WONGA ordered to pay £2.6m Compensation for misleading Debt Collection Practices

[citizenB]

Hi there, I 'think' you have misread what I wrote; unless you see the last registered payment towards an alleged debt as the agreement start date. In any event, I can assure you that Equidebt did proceed on what Intrum Justitia gave them. Real solicitor or not, they certainly would have got nowhere. Not entirely irrelevant to the topic, as it further illustrates how creditors keeping poor records can have it come back to haunt them in the future.

 

Anyhow, like you said, let us proceed with mercilessly investigating Wonga. If you wish to discuss this further, then please just pm me and I will be very happy to start a new thread.

 

Equidebt were pretty easy to see off if you kept your own records - their attention to detail was sadly lacking.

 

 

I have never been able to understand people not keep important documents such as credit agreements and statements.

Keeping records od ones accounts of all types is essential.

 

I agree, since at least 2006, it has been highlighted everywhere that keeping "everything" including the envelopes, is very important. It has been pointed out so many times on CAG that the devil is in the detail.

 

With DCAs being provided with limited data on their purchases and Original creditors destroying anything over 6 years of age, or just their shoddy record keeping, it is very important that the "debtor" have their own records to counter some of the claims being made.

 

I am sure everyone has read of the Harrison v Link/MBNA case, Mr Harrison was very meticulous - he kept every letter/email - recorded every telephone conversation in court it became very clear that MBNA's record keeping was very poor. It was most certainly instrumental in producing the Judgment in Mr Harrison's favour.

[oleg]

records. I too kept everything received when I was deep in debt, with a detailed spreadsheet as well for ease of reference and / or combat. There can be many reasons that some may fail to keep their ammunition, eg sheer incompetence or a false sense of security. But still it is hard to understand in many cases. What I find almost as hard is the widespread practice of telling the enemy what is wrong with what they are claiming rather than simply refuting and making them find out for themselves . . . from records they often don't possess.

 

All I can say further regarding Equid is that I know of solicitor's letters ["will" type, not "may"] which, if ignored, were not followed up, but the recipients did have records to hand in case the solicitors were to go to court. I still don't understand how, renegot, you believe only your record keeping prevented further action.

 

Anyway, as Equidebt went down the tubes, they can't be called to account, so their past antics don't much matter. The last letter I saw from them was offering 80% discount, and the one before it to consider "any realistic amount, no matter how small". Pathetic. Sometimes it doesn't take a genius to determine when the party is over.

[andrew1]

I'd second what CitizenB says there, what the record keeping does is kills-off the assumptions made by Judges that we are all filthy debtors and that the finance companies are the nice professional organisations who have teams of lawyers constructing agreements and highly technical administration systems collating all our documents which proves we are filthy debtors trying to get off on technicalities from paying what we should.

 

What appears to have happened in the above case demonstrated that evidence provided was not as it was being portrayed by this 'professional' organisation.

 

I went to court and made a counterclaim against a company's actions, the judge said to me " You realise what you are claiming here Mr Andrew1? - it was a fairly large counterclaim and I did feel somewhat embarrassed to submit it, but.....I replied " yes your Honour I do and appreciate the moral appearance of this" and she interjected before I finished and said "We are not here to judge the morals Mr A1, Just the facts"......

 

Come up with the facts.....they're stuffed.and that's all I do now, I just use the facts and you can only use those facts if you do as Harrison did..keep every word and envelope, record every phone call and keep a diary of events. It will, just like this Wonga situation, come back to haunt them.

 

I still want to know though, what happens to the litigation which has been taken by these so called 'solicitors' like DG? In-house pieces of paper submitted as solicitor firms, what happens to those cases which have been submitted to a court and won by the creditor.......are they legal or not?..... and if not, what are the remedies?

 

A1

[renegotiation]

I still want to know though, what happens to the litigation which has been taken by these so called 'solicitors' like DG? In-house pieces of paper submitted as solicitor firms, what happens to those cases which have been submitted to a court and won by the creditor.......are they legal or not?..... and if not, what are the remedies?

 

I suspect that they could all be challenged, but it would not be automatic in any way at all. Everyone would have to pursue their own case individually.

 

 

 

All I can say further regarding Equid is that I know of solicitor's letters ["will" type, not "may"] which, if ignored, were not followed up, but the recipients did have records to hand in case the solicitors were to go to court. I still don't understand how, renegot, you believe only your record keeping prevented further action.

 

Well, I said to pm me if you wanted to discuss this further, but you never did. You then continue the conversation on this thread, when it was you who was complaining about it taking the thread off topic. I am a bit confused by that and by your lack of understanding, not to matter though and no hard feelings, as I have started a new thread for your perusal here:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?432153-Baron-Renog-s-Dad-Versus-Equidebt.&p=4605851#post4605851

[Nao]

And the saga continues to take some more twists and turns, email from Wonga:

 

 

Dear xxx

 

System errors

 

We sent you an email on 26th June 2014 informing you about an internal investigation in which we identified certain system errors, which resulted in the miscalculation of some customers' balances. Some customers overpaid Wonga whilst a greater number underpaid.

 

All known balance calculation issues have been addressed. As a result, where customers have overpaid Wonga this will be repaid with interest and those who underpaid Wonga will not be asked to pay the shortfall.

 

We unreservedly apologise again for this issue and we are committed to putting things right and compensating those who experienced financial loss as a result.

 

Latest developments

 

Following our ongoing investigation, we can confirm that the vast majority of customers who overpaid Wonga overpaid by less than £5 and a significant proportion of customers overpaid by less than £1. For most customers this will mean an adjustment of their outstanding balance.

 

Please be assured that we are working hard to identify all customers who have been affected by this issue and to resolve it as quickly as we can.

 

Further information

 

We know your debt has been transferred to another company. However, Wonga will be handling all elements of the redress process so please direct any queries you have relating to this process to us. If you have other queries in relation to any outstanding debts, please direct these to the company who took over ownership of your debt. The system errors do not affect any payment arrangements you may have in place with these third parties.

 

We aim to be in contact again with an update within the next 12 weeks. If you have any queries in the meantime please contact our customer service team on our freephone number, 0800 840 0836 or national call rate number, 0333 005 0836.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

Tim Weller

Interim CEO, Wonga Group

 

Now they apparently need another 12 weeks:mad2:

[fkofilee]

Yes i also received this email!

Can we not charge Wonga the interest they charges us @ 5000%APR?

[renegadeimp]

No. Because you dont have a licence.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Yes i also received this email!

Can we not charge Wonga the interest they charges us @ 5000%APR?

Might actually be worth at try, write to the head shark and suggest it.

[fkofilee]

Imp is right, However, I think we should be allowed too...

Brig... is there any legal basis on which i can attempt this?

[noomill060]

Interest should be claimed at the rate stated in the contract.

 

 

I claimed contractual rate on my credit card charges and county court interest at the same rate.

 

 

(The 8% simple is for cases where a contractual rate is not stated)

[fkofilee]

So i could theoretically claim it @ 4851% APR? ... Legitimately?

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

So i could theoretically claim it @ 4851% APR? ... Legitimately?

I can see no bar to placing the interest claim at the contractual rate of the account.

 

 

I can however foresee the brown stuff hitting the device for moving air!

[renegotiation]

I can however foresee the brown stuff hitting the device for moving air!

 

Lol, yes, I could certainly envisage that too.

[StripedTiger]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29457044 - One wonders how this is going to affect things

[citizenB]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?433969-***********Wonga-Writes-Off-330-000-Customers-Debts*****************

 

 

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/wonga-to-write-off-debt-of-330000-customers-9769003.html

 

 

The Financial Conduct Authority has taken the unprecedented step of making the short-term lender cancel the outstanding debt of 330,000 borrowers and scrap the fees and charges of 45,000 more.

 

Hopefully the FCA will extend this to the rest of the irresponsible lenders.

[silverfox1961]

AHH Shucks

[StripedTiger]

One would hope so, it's a shame this didn't come sooner while I was in a DMP, it would have helped a lot at the time.

[andrew1]

 

Hopefully the FCA will extend this to the rest of the irresponsible lenders.

 

Maybe they'll take a look at Swift Advances plc for us and pick up from where the OFT failed so miserably...

[Nao]

Finally some official acknowledgement of what people here have known for years, large parts of the lending by pdls has been irresponsible and should have never happened.

[firstship]

So how is the FCA getting on using the same criteria with Banks and Credit Card Companies??

 

FS

[Nao]

Compared to certain other PDLs wonga was very responsible (in the same way Saville was better at looking after children than Issa Sesay), which raises the question when will the loans from companies that have never done one single affordability check be written off?

[Ell-enn]

They want to start looking at CFO Lending - they are trashing people's credit files with default amounts inflated by over £1,000 !!!

[andrew1]

They want to start looking at CFO Lending - they are trashing people's credit files with default amounts inflated by over £1,000 !!!

 

Bring back the gallows

[sillygirl1]

How about this link about the poor lot at Wonga loosing 53% profits - wonder how their favourite political party will now view the lack of contribution from them! Would love to see Wonga's own I&E - apparently from the article they are not doing any adverts at the moment...

 

http://www.credittoday.co.uk/article/17423/online-news/wonga-profits-fall-53

[Nao]

Bring back the gallows

 

No need for that, just send management of crooked financial institutions on a holiday, Camp 14 in North Korea should do nicely.