Minicredit and Opos

[CJShep]

Hello,

 

About 6 months ago i took out a payday loan of £150 with Minicredit.I had been very careless and stupid and became over commited with credit and have many payday loans under my belt..

 

I am currently on a Debt Management Plan with CCCS and they have managed to halt all interest with my other debts and are sending token payments to them with no problems at all. Unfortunately, Minicredit had been extremely unhelpful, and when i would email them they would reply usually with a 1 or 2 sentences, usually along the lines of "We do not accept offers from Debt Management companies". My Balance with Minicredit is now just under £1000 and they have passed the debt onto a company called Opos and are refusing to accept any payment plans and need me to pay £500 by friday else they will do what ever they can as they say, and take me to court.

 

Has anyone had a running with Opos and been able to sort it?

 

Any help with them would be much appreciated..

 

Many Thanks,

 

Chris

[renegadeimp]

Opos is minicredit. Same company, same bosses, same management.

 

. As for £1000, if i were you, i would let it go to court, defend ALL the claim, which would force their management into court to explain why the charges have escalated to £1000 on a £150 loan in 6 months. A lot of people have had all their charges and interest wiped .

 

It also sounds like they are refusing to adhere to the OFT guidelines too.

 

Just out of curiosity, how much TOTAL have you paid?

 

There is a letter you can send, but its better knowing how much youve paid, so we can give you the right one.

[CJShep]

Oh i see, very sneaky then.

 

They were asking if i had any assets, cars etc.. Just refused to answer anything. Dont exactly think they need to know that.

 

In total, i've only paid about £15 which was towards the beginning when i was in talks with CCCS.

 

Thanks

[renegadeimp]

Dont reply. In fact report them to the OFT and FOS. They have NO right at all to even enquire if you have any assets etc for an unregulated £150 loan.

 

Can i ask how many times you have asked them to consider a repayment option?

[CJShep]

I will get onto reporting them now. Also asking many times wether i still work at the place i put as my employment, how long ive worked there etc.. They even assumed either me or my parents owned the home. Wrong. Wonder what they had planned there..

 

I've only asked them 3 times if they would consider a repayment options, stating i was unable to pay the full amount. Unfortunately i filled in the contact form on their website so there is no evidence that i have contacted them at all, and i doubt they'd want to give out any evidence i have contacted them about it.

[renegadeimp]

If theyve sent you a letter or email with those comments, would you mind reproducing it here, minus the personal info? Same with any others? I can form a template letter for you if you like that outlines your legal stance and gives them a reminder of their obligations.

 

Also, before you do any of this, i would suggest sending a letter asking how the total debt amount has been calculated. Im not at home right now, so i forget the name of the action and dont have the template letter handy. Hopefully someone else will come in and advise on that. £1000+ for a £150 is incredibly unfair and extortionate over a period of 6 months.

 

This action can also be included with a letter of dispute, which effectively puts the account on hold, so no charges/interest or collection procedures can be carried out until the dispute is settled. Although its better to do the first action then dependant on the outcome, the second as well.

 

Since youve only used the webform ( which youve seen is never a good idea), the best thing to do is send a letter by recorded delivery as if your previous contact had never happened asking for a breakdown, or we can start fresh and advise on a template letter/email so you can start again and make sure you have a copy of everything.

[CJShep]

They said a letter was sent out to me on the 2nd, but i havent received it yet. Sorry if i mislead, the stuff they i said earlier was what they had said to me on the phone.

 

If someone could possible post that letter to find out how the debt has been calculated that would be highly appreciated. Although, the guy on the other end of the phone did say that i am gaining approximately £12 a day due to interest, wether thats true or not, surely that is deemed way too much.

 

 

So my plan is to find out how they've calculated my debt, and then i'm think it's going to be best to start off fresh and keep a copy of everything that i have sent..

 

any suggestions on wether i should do it differently would be appreciated..

 

Thanks

[renegadeimp]

£12 a day is considered unfair and extortionate. Should it ever get to court and you defend ALL of the claim, its pretty much guaranteed that those charges and interest payments would be wiped and the manager of the PDL forced to appear in court.

 

From now on, do NOT phone them. You have no proof of what they say. Try and get the interest amount in writing and from now on, ONLY deal with them direct from your email inbox or recorded delivery letter. Once you get that, then you can officially dispute the amount, forcing them to stop all interest/charges and collection procedures on the account. Theoretically you could drag this out for a while, even until you submit a court claim yourself ( and its pretty cheap to do that)

 

Get those complaints into the OFT and FOS as soon as possible. This PDL is ripping you off big time, and its no surprise since its being ran by a loan shark.

[CJShep]

Just in the process of writing a lettery to MiniCredit now. By law, do they have to give me a breakdown of the debt or can they demand that i have to pay them for this?

 

From now on, i will no longer speak to them on the phone, i will demand that all correspondance is done in writing and that should stop a bit of confusion, and definately help in my claim

[renegadeimp]

For now, you can request a simple breakdown of the entire debt along with all charges and interest. Send the letter by email from your inbox, or recorded delivery letter. The latter will get signed for, but they will try their hardest to get you to deal with it by phone.

 

If you want a quick letter typed up to get them moving, i can do one for you if you like. If they try and refuse the breakdown, you can simply put the entire debt into dispute which stops them doing anything, and then request a SAR of the debt. Only use this as a last resort though as it looks much better if you go through all other options first, should they ever take it near a court.

[CJShep]

There seems to be quite abit building up my case against Minicredit, I've just found an email from them in the past stating that every visit from a doorstop collector will cost me £100. From reading around, that can also be deemed unacceptable..

 

If you've got some time spare renegade and dont mind drafting me a letter up that would be high appreciated

[renegadeimp]

Can? It IS unacceptable under law. Also they are not allowed to come to your property unless you give them express permission.

[CJShep]

Ok great, thanks for that. I've managed to find a letter to write to them informing that i do not wish for any DSL to come to my property.

 

As you were saying before about requesting a breakdown, can i find the letter templace on this website or is it easier to draft my own up?

[renegadeimp]

It's relatively easy to write up a letter. Just ask for a simple breakdown of the entire debt and what each charge and interest amount relates to. They are not allowed to say no, because it is your legal right to know what amoutns you are paying and what they are for. i would guess that when you recieve the breakdown, youll see a LOT of unfair charges and interest amounts on there.

 

When you get some time, scan the CAG library for letter templates. They are solid and can be edited as needed to suit your purpose.

[CJShep]

I've received a breakdown of the costs. and i'm pasting it here so you can enjoy the laughs with me! They've tried to take money out of my account over 128 times! I am definately going to report them and any help would be appreciated.

 

It appears before i managed to cancell my card late last year, they taken out £215 from my account. To be fair, i shouldnt owe them much more if i do Loan amount + 1 moths interest. Happy laughing!

 

Dear (Removed),

 

A MiniCredit Claims Department member has replied to your claim, #(removed) with the following response:

 

The Following Response is being sent to You according to the Formal Complaints Procedure described in the pre-Contract.

 

The total outstanding balance GBP1187.50 from the date of issuing (22nd of October 2011) until the default marked on the 14th of March 2012 consists of the following:

 

1. Loan principal GBP150.00

2. Interest in total GBP217.50 (1% of the Principal per day)

3. Overdue penalty GBP25 (was added on the 1st day overdue)

4. Overdue penalty GBP55 (was added on the 3rd day overdue)

5. Debit Attempt fees in total GBP640.00 (every unsuccessful attempt to receive the repayment costs up to GBP5)

6. Debt Recovery fee GBP100 (was added on the 30th day overdue)

 

Microcredit Ltd has used our contractual right to debit payments from Your debit card towards the outstanding balance in total of GBP215.00 on the 25th of November 2011. The mentioned partly payments did not cover the full repayment but have been deducted from the outstanding balance. The current outstanding balance that is 972.5 GBP

 

Microcredit Ltd provides short term payday loans. The Customer chooses the due date him/herself and it is also possible to apply for the roll-over latest on the due date and keep the loan for another period of time if the credit check result allows You to. The Loan Agreement was signed by Yourself and sent to the e-mail address You entered on our webpage during the registration. According to the Loan Agreement You have to make all payments with a debit card and the only possibility to make payments is available on Your MiniCredit.co.uk online account.

 

We accept all payments You make and may provide You up to 90 days from the due date to clear the balance before Legal action is started. All the overdue charges and interest have been added to the balance according to the Loan Agreement and will be added until full repayment.

 

The following information has been taken from the Loan Agreement:

 

KEY INFORMATION

If you break this Agreement, we will charge you if we unsuccessfully attempt to obtain repayment on the due date for repayment. A fee of GBP25 will be charged on the day that your missed payment was due. If we unsuccessfully attempt to obtain repayment on the due date, we will attempt to obtain repayment a second time 2 days later, and if we unsuccessfully attempt to obtain repayment on this second occasion we will charge you a further amount of GBP55. If we unsuccessfully attempt to obtain repayment we may charge up to GBP5.

 

Interest on any sum in arrears will be charged at the contractual rate, both before and after judgment, until payment. Also, you must pay us all other reasonable costs and expenses we incur (including any legal costs on a full indemnity basis) in tracing you, or enforcing, or attempting to enforce, our rights under this Agreement.

 

Repayment, Default and Recovery

8. You agree to make all payments to us under this Agreement at the proper time. We will collect payments by debiting your bank account using the debit card details you have registered with us up to three times per day. You authorise us to debit your bank account to collect payments due under this Agreement. If we are unsuccessful in collecting payment, we may try to debit your bank account again at a later stage until we have successfully collected payment. If you have provided us with details of a second debit card and we are unsuccessful in collecting payment from the first debit card, you authorise us to seek payment via the second debit card in the same way as you authorise us to seek payment via the first debit card. You must give us new valid debit card details when you cancel, lose or your debit card(s) registered with us become(s) invalid when you have unpaid loan with us.

 

Microcredit Ltd considers that all the overdue charges and interest have been rightfully added to the outstanding balance according to the Loan Agreement You accepted.

 

 

 

We hope this response has sufficiently answered your questions. If not, please do not send another email. Instead, reply to this email.

 

Kind regards,

Minicredit Claims Department

[sillygirl1]

As pointed out on previous posts this is a load of tosh, 1% per day interest makes the rate 365% which is daylight robbery, all of their charges are unfair and unjustified, so the loan amount plus the original interest stated in your agreement - about £80 is reasonable.

 

Get that rubbish to the OFT and Trading Standards pronto, and to the FOS, it is beyond belief that they can produce such a work of fiction and try and justify it in a court of law (should it come to that).

[CJShep]

I've replied to MiniCredit telling them that i wont pay anymore, as they have had more than the loan amount plus 1 months interest. Just waiting to see now wether they agree, which i doubt they will!

 

Cheers, i've contacted fos just now trying to find out the best way to report them through OFT and Trading Standards.

 

Will post an update once i hear more!

[renegadeimp]

Be careful with that 1 months interest thing as there is no evidence for it to stand up in court. What we are suggesting at the moment is paying the Original loan, plus original stated interest. Should they require more, then let them take you to court, where you can defend in full, explain that youve paid the loan, and let the judge quiz them about the unfair and extortionate charges.

[CJShep]

Ok. Well £215 has be paid, which is more than the loan amount plus interest. So in other words i should now just ignore all phone calls asking for extra payment and just wait for this to be heard at court?

 

In the mean time, will still report them to oft and fos etc..

 

Cheers

[renegadeimp]

You should ignore all phone calls anyway. They must only contact you in writing in order to provide evidence of what they have said. If they call, treat it as if they never even attempted contact. Make sure you send them the telephone harassment letter so your back is covered if they do take you to court.

 

Remember. It is your Legal right to have ALL communication in writing, should you ever need to form a defense in court. The reason PDL's and DCA's phone is so they can get you to agree to anything without there being any evidence.

[CJShep]

I've just received a letter from my DMP Company CCCS who said that Minicredit are refusing to cash the cheque that was sent to them as part of a token payment..

 

CCCS have just sent me a letter saying that they have escalated this Trading Standards and also the OFT. Hopefully this will put some pressure on OFT and TS and shut them down!

[sillygirl1]

That is very naughty, not accepting a bona fide payment from a recognised payment plan. It is very very much against the spirit of the OFT's Guide on Debt Collecting.

 

Hopefully now these organisations will act and get this shower closed down, they seem only to exist to keep people in debt and unjustly enrich themselves.

[Brizzers]

I am now having almost exactly the same problem

[renegadeimp]

Which DMP are you with Brizzers? As the OP stated, the DMP should be contacting trading standards and the OFT in regards to this. Minicredit seem to think they are above regulation and law.

[Brizzers]

I am with debt advisory line and they are currently in talks with opos I am waiting to hear back at 5 but if they are not going to accept they are also taking it further.