QuickQuid - 'My PayDay Moan'

[Jon Danzig]

An American company based in London,QuickQuid, wrote to me out-of-the blue, claiming I was late paying back a loan in my name. I had never heard of them and had never borrowed any money from them. Clearly, I was the victim of crime: my identity had been fraudulently used.

 

Worse, the typical interest rate on loans provided by this company is around 1,700% APR. In my case, it was over 5,200% APR.

 

I phoned QuickQuid. The American woman who answered told me that she was recording the call. I told her, “So am I.” She replied, “I don’t give you permission to record me.” I replied, “So I don’t give you permission to record me.”

 

The call had to be terminated.

 

The company then emailed forms requiring me to provide personal information about myself. I refused and wrote that I had reported the matter to the police and trading standards. I added:

 

“If you wish to pursue this matter further, please provide me with documentary evidence that I owe money to your company.”

 

I also made clear that I would not provide any personal data about me that would be exported to the USA; it had to be processed in the UK or I would tell them nothing.

 

QuickQuid wrote back that my data would be sent from the UK to the USA and was subject to the “Safe Harbour” agreement. I was also told that if I didn’t provide the information required, I would continue to owe them money, there would be fees incurred, and my credit rating could be adversely affected.

 

The investigation – to clear me of the debt – could only continue, they said, if I provided the personal information about me.

 

I refused, and wrote:

 

“I have taken legal advice on this, and also from the Consumer Advice line of Trading Standards. I cannot be of any further assistance, or provide any further personal information about me, unless and until your organisation provides me with documentary evidence that I actually owe you any money. Furthermore, I have spoken in detail with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, and they have advised me of the short comings of the ‘Safe Harbour’ agreement between the USA and Europe. Therefore, I cannot agree to provide any personal data about me if it is to be exported or processed outside of the UK.

 

“If you continue to pursue this matter without providing documentary evidence to me, then my local police station has advised me to contact them again so that they may pursue this matter. You surely understand that you cannot just claim an individual owes your organisation money in the absence of any evidence.

 

“I trust this makes my position perfectly clear.”

 

Within 8 minutes of my email, QuickQuid responded:

 

“We have completed our investigation and have closed the QuickQuid account with your information. Any outstanding debt has been discharged and you will not be responsible for any monies owed… We truly apologize for this incident and any inconvenience it may have caused.”

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BBC Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ recently featured my saga with QuickQuid, which has now been produced as a video called,

” and another video of the phone call with QuickQuid called

, and they are also available to view on my YouTube channel at EyesEars.com More about Jon Danzig Edited March 4, 2012 by seanamarts
Link removed to quick quid

[citizenB]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?340687-Recorded-telephone-call-with-Quick-Quid%281-Viewing%29-nbsp

 

Here is the link to the telephone call..

[citizenB]

 

 

Within 8 minutes of my email, QuickQuid responded:

 

“We have completed our investigation and have closed the QuickQuid account with your information. Any outstanding debt has been discharged and you will not be responsible for any monies owed… We truly apologize for this incident and any inconvenience it may have caused.”

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This is a mealy mouthed response - it does not address the original situation whereby you have been the victim of identity theft.

[LaughingGirl]

Completely agree with CitizenB.

 

I've had my own woes with payday loans in the past, but they were self-inflicted. However, that QQ would allow a PDL to be paid into a third party bank account is really quite frightening - I had no idea this was possible. The potential for fraud is staggering, and since many of these companies do not report to CRA's or actually ever take court action, I'm now wondering how many people have PDL's in their name and have no idea that it's happened?

 

With so many PDL Co's, someone could easily run up thousands in one day using someone else's identity in this manner.

[Bang!]

However, its not a win. All that happened was you are back where you should be yet were inconvenienced & probably for a while had a dire credit record.

 

As long as lenders and collectors can harasss and profit from it on enough occasions to make it viable - then its going to continue.

 

Look at your inconvenience to fix their errors, and how many people with less courage would just have been robbed and probably for years by the same circumstances.

 

You need to lodge a protection from harassment act claim, to pay for your inconvenience and to safeguard the same chancers dont try to chase you again years down the line.

[Jon Danzig]

.. that QQ would allow a PDL to be paid into a third party bank account is really quite frightening - I had no idea this was possible. The potential for fraud is staggering

 

I agree, LaughingGirl, not just staggering, but very distressing. The fact that someone pretending to be me could apply for a loan in my name but have the money sent to a bank account not in my name caused me considerble alarm.

 

I required and received from QuickQuid more information about the guy who allegedly applied for the loan in my name, and obtained his mobile phone number and email address (email address in the name of Steven ************, shouldn't that have rang alarm bells at QuickQuid, it's nothing like my name?). But I wasn't able to reach him and I felt QuickQuid were not interested at all in pursuing him. They seemed more interested in pursuing me for the repayment of a loan that I never took out, than in chasing after the person who had allegedly committed the crime.

[Jon Danzig]

However, its not a win. All that happened was you are back where you should be yet were inconvenienced & probably for a while had a dire credit record.

 

I agree, despite my brave front, this incident was actually distressful for me and took up precious time and energy. But I think you may agree that I am one person that QuickQuid would have preferred not to take on. There's an old quote, "We teach people how to treat us." I hope (probably naively) that QuickQuid has learnt not to treat people like this again, least of all me! But really, when lenders behave in this way, they should not be allowed a Consumer Credit Licence. In some states of the USA these types of payday loan companies have been banned. That, of course, is why some American payday loan companies have have come here to the UK; because their tactics are no longer welcome across the pond. We need to toughen up our regulations and regulators.

[LaughingGirl]

It's probably not his/her real email or phone number anyway. You can pick up a pre-pay mobile for buttons these days, and as for an email address...

 

I'm curious - how do you feel the Police treated your case? My own experience is that in terms of what they deem to be 'low-level' fraud, they are completely disinterested. I find this worrying in itself, because although this was a low amount, it's entirely possible that this person could have done this a) to several people or b) be part of a larger, more organised group. I got the impression that, particularly in terms of internet based fraud, it was all too much trouble unless you were presenting them with a megabucks fraudulent transaction.

 

I don't like 'banning' things as a rule - I think it should be up to the individual to decide if something is right for them or not. However, I'm starting to believe that due to the fact they seem to be entirely incapable of regulating themselves in a proper manner we should follow the lead of the US in the case of PDL companies.

[Jon Danzig]

I'm curious - how do you feel the Police treated your case? .... I don't like 'banning' things as a rule - I think it should be up to the individual to decide if something is right for them or not. However, I'm starting to believe that due to the fact they seem to be entirely incapable of regulating themselves in a proper manner we should follow the lead of the US in the case of PDL companies.

 

As far as fraud is concerned, the police only seem interested in crimes concerning large sums of money - usually tens of thousands of pounds. Stricly speaking, in this case, it wasn't me that was the victim of crime as far as financial loss was concerned, since it was QuickQuid who suffered the monetary loss. They lent £400 to someone and never got their money back. Apart from my time, I didn't actually lose any money. So it would be up to QuickQuid to report the matter to the police. I suspect they didn't. Often banks and money lenders prefer to keep these things quiet, for fear it may give the organisation bad publicity.

 

As for banning things, I also agree in individual freedoms, but there surely have to be limits, to protect the public and those who are vulnerale. We wouldn't be happy for a restaurant or supermarket to sell contaminated food; that has to be illegal. We banned small children from cleaning chimneys, that's surely correct. And if we had had better regulation of our world wide banking system, and banned certain practices, then I do believe we would not be experiencing the depth of economic crisis that we are going through now. QuickQuid and similar organisations should not be allowed to compromise innocent peoples identities by being so slack in their vetting of those applying for loans. I understand that in some States of America, similar carelessness by a loan officer would be considered a criminal offence. So it should be here.

[citizenB]

Have you had a look at your credit files to ensure that there has been no adverse reporting ?

[Jon Danzig]

Have you had a look at your credit files to ensure that there has been no adverse reporting ?

 

Yes, and I will keep an eye on it.

[stu007]

Hi Jon

 

This information from OFT Public Register may be of interest to you as Quick Quid is one of a few Trading Names of Casheuronet UK LLC:

[Jon Danzig]

Hi Jon

 

This information from OFT Public Register may be of interest to you as Quick Quid is one of a few Trading Names of Casheuronet UK LLC:

 

Thanks Stu007; yes I had noticed this and it appears on the video of my BBC interview,

[Jon Danzig]

There's an interesting article just published in 'This is money' about another victim of QuickQuid's slack vetting procedures. TONY HETHERINGTON: Dodgy 'debt' demands of US payday loan firm

 

Mr Hetherington's conclusion: "The blunt fact is that QuickQuid seems content to ignore British law."

[Alipeeps]

Really interested to read this thread as I came onto CAG to ask for advice on exactly the same situation - QuickQuid gave a payday loan to someone fraudulently using my husband's identity and the first we knew of it was when we received a letter saying he was late making his payment on this loan. He phoned them the same day to report the fraud and was put through to the "claims department" which was merely an answerphone saying leave details and we'll call you back... so he did and no-one ever called back! Next month, another letter demanding payment so we wrote recorded delivery again stating that the loan was fraudulent and that we had no knowledge of it and were in no way liable for it and requiring them to acknowledge this and to take appropriate measures to report the fraud to the police and e.g. CIFAS. We eventually got a reply to the letter - the reply was mailed from the US and it enclosed a huge form to fill in, requiring all sorts of personal data, which we are not happy to disclose, and stating that they will not be able to pursue our claim unless we complete and return the form within 30 days! Which we are obviously not happy to do!

 

I think I will, if you don't mind, borrow your wording and reasoning for my written response as to why we will not be completing the form.

 

What's especially annoying is that they clearly did no kind of credit check at all because my husband actually has a watch on his credit file because he had become aware that someone was using his identity fraudulently (we found out when Tesco bank sent us documentation about a savings account in his name which he had never opened!).

[Ceri Thomas]

Hi Jon

 

This information from OFT Public Register may be of interest to you as Quick Quid is one of a few Trading Names of Casheuronet UK LLC:

 

According to wikipedia quick quid is an american company - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_America_International

[Ceri Thomas]

There's an interesting article just published in 'This is money' about another victim of QuickQuid's slack vetting procedures. TONY HETHERINGTON: Dodgy 'debt' demands of US payday loan firm

 

Mr Hetherington's conclusion: "The blunt fact is that QuickQuid seems content to ignore British law."

 

Hi Jon, I recently saw your video on youtube

regarding quickquid really made me mad and laugh at the same time, well done for outing their practices!

[Damien_Woodbridge]

I had a very similar issue with wonga the phone call conversations i had with their customer service reps were hilarious in a negative way, seriously they didn't understand their job role "customer service," and were thick as a plank, wish i recorded the conversations.

[Seraphesfahan]

That quickquid video is hilarious, seriously how on earth can this happen? Oh the regrets that follow having taken payday loans in the past!