Welcome Finance SAR

[hollie-lou]

Hi All

 

Just wondered if anyone could please give me some advice? We have a Welcome finance loan and have had one for many years. It has always been paid on time and we have previously claimed back out PPI on the loan. Our concerns came when we looked at re-mortgaging our property last year and the mortgage advisor noted and brought to our attention some discrepancies which he found on our credit file etc - he advised us to check the legality of the loan etc. Since last year (Jan 2012) i have been writing to them trying to obtain copies of our documents, but got the run around. It was then in September that i managed to track down the actual branch where our loan was managed from as our account had been passed around many places??? the lady advised me to write another letter as the previous letters remarkably had not been recorded and send a 10.00 fee which i did. I did question at the time why this was not the usual 1.00 fee but was told this was welcomes fee. In October 2012 we then received a letter confirming receipt of the payment and that our request could be processed once we sent off our documents of identity which i did straight away. In November 2012 we received a letter to state that our request was being processed. January 2013 still no paperwork or letter received from welcome other than our yearly statement, so again i wrote to the head office to the contact who had sent the previous letter. Today i have received 2 letters one to me and one to my husband, the one to my husband states again that they are processing his request for the documents, my letter is now requesting for more copies of the identity documentation which i have already sent to them.

 

I'm getting to a point now where i'm questioning if there should be a time period within which we should have received this documentation and where do we go next?? I dont want to suddenly stop paying for the loan and wreck our credit report incase everything is cosha but i really do not believe it is and if its not i want to claim back what ever money we can from them!

 

Could someone please also advise is ASU - accident, sickness and unemployment another insurance which was added onto loans like PPI which can be claimed back?

[ims21]

Hi

 

Welcome are an absolute nightmare.

 

Two questions so that we can give you the best advice...did they cash the £10 payment and was your letter with the £10 a Subject Access Request made under the Data Protection Act?

[hollie-lou]

Hi thank you so much for replying.

 

Yes the request was a subject access request under the data protection act of 1998. The payment was a 10.00 postal order and believe it was cashed.

 

I have just looked at my statement and can anyone explain what capilisation is? i also have some interested on a default fee which i was not aware of so is it still possible to claim back unfair charges?

 

many thanks

[ims21]

Hi

 

Ye it is still possible to claim back the charges and any associated interest.

 

Capitalisation is usually a book entry where they add an amount to the balance i.e. capitalise it I believe.

 

So to the SAR. The standard fee is £10 and if you headed the letter "Subject Access Request" and their 40 days has expired then they have failed to comply and in breach of the Data Protection Act.

 

It is also interesting to note that they are still happy to send you statements to your correspondence address and yet still require forms of ID for the SAR.

 

If it were me I would write back to them pointing out the fact that they have been happy to send statements and correspondence to you at you r address, and indeed continue to do so, and yet they require that ID be forwarded for the subject access request.

 

Point out that if they were in doubt as to your identity then they should not be sending statements etc and the fact tat they are doing so when they are unsure of your identity is in itself a breach of the DPA. If they are happy tat statements and correspondence is going to the right person then there is no further need for ID as they are already satisfied as to the identity of the person they are corresponding with and as a result this is clearly a tactic to avoid compliance. This too is a breach of the DPA. So which breach do they wish to admit to?

 

Point out tat you have already supplied adequate ID and that you consider that their actions constitute a delaying tactic.

 

Put them on notice that of they do not comply with your SAR and of you do not receive your personal data within 14 days you will be issuing in court to obtain an order to force compliance together with damages at the court's discretion.

 

Head your letter "Letter Before Action" and send recorded delivery to their registered office.

 

If they fail to comply then you are free to issue in court.

[hollie-lou]

oooh excellent thank you so much!

 

do you happen to know what fees i would have to pay to go down the court route? and is there a guide which i can look at to ensure i follow the correct processes?

 

Sorry i have been trying to do this for so long and this is always the point where i have become stuck so any additional advise would be excellent!

 

what kind of outcome could i expect? as when i started this process i wanted to check that the correct procedures etc had been followed so im unsure what i could exactly expect - from reading many other posts from them not a lot but need to know what to aim for

[ims21]

Hi

 

I am unsure of the fee for issue of a non money claim although the UK courts website will probably have that information. It won't be much though.

 

Have a read of this thread. The OP successfully took Lloyds to court for non compliance and, of course, won

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?208966-Me-and-Them-SAR-non-compliance-claim.-**SUCCESS**

 

The outcome you should expect id for the court to issue an order for them to comply with the Data Protection Act and to award you damages at the discretion of the court. This amount isn't specified by you, the claimant though.

 

The reason you want all of your data is so that you can examine the account for any shenanigans and to potentially reclaim any unlawful charges that have been added and/or mis-sold PPI. In fact there are many reasons why you may want your data from them.

 

The main point is that you want the data to which you are entitled....you may not want it for any other reason than "you just want it". The point is that they must comply with the law and can be forced to do so. If you can find the name of the company's data controller you can also name that person in the proceedings.

 

In your letter to Welcom you might like to ask them to provide the name of the Data Controller and tell them tat you want the name so that he/she can be named in the court proceedings that you intend to issue.

[hollie-lou]

brilliant thank you again

 

now i need to start to research what i can exactly claim back, and to find out what legislation they have to follow with secured loans and i'm already aware that there are some things in my name only and parts only in my husbands, along with the fact that we do not recollect ever receiving paperwork when he topped up the loan = so how was it signed for by us?

[ims21]

That is why you need the SAR response....to get all of the base data.

[hollie-lou]

letter is going tomorrow Special Delivery, I have marked in my diary the 14 Days and will post again! Many thanks for all your help so far! Just finished reading that thread very inspirational!

[hollie-lou]

Well just a quick update, the 14days notice letter was issued and sent recorded delivery and the 14 days is up tomorrow with no paperwork received.

 

I have however discovered through the lady who is now our account manager that there was a default applied to my account that should have been written off and it wasnt. This is now a new complaint as im claiming back the charge, the interest which they have charged me and 8% that i can charge welcome.

 

In addition to that i discovered that there were life cover policys added to the account which I/we knew nothing about. If anyone can provide me with infomation of whether these can be claimed back through the FSCS i would be very grateful

 

Loan 1 - taken out 29/11/2005 in joint names both PPI and Life cover policies were added to the loan without us knowing in both names

 

Loan 2 - taken out 08/01/2007 top up loan, for some reason was only put in my husbands name, this also had life insurance and PPI added to it

 

We have since claimed back all the PPI that was added to the loans but my questions are

1) If we were not aware of the life cover policies can we claim these back (especially since the policies did not cover the life of the loan only 5 years)

2) Can you have 2 policies running at the same time?

[ims21]

You can have accident sickness and life running at the same time.

 

You may find that the life insurance was part of the PPI which is why you need to get that SAR data before doing anything. Otherwise you will not be in possession of all the relevant data and will be going off half cocked.

 

You should start preparing to issue against them for non compliance.

[hollie-lou]

Hi IMS21

 

thanks for replying, Can you have PPI and x2 life cover policies crossing over with each other? I know you can have one of each but why 2 life covers?

 

I'm searching on the courts website now to issue a non money claim