkie

HI matey, This time in the hands of this Barrister who as I have said before specialises in irredeemably unenforceable agreements ...these documents I got at 11.30 last night are DYNAMITE..and I have also finally worked out how Swift UNLAWFULLY manipulate their interest rates...........I can tell you it is very very clever and I believe and in my own personal opinion a definate misrepresentaion of those interest rates, I will post Counsels opinion on this later sparkie

Good morning sparkle .. I suspect you will be viewing this thread today, I will not be posting very much till after I have seen Counsel today and............. as I have made your Mr Payne aware I have now obtained some documents to present to the High Court that will without any doubt what so ever cause Swift and Kestrel No 1 some serious problems. Have a good day:rolleyes:` sparkie

I see sparkle has gone for now ...properbly to complain again about my posts ..............and check back with his/her bosses. sparkie

The point here is I think andrew1 is that Swift did not sell their loan book according to a senior official they only tranferred the equity their rights and benefits. Again where did this Loan Book come from if they never lend money to the domestic market?? Which in fact means/ should mean that ..........Swift kept hold of the original debt amount and all the interest payments ( profit went to Kestrel). Now that would be the reason for the two accounts ...BUT Swifts account should show the Capital repayments only, i.e the original debt coming down.....without any interest charges. The Kestrel account should show just the interest payments being made, ..........but that does not happen ................both accounts show capital and interest being paid and both account show and includes the charges.....therefore again they are two separate accounts........I would direct everyone to The Northumberland police website that explains accounting systems and the manner and ways that they can be manipulated by again I say " Irregular Methods" and for what purposes and also explains the exact determination of what an "account" means. In one instance and evidence I have the Swift and Kestrel accounts DO NOT match ............it appears that the do what they like in these " internal accounting procedures" as it was stated to me by a senior officer of Swift. I have 3 explanations all given by this officer. 1..It is purely an internal accounting procedure. 2..It was a legitimate lawful transfer of Equity and .. 3..The same officer who signed their accounts states in those accounts.........they were sold ...................to raise further funding sparkie

Good morning sparkle

Two other little point snippets I have on record that a customer of Swift rang them and asked about Kestrel No 1, who were processing her account as well as Swift and wanted to find out about it all, and who Kestrel No 1 was because there were two names on the documents ...one headed Swift and the other headed Kestrel no 1............the advisor spoken to at Swift put the person on hold ................and then came back and said " Oh Kestrel are the people who fund Swift Loans" ...she then called them back a few days later to speak to the same person to ask if that could be confirmd in writing ......that person was not available.......the second person she spoke to said that she " personally" had never heard of Kestrel , but could see the notes left by the previous advisor spoken to. What do folks make of that???

HI Andrew and S/M/C. This avenue and all others will be considerered and investigated by the Barrister i am to see he is I am told very knowledgeable in this field. sparkie

Morning Marky, There is a reason why one certain sub prime lender goes for possession as fast as it can....I won't post the reason because it would be objected to by sparkle ............................they won't be able to object to it in court though. Another thing I will bringing the attention of the Barrister is that one of the directors of the Kestrel Companies stated in answer to an enquiry as to why none of them hold an FSA or OFT licence..........Was ..."they do not carry out FSA or OFT regulated business"...........................BUT their principle business activity is stated to be lending money secured on domestic property and one of these companies accounts state they have a LOAN BOOK £54 million......in order to have a loan book and lend to the domestic market they must hold one or both of these licences,....but they don't and its about time the authorities investigated this. If they do not lend to the domestic market where has this loan book come from? I wonder if sparkle will object to this being posted sparkie

Quote from the link above "But judges did not always step in to ensure the protocol was followed," Nothing is more true about this than in my case the Judge coulndn't give possession fast enough. sparkie

I'm off to bed now .got another day of digging for info before I go and see the Barrister wednesday.............Im going to try and give him enough ammo to bring down a UFO...but this one has been identified as a low flying fast bird;) sparkie

THanks With support like yours I have just got to win for EVERYONE.. I now have the evidence of 4 Customers accounts being processed by Kestrel Loans No 1 Ltd as well as Swift ...but more interestingly these last set of accounts are diffent from each other, pointing more to the fact that they are two separate accounts, being processed by two different companies on two different computer systems, therefore being used for should we say ................" irregular accounting procedures and purposes" These of course are presented as Asetts of both companies......which is not quite proper sparkie

I don't think sparkle can protest at these 2 posts!!! The one previous and this one AS folks know I made a complaint about the Barrister to the Bar Standards Board (who we were directed to by the solictors we engaged) I then had to dismiss him because the Defence he submitted was so weak, I believe we would have had a possession order given 12 months ago if it had been left to him. The Bar Standards board have seen that I have reason for a complaint and it is due for hearing 27th Next month Jan 2010 Any way just sent this to be included in our complaint file. If found in our favour the board can order the Barrister to pay us our money back plus a little or a lot of compensation. Dear “Bar Standards Board”, I respectfully ask that you add this letter to the file of my complaint about “the Barrister” to be considered by the Bar Standards Board on the 27th January 2010. Serious developments have transpired which are the result of the consequential flow of the now to be seen negligent handing of our case from the very first instant he took our case on. We have I believe that we have provided the Board with the evidence, that “the Barrister” failed to plead our Defence in a meaningful manner, and that he never took any steps to obtain information and data by way of either, not making a subject data access request on our behalf, or advised us to do so. The Board is aware that mainly due to “the Barrister” not pleading our counterclaim sufficiently we lost that claim. On 14th November we received a notice from the Court of possession proceedings which was heard on 3rd December 2009. We submitted a joint defence witness statement 3 to 4 days before that hearing which was based on the misleading statements made by the Claimants witness under oath and in statements of truth, and on the evidence and information obtained after the first hearing which was purely a part 20 claim. No possession hearing took place for reason we had paid up all the arrears that had accumulated. However after having been forced to defend ourselves as an LIP, the Judge ruled that to submit a statement in defence 3 to 4 days before a hearing was unacceptable and completely disregarded it, after giving the Counsel for Swift Advances 45 minutes to submit the reasons for the possession to be ordered, he gave me 8 or so minutes and refuted all I claimed and ordered immediate possession. I submit that the judge did not consider CPR 55.24 nor the guidelines given with regard to possession claims given by the government. I submit that if “the barrister” had been diligent and given proper due care and attention to our case this possession order would not have been obtained, and it is all due to the complete fault of “the Barrister“. I attach a copy of our Defence minus the documents but can assure the Board that they are consistent with the Defence statement and can be supplied if required to do so. I believe a lot can be checked from the documents that have already been supplied. Yours respectfully and sincerely

Just getting bullet points togeter regarding all the stuff I have against Swift. Just put this in chronlogical order sparkie We apply for £30,000 pound loan with Promise Finance Ltd who contacted us, after First Plus declined our application. We fill in application form for £30.000. Promise Finance tell us that Fees and charges would be taken from our loan, and that because if this we would not receive £30.000 they advise us to increase the loan to make sure we get at least what we required. Partner and I had a discussion and decide to take their advice and increased the loan to ensure that we would receive at least what we expected. No new application form was filled in. Only our application for £30.000 was presented in Court, because we never filled one for £43.000 in. It was stated in Swifts witness statement of truth and in Court that this application had been altered by hand by a Joanne Hickey who works for Swift. We were never told that the fees and charges would be added to the loan agreement. We have a letter from Promise Solutions Ltd ( parent company of the now dissolved Promise Finance Ltd stating that they confirm that fees and charges to the sum of £3.955 were charged, but they cannot confirm that theses fees were deducted from the loan or added to the loan. Swift have always stated and re-iterated that all this would have been explained by our “broker” who were a direct agent of Swift. If the broker/agent did/does not know the circumstances surrounding these fees how could they have explained it to us, we believed they would be taken from the loan, not added as correspondence with Swift show, that we disputed these added fees and charges from May 2007 to date . As lenders have now been decreed responsible for all the action of their brokers/agents, Swift are responsible for all these misleading misrepresentations, including misrepresentations by omission, as well as negligent/and/or innocent misrepresentations, although I doubt they can rely on the last.

This is what is said about the Barrister who is acting for us. sparkie Consumer Credit Law: He undertakes a significant amount of consumer credit work. In particular he acts for Debtors in all aspects of financial irregularity claims with the emphasis on irredeemably unenforceable agreements. Housing and Anti-social behaviour; He has particular experience of Housing Law and anti-social behaviour law. He frequently acts for local authorities and tenants in this area and has a specific interest in claims for possession, injunctive relief and homelessness applications/appeals.