Minicredit - Transmission Fee becomes Drawdown Fee

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

Just noticed that Minicredit changed their terms and conditions and renamed the 19.50 GBP transmission fee now a drawdown fee. Makes me wonder why?

 

So I thought it is time to reclaim this so I sent them this:

 

"Dear Madam or Sir,

 

I am writing in relation to loans associated to my account, for which I incurred transmission fees which I do not believe are fairly and reflecting the actual costs of fund transmissions.

The loans were taken out from from 17 January 2012 to 06 July 2012

 

The reason I believe that these transmission fees (19.50 GBP for each transmission) are unfair and not reflecting the actual costs of fund transmissions is that these are very high and unclear.

 

Unless you can provide proof that these transmission fees were reasonable and actually incurred, I will expect a full refund of these transmission fees (136.50 GBP), plus 8% interest on these up to 8 August 2013 (14.94 GBP), in total 151.44 GBP, plus daily interest of 8% after 8 August 2013.

I look forward to your prompt response to this email.

If I have not had a satisfactory response from you within eight weeks of this letter I will contact the Financial Ombudsman Service to formally investigate my complaint.

Kind regards"

 

Can't wait for their reply

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

Just a quick update. I got a response from their claim department which reads:

 

"In order to apply for a loan from MiniCredit the Customer has to sign up on our webpage www.minicredit.co.uk. After entering the personal, employment and Banking details the Customer receives the pre-Contract to the entered e-mail address and a PIN number to the mobile phone number in order to sign the Loan Agreement on our webpage. After signing the Loan Agreement a copy is also sent to the e-mail address of the Customer. When the Loan application is completed and the Loan Agreement signed the system performs a Credit check and verifies the Bank Account details to make sure that the personal information and address details match with Bank Account and Sort Code.Microcredit Ltd (trading name MiniCredit) received the registration application from You on the 17th of January 2012. From the registration performed on the 17th of January 2012 up to the 31st of July 2012, You received 7 loans from Microcredit Ltd.

According to the Credit Agreement, the Customer has to pay the Fast Advance Transmission Fee £19.50 to receive the loan within 15 minutes from the moment the application is sent to us. The fee is payable to cover the administrative costs Microcredit Ltd incurs to have the application assessed in such a short period of time. The costs of the affordability assessment and identification cheques that are performed using the services of our partners and the fast manual assessment of each application is covered by the Fast Advance Transmission Fee. The fee was optional according Your Credit Agreement signed with Microcredit Ltd on the 17th of January 2012.You could have requested the fee to be not applicable to your loan applications, by sending a written request at least three working days before sending a loan application. This possibility was not used by You. This option was explained to You in the Credit Agreement. Microcredit Ltd is not able to refund you the Fast Advance Transmission Fee as you did not request for regular transmission as explained in the credit agreement."And here is my response to them:

"COMPLAINT - TO THE MANAGER

 

Dear Madam/Sir,

 

Thank you for your response to my complaint from 08 August 2013.

 

I would like to address the answers you provided as follows:

 

1) "The fee is payable to cover the administrative costs Microcredit Ltd incurs to have the application assessed in such a short period of time":

The fee is named "Fast Advance Transmission Fee". This indicates that the fee is used to expedite the process of transmitting the funds from your bank account to my bank account (using the Faster Payment Services of the bank), not to expedite the process of assessing an application.

 

2) "The costs of the affordability assessment and identification cheques that are performed using the services of our partners":

All information to assess the application from my side (income, etc.) was provided and assessed by you when the original agreement was entered into on 17 January 2012. This agreement is a permanent agreement with a credit limit provided (similar to a credit card), so no further assessments should be necessary.

 

3) "manual assessment of each application is covered by the Fast Advance Transmission Fee":

Each time a loan was taken out it was approved within 1-2 seconds. This indicates that it is highly unlikely that a manual assessment was involved.

4) "You could have requested the fee to be not applicable to your loan applications, by sending a written request at least three working days before sending a loan application. This possibility was not used by You.":

Per agreement in these cases you may charge a "handling Fee £19.50" for handling the written request so that is no option to avoid this fee amount.

 

I therefore still conclude that the transmission fees are unfair. The reason I believe that these transmission fees (19.50 GBP for each transmission) are unfair and not reflecting the actual costs of fund transmissions is that these are very high and unclear.

 

Unless you can provide proof that these transmission fees were reasonable and actually incurred, I will expect a full refund of these transmission fees (136.50 GBP), plus 8% interest on these up to 8 August 2013 (14.94 GBP), in total 151.44 GBP, plus daily interest of 8% after 8 August 2013.

I look forward to your prompt response to this email.

If I have not had a satisfactory response from you within eight weeks from 08 August 2013 I will contact the Financial Ombudsman Service to formally investigate my complaint.

 

Kind regards"

 

Will keep you updated...

 

[DarrenAs]

Interesting! Please keep the updates coming

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

Another update, I have received a further email from Minicredit - please see below for their email and my response to it. I find the part about the FOS handling these fees very interesting, if anyone ever went to fos for any fees and charges and have already a response from fos please let me know. Anyway, I will not give up and will actually take this even to court if necessary.

 

Here is the email from Minicredit:

"Dear xxxxx,

Your complaint has been referred to me according to the Formal Complaints Procedure.

I apologize for the delay in answering your e-mail but I took time to process the previous correspondence between you and Microcredit Ltd.

 

We have received the following information previously from the Financial Ombudsman Service:

The application of interest and charges by a lender is a commercial decision for a business to make, and it is not for the Financial Ombudsman Service to comment on whether or not the charges are unfair.

In investigating disputes of this nature, we must look toward the terms and conditions of the specific agreement to decide whether or not the interest and charges have been applied in line with them.

Every Customer has the possibility to consider the terms and conditions of the loan agreement before signing it. When you signed the agreement, you also confirmed that the charges and fees are acceptable. We understand that you might have missed the fact that a fee is payable from the loan amount, but you have applied for 11 loans of which 7 were issued. If you considered the Fast Advance Transmission Fee £19.50 to be unfair, you had the possibility to cancel the loan agreement within 14 days from the date you signed it and later request regular transmission.

Microcredit Ltd deducted the fee of £19.50 to cover the costs of the assessment made by the loan managers and transfer, so that you could receive the funds within 15 minutes after the loan was issued. For a Credit Company, the faster payment is not free of charge.

The information regarding the fee is available before you register: https://www.minicredit.co.uk/explain_me

After reading your e-mail I would like to ask you to read the loan agreement very carefully, as the following was written in the agreement:

Fast Advance Transmission fee is applicable to all loan applications if not notified in written form at least three days before sending loan application. If your bank account you have provided does not support faster payments scheme we may still charge £19.50 Fast Advance Transmission and handling Fee £19.50.

The Credit Agreement was available on your MiniCredit.co.uk online account before you applied for the loans.

The request for regular transmission had to be sent in written form at least 3 days before applying for a loan. You had the possibility to send the regular transmission request for the next loan application right after you received a loan, so that if you applied for a loan in the future the fee would not have been payable.

Although you consider that by making the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, Microcredit Ltd should act against the terms and conditions of the mutually agreed Credit Agreement, we will still not be providing you with the refund you have requested. I understand that this decision might be disappointing, but it is based on the assessments made by the Financial Ombudsman Service on complaints related to the £19.50 Fast Advance Transmission Fee.

Kind regards,

xxxxx

 

MiniCredit.co.uk Head of Customer Support

and Claims Department

And here is my response to them:

 

"Dear xxxxx,

 

Thank you very much for your email.

 

After reviewing your email I still consider the fast advance transmission fee unreasonable and in no relation to the actual costs for the faster payment service incurred by your credit company.

 

In addition I have again reviewed the credit agreement regarding this:

 

Fast Advance Transmission fee is applicable to all loan applications if not notified in written form at least three days before sending loan application. If your bank account you have provided does not support faster payments scheme we may still charge £19.50 Fast Advance Transmission and handling Fee £19.50.

 

From the text above I see no mentioning that this fee is in any relation to a credit assessment by a loan manager, neither from the text itself nor from the wording "fast advance transmission fee". Also all loans were approved within seconds so no manual review seemed to be involved.

 

Thank you for providing a previous opinion from the Financial Ombudsman. I might still take this case to the Financial Ombudsman as each case is individually different. Therefore please let me know if the below was your final response or if not provide me your final response, so I can take this further to the FOS.

 

I might also take court action to clarify and recover these fees.

 

Thank you very much and

 

Kind regards

 

xxxxx"

 

 

 

[sillygirl1]

You forgot to ask them for the reference no and the details of the Financial Ombudsman case - would be interesting to see that - and how they would wriggle out of sending it!

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

I doubt they would have given me that information.

 

Interesting that they say their bank charges their company for faster payment services when in fact they are banking with RBS which does not charge business customers for using this service.

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

Another update, have received the following response from Minicredit:

 

"Thank you for the reply!

If you are still dissatisfied, you can request a review from the Financial Ombudsman Service."

They still do not mention anything if this is their "Final response", but I will treat it as this now and have now filed the following complaint with fos:

"Microcredit Ltd opened on 17 January 2012 a "Running Account Credit" with me. This type of agreement is similar to a credit card and includes a credit limit and the possibility to withdraw funds into my bank account monthly and repaying them on my next payday. In order to receive the funds on the same day as requested via the Faster Payment Service of the banking system they charged a "Fast Advance Transmission Fee" in the amount of 19.50 GBP. The agreement from 17 January 2012 for this fee stated: "Fast Advance Transmission fee is applicable to all loan applications if not notified in written form at least three days before sending loan application. If your bank account

you have provided does not support faster payments scheme we may still charge £19.50". My understanding therefore was that this fee is to cover the charges implied by their bank to their company for using the faster payment service. Microcredit Ltd has recently provided me with updated terms and conditions for my agreement in which they have removed the Fast Advance Transmission Fee and have introduced instead a Drawdown Fee of 19.50 GBP. I complained to Microcredit Ltd about the Fast Advance Transmission Fee and received different justifications for this fee, as follows. 1) "The fee is payable to cover the administrative costs Microcredit Ltd incurs to have

the application assessed in such a short period of time". I would like to mention that the loan application was assessed on 17 January 2012 as this is a running credit account. Further assessments to adjust the credit limit should not be payable by me and should not be in relation to the faster payment service. 2) "The costs of the affordability assessment and identification cheques that are performed

using the services of our partners". 3) "manual assessment of each application is covered by the Fast Advance Transmission Fee". I would like to comment that each time I withdraw funds the process was completed in seconds, I therefore doubt that a manual process is involved. 4) "For a Credit Company, the faster payment is not free of charge.". My understanding is that the funds were received from the bank RBS which does not charge its business customers for using the faster payment services. Even if Microcredit Ltd have been charged by their bank I doubt that this was for 19.50 GBP."

"I would like for Microcredit Ltd to refund me the fast advance transmission fees, which they charged me seven times, plus 8% interest."

[PDLVictim]

Hi,

 

I have also sent the following to their claims department as per their complaints procedure:

 

"COMPLAINT - TO THE CEO

 

Dear Claims Team,

 

I have received the following reply from the Customer Service Manager, but I am still not satisfied with the response.

 

Therefore per your complaint procedure I am sending you the previous communication below for referral to the Chief Executive Officer.

 

Kind regards"