Loans written off

[maninstripes]

Hi all.

 

Firstly thank you everybody for posting on here, you have helped me a lot. I am now at a point where hopefully I can help other people. Please ask for any information/copies of letters etc that might help you out.

 

Very brief history:

I have been suffering from a very severe gambling addiction for a number of years. I have a good job, but haven't really seen any of my salary for three and a half years. I borrowed on overdrafts, loans, credit cards, off my family and... payday loans. It all added up to over £60k that needed paying back (I had/have no assets). All this obviously made my gambling worse, but that's not for now...

 

I reached the point last year where I had 12 payday loans all due on payday. Had I rolled over each loan and just paid the 'interest' I would not have been able to afford it on my £1500 salary. I decided that I had to sort my mess out and followed the advice on here. I cancelled my debit card, got my wages paid into a different account and wrote to each lender explaining that I couldn't afford to repay them and asked for 14 days to review my finances.

 

It was my father who advised me on the next step - I was still trapped in the cycle of lending to get out of debt - he is much wiser than me. He spoke to the OFT and the Financial Ombudsman Service and took advice from them. Following that I wrote a letter of complaint to each of the payday lenders. In this I stated my debts, how much I earn each month and what other payday loans I had. I explained that they could not have conducted ANY checks into my financial situation, and that they had not lent responsibly. I then asked that, due to their irresponsible lending, and my inability to repay (I explained that they would get £1 per month etc) that they write off the balance of my account and close it down.

 

I won't name companies names (one stated that I couldn't in their reply) but four companies agreed to my request straight away. I forwarded the other complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Another two companies wrote off their loans following this (before judgement from the FOS).

 

It has taken almost a year to sort out, but yesterday I got a judgement from the FOS regarding one of the outstanding loans. This is the first time that the FOS told the companies what they thought, the FOS agreed that inadequate checks were conducted, that I was vulnerable and could not repay the loans. They recommended that the loan was written off. The company has agreed to this. The others should all go this way (I can't see a company taking me to court against the FOS's recommendation).

 

These companies have acted irresponsibly and preyed on vulnerable people in order to make a lot of money. I appreciate that I applied for the loans, but had they checked, it was blatantly obvious that I would not have been able to repay the loans. They have to take responsibility for this.

 

I'm still in a lot of debt, but it's manageable at last.

 

Hope my story helps somebody, again - feel free to ask fro any specifics.

[Guest]

Thats good to hear. Can you give any hint as to which companies agreed to write off your loans? Was it generally the bigger companies?